<p>Haha, well, my friend who graduated a year early took a job in NYC with an investment banking company, and is now making a lot more money than I am! :D</p>
<p>You can do any number of study abroad programs, not just the Cambridge-MIT Exchange (which is the most common study abroad program attended by MIT juniors). The Study</a> Abroad Office has more information.</p>
<p>And I should note that you wouldn't have to graduate early, even if you technically finished your departmental program -- you could (as you said) study abroad, pick up a second major, or just take some classes that pique your interest that aren't required for you to graduate.</p>
<p>How fast are the internet lines at MIT? Are they T1, T3 or various DSL services? I'd also appreciate it if you could provide some info on the server set up at MIT.</p>
<p>Also, how easy (or difficult) is it to get venture capital? If I have a good idea, can I get the funding to patent it? (In the past it's been difficult, since lawyer fees and filing fees quickly add up.) On myMIT, I hear about a lot of cool projects undergraduate students are doing around the world. To pursue these projects do they often get loans or grants? Anyone with any experience in this domain?</p>
<p>I was watching some of the videos for last year's i3 and was wondering whether they represent the actual dorm life. I watched the EC video, for example, and it makes it seem like they party non-stop. Is this accurate? I've always been told EC represents the wild side of MIT, but surely they can't party all the time. Any idea what the norm is? How often do students party? Is it hard to find peace and quiet to study? Any general perceptions will be greatly valued.</p>
How fast are the internet lines at MIT? Are they T1, T3 or various DSL services? I'd also appreciate it if you could provide some info on the server set up at MIT.
Haha, I too would appreciate if someone could provide this information! I have no clue. There are lots of servers, and the internet's usually pretty fast, that's all I know. Well, I do know that internet is either T1 or T3.</p>
Also, how easy (or difficult) is it to get venture capital? If I have a good idea, can I get the funding to patent it? (In the past it's been difficult, since lawyer fees and filing fees quickly add up.) On myMIT, I hear about a lot of cool projects undergraduate students are doing around the world. To pursue these projects do they often get loans or grants? Anyone with any experience in this domain?
Students who want to patent their inventions generally do so through the Technology</a> Licensing Office. The upside of this arrangment is that the TLO/MIT will pay for the patenting process, which is very expensive; the downside is that they'll expect a percentage of the royalties from that patent. Friends of mine who have worked with them have found them very helpful and reasonable.</p>
<p>I don't know about finding venture capital, but certainly a very large number of MIT students and alums form startup companies each year (I read somewhere that if MIT were an independent country, the revenue from its startups would make its GDP the twentieth highest in the world or something along those lines). I'll ask one of my friends (who formed a startup based on a project his group did in 2.009</a>) how he got the money.</p>
<p>I'm not sure exactly what you mean by projects around the world -- generally students are working either as UROPs or as interns somewhere and don't have to come up with the money to do things themselves.</p>
<p>
As mootmom said, the dorms don't close down over breaks. (Incidentally, I never understood why dorms at some schools do close down over breaks. What's up with that?) There are a lot of international students at MIT, and a lot of students from the other side of the country, and they can't all go home every winter or spring break.</p>
<p>The dorms are also open for summer housing, although you do have to pay for summer housing. IAP (January, when we don't have class) housing is included in the term housing price and doesn't cost extra.</p>
<p>
[quote=zking786]
I was watching some of the videos for last year's i3 and was wondering whether they represent the actual dorm life. I watched the EC video, for example, and it makes it seem like they party non-stop. Is this accurate? I've always been told EC represents the wild side of MIT, but surely they can't party all the time. Any idea what the norm is? How often do students party? Is it hard to find peace and quiet to study? Any general perceptions will be greatly valued.
There are noisy parts and quiet parts of any living group.</p>
<p>You'd be wise, however, to realize that the i3 videos (and most of rush, for that matter) is a product of a living group consciously selling itself to its intended constituency, and is not necessarily representative of a modal day in the life.</p>
<p>Generally speaking, most MIT students party on the weekends.</p>
<p>
[quote]
You'd be wise, however, to realize that the i3 videos (and most of rush, for that matter) is a product of a living group consciously selling itself to its intended constituency, and is not necessarily representative of a modal day in the life.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I sort of expected that, but just wanted to get a more down-to-earth perspective. However, I was wondering what you mean by rush not necessarily representing the typical life. Are non-freshman even on campus during rush? Also, how would you recommend gauging the typical dorm life (assuming I can't go to CPW :(). </p>
<p>Visit all the dorms during rush (there do appear to be vast quantities of non-freshmen around then, wouldn't <em>you</em> want to help attract new members to your living group whom you'd be happy to live with?), hang out in the ones where you feel most at home and comfy, and then do your dorm ranking and hope for the best. A decent percentage of freshmen do get placed in their first-ranked dorm, but not everyone does. The vast majority are placed in one of their top 2 or 3 choices. But some small percentage of students are not happy with their choice, or are placed somewhere they didn't totally want to be. You can get on a waiting list for other dorms, and there's a December housing adjustment opportunity where you can petition to move. Worst case, you might "endure" for your first year: lots of students move into frats or ILGs after their first year (you can throw away most of your preconceived notions about frats here, too, as with many other stereotypes) or shift around to other dorms.</p>
<p>Don't stress about it. :) You'll find a living situation that you can endure at minimum, and will adore at best.</p>
<p>OK, first-hand anecdotal information from my son who lives in EC. (Note: he uses the term "hall" to refer to one of the 10 distinct floors of EC.):
[quote]
Hmm, it can be hard to find peace and quiet to study, though during most weeks it's nowhere near as active as the weekends. And i3 is about like compacting the two most partyful weekends into one 5 minute video. So no, it's not like the video at all. I think there are halls where it's quiet more of the time. [mootmom's note: he does not live on one such hall ;)]. I mean, EC's got something for everyone who likes to let loose every once in a while and have a good time, at least every once in a while.
<p>
[quote]
How fast are the internet lines at MIT? Are they T1, T3 or various DSL services? I'd also appreciate it if you could provide some info on the server set up at MIT.
[/quote]
An answer from the helpful son (on campus for a few more hours before he flies back here for a visit):
[quote]
They're fast. If you're on campus, they're backbone, you don't get any faster than this. It's a backbone node, T3 is not correct, it's faster than that. Transfer speed is always a function of the other end. If you're at a frat, it's less certain, mostly fast cable.
<p>Wow--Backbone, that's as good as it gets. I can't imagine the transfer speeds! I'd assume the dorms are part of the backbone. Would you consider them "on campus"?</p>
<p>Haha, thanks mootmom! Thank heavens your son knows what he's talking about. I'm just like, "uh, my computer is on the internet, or so I hear..."</p>
<p>Yeah, dorms are considered to be on campus. Strictly speaking, anything on the campus</a> map is considered "on campus", although you'll often hear those of us in the more remote dorms talking about "heading to campus to work on Athena", which is not technically correct.</p>
<p>As for rush, each dorm gets a number of early returns (usually about 10% of the dorm's residents) who can come and move back into their rooms before rush. In return for coming back early, they have to be slave labor for the rush chair and staff all the parties and talk to all the freshmen. But people who volunteer to be early returns (and those who volunteer to be rush chairs!) are very excited about helping people choose the right living group.</p>
<p>My son lives on a very quiet hall in EC. He says there's only 3-4 people (out of 40+) who even drink and they don't have noisy drinking parties. Occasionally there is noise from power tools and noisy things happening in the hall, but this is on week-ends. He never has a problem with studying. </p>
<p>That said, they have a lot of fun doing stuff, they're just very respectful of everyone's need to study during the week.</p>
<p>sorry if someone already asked this, but how much spare time is there, i mean i've heard about 60 hours of studying or whatever, and i've heard alot of people are unhappy because there is too much pressure, how true is this? i mean its not like you have to study all the time, is there even TIME to do fun stuff</p>
<p>How hard you work is a function of two things: how hard your classes are and how hard you personally wish to push yourself.</p>
<p>In my opinion, the pressure on MIT students is largely internally-imposed -- we're all smart people, and everybody here is quite used to doing well in class and being successful. I've had terms where I was doing upwards of 80 hours per week of class + UROP + homework, but I didn't have to be taking that sort of load -- it's something I chose to do. My personal feeling is that I actually do my best work when I'm under pressure.</p>
<p>Although there are weeks during term when everybody's really buckling down and working (ie midterm week), there is almost always still time to go out on the weekends. I would say that everybody takes Friday night off, and the vast majority of people take Saturday off too. (I've had Saturday nights of homework. But that was only during the worst weeks of my worst terms.)</p>
Mike asked how much time I spend on homework each week, and if it would be possible for me to have four free hours per day.
This is kind of complicated. So my fall schedule is [url=<a href="http://web.mit.edu/mollieb/www/archives/fallterm05.html%5Dhere%5B/url">http://web.mit.edu/mollieb/www/archives/fallterm05.html]here[/url</a>]. I suppose I will usually spend 8-10 hours on my 5.60 problem set each week, plus another 5-6 hours per paper due that week. I spend roughly 3-4 hours reading each week (but some of that can be done during downtime at the lab, so it's not all at night at home).</p>
<p>Since I am taking five classes, working about 20 hours a week (between my lab job and my blog job), and cheerleading, it is rarely possible for me to have four free hours each weekday -- although it can be possible, so long as I'm willing to work sufficiently hard on the weekend prior to that week.</p>
<p>I just asked everyone in the lounge how much free time they have in the average weekday.
Mark '07, course 6-2 (EECS): Twelve hours. Mark doesn't always go to class, has possibly the most bizarre sleep schedule known to man, and doesn't do any extracurricular activities.
Jay '08, course 6-2 (EECS): Depends on the season. Jay is a baseball player, so he has several hours of free time per day during the fall, but almost no free time during baseball season.
Tal '09, course 4 (architecture): Two hours.
Scott '09, course 5 (chemistry): Six hours. Scott compares free time at MIT to the ideal gas law: the things you want to do will expand to fill all the available space you have for them.