<p>:) Made me happy that you corrected me.</p>
<p>Hi guys! I don’t know if anyone can help? I read a couple pages in the beginning, so sorry if there are repeats to questions. This thread is about a week old, but here goes:</p>
<p>When I received my Waitlist Letter on Pi Day, I was fairly disappointed. I submitted my postcard, didn’t expect to get off, and committed happily to Dartmouth. HOWEVER, i received an email today along the lines of “Welcome to the MIT Class of 2014” - and now, I don’t really know what to do. Don’t get me wrong - it’s not like I don’t want to go to MIT, because a part of me really does. But a part of me also has concerns, pretty deep ones. </p>
<p>I’ve never visited campus (probably bad choice on my part) - do I still have time to do this, and perhaps shadow a student, or is this too late? I’m a big believer in the “vibes” a campus gives off. </p>
<p>I really liked how the people at Dartmouth did not openly flaunt their achievements - are people at MIT generally humble or are they somewhat arrogant? </p>
<p>Also, Dartmouth’s undergrad focus is a huge draw, and I’ve heard some negative things about MIT’s class sizes and freshman experience - for example, some profs that are brilliant but are not very good teachers and are more focused on their own research. Do you have any negative experiences with this? Anything to contradict this? </p>
<p>One thing that drew me to MIT was the academics, its reputation, and research opportunities - do you think the tradeoff between all the negatives are worth it? (p.s. I want to major in econ, not really any interest in engineering, unsure about finance. I want to head a non-profit org someday, but not completely sure)</p>
<p>Also, I’m a very social person - and this will sound really bad - but are there normal people at MIT? Again, I know this is a huge stereotype that is probably false, so this is probably just an irrational fear :P</p>
<p>Sorry, for the lengthy post, I just never expected to get in so now i have all these questions! Thank you so much - also feel free to add anything else, what you loved best about MIT?</p>
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<p>Not an MIT student, but I do have a comment on this very line of thinking - </p>
<p>a) I don’t think there is a direct tradeoff between teaching and research, given professors are used to having to do some teaching anyway, and big classes take a substantial degree of energy to teach. Some professors care, and others don’t that much, to do it well, but it’s going to take them some time anyway, and to think every ounce of extra effort in the classroom takes away from research is a little simplistic an assessment. Plenty of exceptional researchers who care find the energy to give a good course. You just have to look out for who these are. This goes for any great research school.</p>
<p>Now, professors needn’t have been chosen for their teaching abilities, but you will find that well-spoken researchers can often teach quite well. Importantly, they know what’s crucial to master for the future professional/researcher.</p>
<p>b) A friend who graduated from Dartmouth definitely didn’t make it seem that everything was super undergraduate-focused, not to the point where I’d make this a huge point in favor of the school, even if MIT is less so by some definition of “less so”. I’m sure MIT is the type of school where you have to seek out opportunities on your own, and the profs hopefully will assume you’re to some degree competent and worth spending time on. </p>
<p>c) If a big-name researcher doesn’t find you that interesting to mentor, you may just want to consider that you don’t know anything at all, and might want to ask them what to learn for the future, train yourself, and then expect more attention, if you want things like independent projects with them. </p>
<p>All this said, the regular posters like Mollie seem to have gotten involved in projects very early as lowerclass(wo)men. My main point apart from any info they’ll give you on how availabe professors can be to help you is that when you’re dealing with star professionals, you should expect there to be unfriendly ones and friendly ones, and know that it’s boring to mentor someone who hasn’t taken significant initiative to figure basic things out. I.e. I doubt many will want to spoon-feed. On the other hand, if you want to bring yourself up to speed and ask profs about your future learning, fully acknowledging you don’t know much, they probably will help.</p>
<p>Why do I bring this last point up? A significant number of posts which deal with the issue of undergraduate attention somehow seem to suggest undue focus on graduate students. A lot of graduate students have slogged through the very process I mentioned of bringing themselves up to speed, and have years of experience, plus they’ve made a commitment to research a topic for a long time. Their goals are often quite simply different, and I find the very idea that one batch can draw attention away from another batch a little strange, since the commitments are fundamentally different. Sometimes I want to ask people who make this point and/or raise this sort of question - do you really, actually know what you’re asking?? What, so you asked a professor that you wanted to work with them on something, and they said they didn’t have any good openings for you, but they had some senior grad student working on the same stuff. Perhaps they weren’t convinced you’d find the position meaningful. Similarly, say a professor was unenthusiastic when you visited him/her in office hours. Does one conclude that this was because there are graduate students sucking away his/her life and energy, and draining their enthusiasm for talking to you?</p>
<p>Note - I am not saying you’re making these assumptions, but I think all these points should be disposed of, since they keep rearing their heads.</p>
<p>I don’t know how much any of the current students will be able to chime in – it’s finals week, and many of them are probably finishing up finals, moving out, and heading home for a week and/or somewhere for the summer.</p>
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I totally agree, and I would hesistate to encourage somebody to pick MIT sight unseen. Summer is a tough time to get a handle on the vibe of the MIT campus, though – only about 15-25% of students stay on campus for the summer, so student life is a lot less vibrant over the summer. If you’re able to visit, though, I would really encourage you to do so, with the warning that MIT is much more alive during the school year.</p>
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As a broad generalization, MIT students are almost never arrogant. At MIT, you may find out over time that your next-door neighbor or pset buddy or club president is ridiculously brilliant and accomplished, but these people will almost never lead with that information. MIT has a very deeply-ingrained culture of collaboration and cooperation between students, and arrogance and bragging don’t fit well into that culture.</p>
<p>In perhaps a more practical sense, everybody is getting their asses kicked by MIT at some point, so what is there to be arrogant about? 
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I had classes with great professors and classes with mediocre professors. Overall, I valued the ability to interact with these fabulously smart people who cared about my intellectual development and who wanted to mentor me so I could become a junior member of their field. </p>
<p>It’s absolutely true that professors at MIT care about their research – they’re the best in the world at their research, which is why they were hired at MIT. But, for one thing, they’ll encourage you to care about their research, too, and are thrilled to engage undergraduates deeply in cutting-edge research. And they’re also hard-working, fast-thinking people – they’re capable of caring about both their research and their teaching loads at the same time. </p>
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There are all kinds of people at MIT, and the beauty of the choice inherent in the undergraduate experience is that you have a wide variety of ways to choose the portions of MIT society with which you interact. As a freshman, you’ll get to pick your dorm, and the dorms are all very different. You’ll also get to decide whether you want to pledge a fraternity, sorority, or independent living group, which could further shape your social group. There are all kinds of sports, clubs, and other activities in which you can participate with other like-minded students. </p>
<p>Just keep in mind that, the way you’re using it here, “normal” sounds a lot like an epithet to many MIT students. Of course you can come to MIT and party wildly every weekend and fall in love and out of love and learn how to cook and deal with roommates and watch lots of bad TV and do all kinds of things that “normal” people do. I did all of that in college, and I still wouldn’t describe myself as “normal”. I do a pretty passable impression of “normal” when I need to, though.</p>
<p>Thank you so much Mollie! Your response was very helpful and in depth - I appreciate the input.</p>
<p>I am really interested in math/science/econ, but also like humanities courses and want a somewhat balanced education. Would you say the HASS and communications requirements provide that effect and round out all the math/science requirements?</p>
<p>All of the HASS classes I’ve taken have been taught by professors who are really excited to be teaching them and who are extremely understanding of what it means to be an MIT student. If you are in higher-level courses, you will be in very small classes with a lot of personal attention from the professor. I think that HASS professors are even more willing to help students because they know that a lot of students are just trying to finish the requirements and get out :P</p>
<p>Getting a well-rounded education won’t come from just fulfilling the requirements, but I think that this is true anywhere. HASS classes are pretty fun and you can take as many as you want - and the great thing about our lack of a credit limit means that, if you don’t think that just fulfilling the requirements is cutting it for you, you can take more HASS classes until you feel like a well-rounded individual :)</p>