Hi everyone! I applied EA to MIT and was deferred, so while I wait for a final decision, I was wondering if anybody could tell me what it’s like being a humanities major at MIT.
Obviously, I know that MIT is a very STEM-focused school, and you don’t attend if you loathe STEM courses. However, my goal in college is to major in either English (with a creative writing focus), Linguistics, or French/Francophone studies. I applied to MIT because I know that they have a very strong Humanities department, and I additionally want to push myself to learn subjects in college that are outside of my comfort zone. Recently, though, I have heard that the students at MIT who major in humanities usually use that major to supplement a different area of study in a more “scientific field,” per say.
Can anyone tell me what it’s like to be an English or Linguistics major at MIT? I’d appreciate any insight! Thank you!
I’m not a student, but my first thought would be “lonely”. Of the 4,652 majors last year, 3 were Literature, 7 were Linguistics and Philosophy, 2 Writing , and a single minor in Languages. That’s about 3 combined per graduating class.
80 of the 130 majors in the Humanities school were majors such as Computer Science, Economics, and Data Science; Mathematical Economics; and Humanities and Engineering.
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Got it. I suppose that’s to be expected at a school like MIT.
What are your other options?
I was at MIT a very, very long time ago. I would refer to my experience in humanities courses there as “mixed”. Some classes were good, some were not. My experience taking a music course there was again a very long time ago, but drove me to take my next music course on exchange at a different school (MIT has an exchange program with Harvard and with Wellesley College).
You will need to take a certain number of math and science classes at MIT, and a lab course. These courses will be quite academically demanding, and will be full of students who were very close to the #1 student in their high school.
The only students I knew who majored in humanities at MIT had started out with a different major and changed their mind.
I did however know two economics majors. They went to MIT specifically to study economics, and MIT is very good for economics.
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Thanks for the insight!
What are your other options?
As of now, I know MIT probably isn’t even a viable option. As it’s one of the best schools in the country, I know my chances-- as well as anybody else’s chances-- of getting accepted are slim. I was just curious as to what my hypothetical experience would be like 
Thank you again! And the comment about economics was especially useful as I am also interested in economics, albeit to a lesser degree.
Seems like an ironic juxtaposition, MIT humanities major lol. I can’t speak on behalf of the MIT’s humanities program from experience, but you might find more community and benefit in your academics if you got to a LAC or university with a notably strong humanities programs (those are the schools I applied to this year as a prospective humanities major).
Yeah haha I figured this would be the case! I applied to a bunch of LACs as well.
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Our tour guide there before the pandemic was a history major and had applied stating that she wanted to study humanities. She loved the individual attention and the environment (of course she also enjoyed STEM subjects.) That’s an n of 1 but I thought It was interesting because my D also wants to do something humanities-wise or combined with a STEM subject.
Oh wow this is interesting, thank you! Good to know 