What can I tell you that will help you make your decision?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Massachusetts Institute of Technology
101

<p>I have seen in a few discussions that Profs teaching UG(UnderGraduate) classes do not tend to spend
time with UGs in clarifying doubts , etc.. and their focus is more towards research .
Sometimes meeting the Profs itself becomes difficult and in most cases you are indirectly
restricted to talking to TAs. Is this the case in MIT ? Do Profs take trouble in teaching the
concepts , clarifying doubts and being "friendly" with students ?</p>

<p>(b) For Engineering ( EE,CS, ... ) which would be the preferred choice among
MIT / Stanford / UC-Berkeley for UG course ?
( BTW , my son needs to make this choice within the next few days ).
thanks</p>

102

<p>for super-large freshman classes, it's not that easy to find the profs to chat with them, although if you do manage to track them down i'm sure they won't tell you to go away or anything.</p>

<p>for smaller classes, the profs usually have office hours and they're really happy when you go :-D</p>

103

<p>also, in terms of engineering, all 3 are fine and he should pick the one he likes the most :-D</p>

104

<p>

Most professors at MIT hold "office hours" (as asdf123 said) in which students are free to come talk to them about any issues they're having in the class (or just about life, if they're so inclined). Professors are also open to meeting outside office hours, if a student cannot make scheduled office hours. In my experience, faculty members like to spend time with undergrads. I think they find us amusing.</p>

105

<p>What's the policy on having guests over??
Could a friend stay overnight in my room?</p>

106

<p>There's actually no policy that I'm aware of -- if you live in a single, there's absolutely no limit on guests. If you live in a multiple-occupancy room, you can have as many guests for as long as your roommate(s) will allow. ;) Each dorm has its own set of security procedures, so you'd probably have to escort your friends in and out of the dorm, but they can stay as long as you (/your roommates) will have them.</p>

107

<p>I think I read an official institute document somewhere that said guests are not allowed to stay more than three consecutive nights or something.</p>

<p>Edit: <a href="http://web.mit.edu/housing/standards/housing.html#guests%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://web.mit.edu/housing/standards/housing.html#guests&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>I assume that it's de jure but not de facto.</p>

108

<p>Yeah, there's certainly no policy that's enforced. And the fact that I don't even know the rules after living in the dorms for four years should say something. ;)</p>

109

<p>Mollie, do you know how the brain and cognitive science major is like at your school?? I'm not completely sure but assuming that they offer undergrads this major as well.. How are the classes like? About how many people major in this? And is it really hard for MIT undergrads to change their major once they declare it at the end of their freshman or sophomore year??</p>

110

<p>How lucky are you! I am a brain and cognitive sciences major. In the flesh. :)</p>

<p>I wrote a blog entry [here[/url</a>] about the BCS department. To summarize, the department is fairly small (about 30-35 people declare the major per year) and fairly free-form (you can choose a neuroscience track, a cognitive science track, a cognitive neuroscience track, or any combination of the above). Upper-division classes are generally small, and have a heavy emphasis on reading the primary scientific literature.</p>

<p>You can also find information (and some very colorful links, I might add) at the [url=<a href="http://web.mit.edu/bcss/www/%5DBrain"&gt;http://web.mit.edu/bcss/www/]Brain&lt;/a> and Cognitive Sciences Society webpage](<a href="http://mollie.mitblogs.com/archives/2005/10/a_lot_about_cou.html%5Dhere%5B/url"&gt;http://mollie.mitblogs.com/archives/2005/10/a_lot_about_cou.html).&lt;/p>

<p>It's not difficult at all to change departments after declaring -- you just get a form, get it signed by your advisor and yourself, and turn it in. None of the departments require any sort of GPA or what have you for switching -- you're free to declare whatever you want the first time, and you're free to declare whatever you want any subsequent times too. The difficulty, of course, is switching majors and still finishing your degree on time! People who switch majors often end up spending an extra semester or year at MIT finishing their requirements. Info on changing majors can be found [url=<a href="http://web.mit.edu/uinfo/academics/programs/plan/change.html%5Dhere%5B/url"&gt;http://web.mit.edu/uinfo/academics/programs/plan/change.html]here[/url&lt;/a&gt;].&lt;/p>

111

<p>Do the dorms cost any different, given the amount of students in one room is the same?</p>

112

<p>yes they do [cost different, that is]. Keep in mind that while the number of students is the same, the size of the room varies, and that is key.</p>

<p><a href="http://web.mit.edu/housing/undergrad/residences.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://web.mit.edu/housing/undergrad/residences.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Click on the name of the residence to see the cost per room per roommates</p>

113

<p>Mollie, can you combine linguistics and brain/cognitive science? Like...neurolinguistics, or something?</p>

114

<p>You definitely can.</p>

<p>The undergrad program in linguistics already gives you the option to pursue a major in linguistics with sort of a cog sci focus.

[quote=<a href="http://web.mit.edu/catalogue/degre.human.lingu.shtml"&gt;http://web.mit.edu/catalogue/degre.human.lingu.shtml&lt;/a&gt;]

This major, also known as the Program in Language and Mind, aims to provide students with a working knowlege of a variety of issues that currently occupy the intersection of philosophy, linguistics, and cognitive science. Central among these topics are the nature of language, of those mental representations that we call "knowledge" and "belief," and of the innate basis for the acquisition of certain types of knowledge (especially linguistic knowledge). Students have the option of pursuing either a philosophy track or a linguistics track. Both require a core set of four subjects drawn from both fields and are designed to teach students the central facts and issues in the study of language and the representation of knowledge. Each track requires, in addition, a set of four subjects drawn primarily from its discipline and is designed to prepare students for graduate study either in philosophy/cognitive science or in linguistics. A coherent program of three restricted electives (drawn from one or two of the following three areas: philosophy, linguistics, and brain and cognitive sciences) rounds out the major.

[/quote]

Given that a bunch of the linguistics</a> requirements involve classes taken in the BCS department, and a bunch of BCS</a> electives involve classes taken in the linguistics department, I think probably doubling in 24 and 9 would be one of the easiest doubles at MIT, requirement-wise. (You're allowed to count one class for two majors, and you can do it as much as you want. :))</p>

<p>Many of the courses on the pages I linked to have a "J" after the course number, which means they're joint between two or more departments. 9.59J, for example, is a synonym for 24.905J. A lot of the language-related classes are joint between the linguistics and BCS deparments.</p>

115

<p>So Globber asked if the different dorms were priced differently, and stasterisk quite correctly said they were. Room price (a better link is this</a> one is a function of how large or small the room is, how many roommates you have, and the general condition of your building -- the older buildings are less expensive than the newer ones.</p>

<p>Now, I know that there are people who in some sense have to pick a less expensive dorm because of family finances, but I hope nobody is thinking of picking for the reverse reason -- "oh, Simmons is the newest and the shiniest (ahem, literally) and the expensivest, so I should live there!" </p>

<p>After a few weeks of living in your dorm, it just starts to look like home, no matter how shabby the outside of the building is. So when you check out the dorms at CPW, try to look past the aesthetics of the buildings and into the flavor of student communities that actually reside in them. :)</p>

116

<p>Isn't majoring in bcs kinda boring since only 30 kids have that major? So are the classes really small? Is it easy to double major in bcs and bio? and minor in health science and technology?</p>

117

<p>Haha, what do you mean boring? I mean, it's 30 kids per year, so that's about 100 in the major overall... and the curriculum's very flexible, so you don't really end up taking classes with all the same people. Upper-division classes are pretty small -- I'd say most are between 20 and 30 people. There are larger ones, though... one that I'm currently in, 9.24 (Diseases of the Nervous System) is probably around 40 or 45, because it's an undergrad/grad/medical student class.</p>

<p>Requirement-wise, it's not difficult to major in BCS and biology. The wrinkle is in the fact that to double-major, you have to take 270 units outside the general requirements rather than 180, which can be vexing if you don't come in with any AP credit. My final class plan is [url=<a href="http://web.mit.edu/mollieb/Public/PDFs/Other/Class%20Plan.pdf%5Dhere%5B/url"&gt;http://web.mit.edu/mollieb/Public/PDFs/Other/Class%20Plan.pdf]here[/url&lt;/a&gt;]. Normal courseload is about 48 units; you'll notice that I had to take more than 60 several times in order to double.</p>

<p>You actually can't minor in HST, because it's a graduate-only program. You can take classes in the department, though -- the class I was talking about above, 9.24, is an HST class.</p>

118

<p>Wow, thank you, Mollie!! BCS seems like an amazing major to me so far ;-p Just a few more questions -- On choosing your specific track like "neuroscience", "cognitive neuroscience", and "cognitive science," could you talk a little more about how they are actually different from one another and what each track focuses on? What kind of research have you done? Was it totally on your own, or is it more like just assisting a professor's work?</p>

119

<p>And also, I was wondering how many AP classes you had for credit. I might be able to get 2-5 5's on my AP courses by the time I graduate.</p>

120

<p>The basic way to differentiate between the different branches of neuroscience is to look at the types of questions they're asking and the tools they're using to ask them.</p>

<p>The "neuroscience" people in the department are generally using the tools of cellular and molecular biology to look at neurons, either in tissue culture or in a live animal, and determining how brain processes occur from the DNA/protein level up. This group of people can be characterized as biologists who are psyched about brains.</p>

<p>The "cognitive science" people are looking at thought from more of a top-down perspective. They tend to worry more about how the mind works than how the brain works. Many of them are interested in the process by which children learn to think like adults, or the mental processes underlying language acquisition. Their experimental subjects are often human, and they use tests and questionairres as their major research tools.</p>

<p>The "cognitive neuroscientists" are sort of the chimeric outcome of the fusion of the cog sci and neurosci approaches. Some of them are interested in the effect of specific regions of the brain on behavior, and they might use surgery of rats or monkeys as their major experimental process. They also do a lot of fMRI or other types of brain imaging.</p>

<p>I should mention that (given that it's MIT) there are also a number of computational neuroscience people who are interested in mathematical and computer modeling of the nervous system. Many of them are interested in developing better AI systems.</p>

<p>Of the three tracks (neuroscience, cog sci, cog neurosci), you can choose to focus mostly on one area, to take classes in all the areas, or focus mostly on one area but take a few classes in another. Whatever floats your proverbial boat.</p>

<p>I talk about my research in this</a> blog entry. As I note there, I have quite a bit of freedom in my research, but the professor whose lab I work in controls my salary and ultimately has say over the research topics of all the members of the lab.</p>

<p>EDIT: I had 3 5's on AP tests, and since they were all in the humanities, they netted me 27 units of general elective credit (9 units per course). Information about MIT's policies on AP credit can be found [url=<a href="http://web.mit.edu/firstyear/2010/subjects/ap.html%5Dhere%5B/url"&gt;http://web.mit.edu/firstyear/2010/subjects/ap.html]here[/url&lt;/a&gt;].&lt;/p>