<p>I found my sophomore year significantly easier than freshman year, but not because the material was easier (it wasn’t) – just because I’d figured out how to study and do psets and sleep.</p>
<p>Coming from a very academically non-competitive high school, it’s not trivial to make the transition to MIT. In the first place, you’re not used to actually working hard, and in the second place, you’re not academically prepared and have to learn everything in the GIRs, where people from better high schools are merely reviewing.</p>
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Another of the MIT alums in my lab and I were explaining the concept of Unified Engineering to some of the non-MIT alums the other day, and they were dumbfounded.</p>