<p>We are current MIT students, and we made a video that looks at the social life of MIT for a class project. We would appreciate any feedback on the video and your thoughts before and after you saw the video. Did the video change your views about the social life at MIT? If so, in what ways? Also, please let us know if there is anything that you particulaly liked about the video or if there is anything that we could have done to make the video more effective. </p>
<p>I'm also an MIT student, and I'd say the video's pretty accurate. I've had no problem finding a great social life here and I'm having so much more fun here than in high school. If you're looking at MIT, or if you don't want to apply because you think it'll be social hell, take a look at this video. Apply, pre-frosh, apply! I promise you'll have an awesome time here!</p>
<p>Yeah MIT has more social life than my high school, which is known to be huge on sports, popularity, drama, etc. The good thing about MIT is that kids are social without trying to act popular. MIT kids are also very modest and nice. I love the people here a lot.</p>
<p>Honestly*, I was never a fan of the "tell, don't show" mentality most of these videos (yours included) take. Show</a>, don't tell. Yeah, okay, a bunch of MIT kids say it's awesome, and you had a few shots at the beginning of people playing sports... but overall, I don't think it accomplishes everything you want it to.</p>
<p>The interviews are nice, but I feel like they should be dispersed among images of students actually participating in the events they enjoyed... show videos of some parties, some students just chilling, binge drinking (only if they're over 21, of course), etc.</p>
<p>Honestly... just spend a weekend over on the east side of campus. Mobile hot tubs, punk diners, etc.</p>
<p>Oh, and what's with the "it's not nerdy" thing? It's definitely nerdy, that's why it's awesome. It's not impossible to be nerdy and social at the same time, or even nerdy and cool. Embrace it, don't try to hide it or pretend it's not true. </p>
<p>*This post is sprinkled with east side bias</p>
<p>Errr, I feel like I should clarify. The post was not meant to turn this into a discussion of cross-campus culture. Simply pointing out the fact that the east side is a bit more non-stereotypically MIT. </p>
<p>And again, in referring to the existing video, I was trying to point out the format, not the content. Notice how actual MIT life is in the video, in contrast to yours which presents this for the opening chunk and then the very end post-credits (arguably). It's great to tell people MIT is different, but <em>show them</em> it's different!</p>
<p>I was going to comment that these videos (yours and one or two others that were posted a month or two ago (not the one Olo linked)) don't have many east campus residents in them, if any. For balance, it might be nice for videographers to try to include students who live in all parts of campus, and the FSILGs too, if the presentation is to be truly representative.</p>
<p>I agree with mootmom on this. If you are trying to show the social life at MIT you need to talk to people from all parts of the campus. From what I hear each dorm has its own personality. You need to convey that in your video.</p>
<p>Well, it depends on what you're making the video for, and on your definition of "normal", doesn't it. If it's meant to help prefrosh make the choice to attend, or if it's meant to debunk stereotypes, including more facets of MIT "personality" would be ideal, since really none of it fits the stereotype.</p>
<p>If all of MIT's social life was west-campus-ish, my kid wouldn't have gone there. His "normal"/"fun" is east-campus-ish, and that version of "normal" is different enough from the stereotype of MIT that it should be included, too, if you want a well-rounded picture. </p>
<p>If on the other hand the purpose of the video is to focus on one sort of social life, fine. But the title of this thread led me to think it might be intended as something more expansive, that's all.</p>
<p>i don't think east vs west campus is a fair abstraction, since each person is so unique, and personality is a much deeper thing and resembles a set of gradients rather than a set of types. i thought the video was pretty silly though, why not do interesting things and make a video of that instead of making a video of people talking about how mit is cool. probably because its a class project and the latter is easier :D</p>
<p>I don't think the point was to show that MIT was full of "normal" people, but rather to show that it's not full of the stereotypes people in that video claimed they had (nerdy, bookworms, socially inept, whathaveyou). I'm just saying, this may be <em>easier</em> to display on the east side of campus. Not necessarily saying they're any more/less "normal." (Which is in itself a meaningless abstraction).</p>
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i don't think east vs west campus is a fair abstraction, since each person is so unique, and personality is a much deeper thing and resembles a set of gradients rather than a set of types. i thought the video was pretty silly though, why not do interesting things and make a video of that instead of making a video of people talking about how mit is cool. probably because its a class project and the latter is easier
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<p>Oh, I'll agree with all of that, especially the last part. That was my biggest problem with the video.</p>