Would I Fit In?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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<p>Let's assume for this post that I get accepted into MIT. I'm wondering more about the culture of the college as opposed to other colleges like Cornell, Berkeley, etc. So if any current/former students have any insight/opinion, please contribute! This is my new "reach" school and I really hope I could fit in with the students there. Anyway, more about me...</p>

<p>I love technology (want to double major in CS and business) and expect that I'd see many people who share that interest at MIT. For example, I built a fully automated theater in my basement (using my own funds of course). This little project started in 9th grade, and continues today. Will I be able to see that same passion at MIT? Or are people there really just the "study hard and graduate" type?</p>

<p>There has to be a balance between geekiness and social life for me. For all the nights I spend running wire in the basement, I spend a proportionate amount (or try to) hanging out with people. I'm a partier - the harder I work, the more partying is required to make up for it. How is the party scene at MIT? Is your roommate likely to become your best friend during freshman year, or do you find friends elsewhere? </p>

<p>My work ethic is...solid. I definitely wouldn't call myself a nerd. This year (junior year) has taught me a lot about myself and how I operate. I have a part time job and spend most of my free time working on schoolwork. In the past I've had a lot more time for fun, but this year is much less social for me. I was diagnosed ADHD less than a year ago after my reading and logic ability was observed as abnormal (e.g. I don't come to the same conclusions, or reach them much slower, than "normal"). I'm willing to work my ass off to learn, but will this cause a problem at MIT more than other colleges? I will have at least 8 APs by the time I get to college, so I'm hoping that will give me a bit of a taste and improve my work ethic.</p>

<p>Finally, how's the weather in Cambridge? I live in Central Michigan, so after the first snowfall in November the temperatures drop below 0 for quite a few weeks at a time. We can get a foot of snow in April, or 60 degree temperatures in February. Is Cambridge susceptible to frigid cold? I don't mind cold or snowfall, but once it drops below ~10 degrees I can feel my bones cracking!</p>

<p>Is there anything else I should know about MIT? What is a typical week like as far as studying/class/partying/etc.?</p>

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<p>Start reading here: [MIT</a> Admissions: Meet The Bloggers](<a href=“http://www.mitadmissions.org/blogs.shtml]MIT”>Blogs | MIT Admissions)</p>

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<p>I hope if you’re admitted you will come to Campus Preview Weekend (CPW) in April. This is a weekend where admitted students can come visit MIT and experience MIT life firsthand – you’ll be able to see for yourself if you feel you could fit in and make friends with the types of people at MIT. You’ll also be able to see that vanishingly few people at MIT just work with no release through extracurriculars or social time.</p>

<p>The weather in Cambridge isn’t as bad as central Michigan, for sure. :slight_smile: Compared with the upper Midwest, Boston is quite temperate. We get about a week of below-zero in January, but most of the winter has highs in the teens to twenties.</p>

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<p>Ahahahhahahhaah. Definitely not.</p>

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I don’t see how the two conflict. </p>

<p>There are parties here every weekend. If you want to go to a normal party, you can do that. If you want to go to a more geeky party, you can do that. If you’d rather be building and wiring stuff, you can do that instead (for example, during MITERS’ build nights on Fridays). Or maybe you want to marathon some anime, or maybe you want to explore the party scene in Boston, or maybe you want to play a live-action role playing game. There are plenty of social things to do here - social or regular - that I doubt you’d find yourself bored :P</p>

<p>People generally form close communities within their living groups, which become a sort of primary social group. Since you get to choose where you live, you get to choose which culture to become involved in, and you can find a great fit for you :slight_smile: Beyond living groups, people tend to form friendships through clubs.</p>

<p>… coming from Michigan, you’ll be totally find, I promise you :)</p>

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<p>Based on what you wrote, it sounds like you do fit.</p>

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<p>Er, meant “geeky or regular”, not “social or regular”.</p>

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<p>Is anyone part of an MIT frat? What are they like? </p>

<p>CalAlum and mollie, thanks for the help. I’ll be reading those blogs and if I am admitted I’ll try my hardest to make it to CPW! Also good to know about the weather, we’re in the middle of a freeze right now so I can only dream of mid-20s and 30s. </p>

<p>collegealum, even though your post is short, you pretty much said exactly what I hoped to hear. Thanks! </p>

<p>Piper, thanks for answering the social life questions. As much as school is important on this forum, it’s nice to see a reply summing up the non-school activities for me. I hope that if I attended MIT the barrier separating geekiness and social activity would cease to exist. Unfortunately that is often the reality in high school, so it’d be a nice change. </p>

<p>Can anyone comment on the frat life at MIT?</p>

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<p>Without going off on a rant, I don’t recommend the frat system. The parties are great, but there is too much other garbage associated with it. 4-6 month pledge system that sucks up all your free time and makes it hard to meet your classmates and/or be serious about classes. Rampant insecurity about not being perceived a nerd–kind of weird at MIT. </p>

<p>I’d try ZBT (no pledging) or look into an independent living group (ILG).</p>

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<p>What does this even mean?</p>

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<p>I meant “insecurity about being perceived a nerd.” </p>

<p>In other words, people in the frats would make fun of the dorm people for being nerds, smart people in their classes, and then say how they were so much cooler–that sort of thing.</p>

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<p>Fraternities, just like dorms/sororities/other ILGs, vary a lot. Do you have any specific questions? ^^</p>

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<p>I think that’s pretty reasonable to attain at MIT ^^ Protip - make sure you visit ALL the dorms during your orientation (or CPW) - different dorms are nerdy to different degrees and different ways, and you won’t have an idea of where you fit best if you don’t visit them all.</p>

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<p>Huh, this has not been my experience at all (though I’ve only hung out with three fraternities). I imagine it’s out there, but easily ignored if you rush the right house.</p>

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<p>Yea, I have not experienced this at all either. Or at least, if it does exist, it is definitely not a greek versus dorm thing, as everyone I know who has come close to expressing this type of feeling ever, either is not even affiliated, or is affiliated but has many non-affiliated friends also.</p>

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<p>Huh? Not only does this make no sense, it isn’t even true. The average FSILG GPA is higher than the average dorm GPA. Even that fact is hugely misleading, as there isn’t really such a thing as an average frat or an average dorm. The only defining characteristic of any FSILG member is that they are self governing. There is usually an alumni corporation to hold title to the house, but the running of the house is left to its residents, often with the advice and consent of the alumni corporation.</p>

<p>This allows for even more variation in ILGs than is found in dorms. If something is spilled in a common area of a dorm (say the lobby), then it is usually the job of a professional union cleaner to clean it. In the ILG system, it is usually the job of a resident. Most have established work details where residents scrub kitchens, bathrooms and the like on a regular basis. The money saved by doing this pays for a larger social budget, or better food, or nothing at all.</p>

<p>The cheapest housebill on campus is always found at Student House ([MIT</a> Student House](<a href=“http://web.mit.edu/studs/www/]MIT”>MIT Student House)) but the most expensive is almost always at an ILG as well. Several hire professional chefs and eat gourmet cuisine. Most others don’t. Some have social programs verging on the Roman, most don’t.</p>

<p>Collegealum314 notes the “4-6 month pledge system that sucks up all your free time and makes it hard to meet your classmates and/or be serious about classes.” I spent 4 years in an MIT fraternity house and had pretty good relations with a whole bunch more. That comment does not sound like any MIT house that I know. Indeed, were it true of fraternities as a group, then there would be no way that the FSILG GPA would be stronger than the dorms. It’s just not true.</p>

<p>I went to MIT never contemplating a fraternity, but I would not trade the experience I had there for anything. Fraternity rush occurs after dorm rush. Go take a look. Maybe you will find a group of men and/or women who you really want to live with. Maybe you are so happy in your dorm, that you could not consider living anywhere else. I don’t know.</p>

<p>I do know that I am still in regular contact with a large group of my fraternity brothers and we live in four continents. We gather regularly. Having had many friends who went through the dorm system at MIT, I would say without hesitation that my fraternity group is a closer group years after graduation than their equivalent experiences.</p>

<p>One other thing, most MIT fraternity/sorority parties are open to the MIT community. So even if you live in the dorms, you can still party at the FSILG houses.</p>

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<p>The freshman letter grades are hidden. I doubt they are included in the house GPA.</p>

<p>To say pledging is not a big waste of time is pretty misleading.</p>

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<p>Look, I had to listen to it while I was living in a frat. It was annoying and petty, and it’s one of the reasons I got out. </p>

<p>More than anything, the one thing I noticed across houses was that people were socialized not to talk about their work when they weren’t actually working–i.e., don’t talk about something you found interesting academically. I noticed this when I was when I was on a varsity sports team, which had representatives from pretty much all the frats. I wasn’t the only person who noticed it and thought it was odd.</p>

<p>I haven’t had contact with the frat system since I left, but apparently you have. Perhaps you could tell us what went on at PBE. I do read the Tech occasionally, and it’s something of a big deal with editorials and opinion articles going back and forth over whether they deserved punishment for the hazing. Apparently, MIT just lessened their punishment. Yet, it’s a big secret what the hazing entailed.</p>

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<p>This. I strongly recommend that everyone try out the Greek system and ILGs, even if you think they are absolutely not for you (after, of course, visiting every single dorm during dorm rush). One pretty awesome aspect of MIT is choosing where you get to live. Give everything a chance (and take all the free food ^^) so even if you end up where you were temp assigned, at least you know it was the best place for you and the most informed decision you could make.</p>

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<p>This isn’t a universal experience, and it’s silly to tell prefrosh to not check out fraternities simply because it didn’t work out for you.</p>

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<p>So I think we can agree the greek system is definitely not for everyone, but one person’s bad experience should not discourage any future students on this board from getting their feet wet during fall rush.</p>

<p>There’s also always the options of deaffiliating if you find greek life is not for you. Conversely, there is spring rush (formal and informal) if you didn’t join in the fall but find yourself hanging out with people from a greek org.</p>

<p>Happy pi day!</p>

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<p>A few points:</p>

<h1>1 I think the pledge system, more often than not, has a component of trying to stress you out in order to bring your pledge class together.</h1>

<h1>2 I’m all for seeing what’s out there and making your own decision. However, if it’s like it was before, 2-3 days is not enough time to make a decision on which frat to live in, let alone, on whether to pledge at all. After a pledge died in a hazing (drinking) ritual, there was talk of delaying the pledge process and/or lengthening the amount of time that pledges had to visit fraternities, and that was dismissed because it would said it would hurt the fraternity system. That tells me that it’s not a process designed to help the freshman; it’s designed to preserve the status quo of the housing system. Everything is designed to sell the frat system to the freshman. They even had a rule that no one could say anything bad about a frat during rush. That’s partly why I’m saying all this–they’re going to be flooded with propaganda later. Also, since it’s such a pressure cooker later, the freshman often go into rush with the mentality that they are trying to get into a frat rather than experiencing rush and asking themselves whether it is best for them. For instance, if you walk in the door and one of the brothers asks you whether you are going to join a frat, and you say you’re not sure, your chances at getting a bid go down.</h1>

<h1>3 The thing I heard most often from depledges was that, “I had no idea what a fraternity was.” It’s not like living in a dorm and I don’t think people can get a good sense for what’s in store for them.</h1>

<h1>4 Like someone said, you can depledge, but I almost felt it was like transferring to a new school after 1st semester. It’s not quite the same experience.</h1>

<h1>5 The GPA statistics notwithstanding, one of my friends theorized that the frats have the middle group academically–not the smartest people and not the bottom either. I think the mentality of doing enough to get by kind of matches that.</h1>

<h1>6 Obviously there are people who disagree with me, not just Mikalye–who obviously had a positive experience in his frat. However, I don’t think the girls who hung out at my frat had any clue what it was like to live there, so take some of the other comments with a grain of salt.</h1>

<h1>7 The pledge period is 4-6 months–this is nearly universal. It’s also about 4-5 times as long as most other schools.</h1>

<h1>8 Pledging is like an EC and is time consuming.</h1>

<h1>7 Most people, after going through something hard, justify it in their own heads to rationalize why they did it. I remember one guy started crying a bit at a pledge meeting, not like sobbing, but his eyes were all waterey and he said it was because the pledge process was stressing him out. He later became president of the frat and probably doesn’t even remember the incident. I remember he and others all said they were going to change the pledge process when they became brothers, and of course it never happened.</h1>

<h1>8 If you do pledge, decide beforehand how you are going to prioritize your life and stick to that. What are you going to do if you have a test the following week you would like to study for, but the fraternity told you in the on Thursday night that you are going on a surprise trip to Connecticut for the entire weekend? You’re going to be isolated, and there is a lot of peer pressure to just go along with the program.</h1>

<p>Not sure why I’m writing all this, although fraternity drama seems to be what I remember most about MIT. First it was my own experience and then all the drama and upheaval on campus after that pledge died. It just seemed so unnecessary.</p>

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<p>^I don’t know how long rush currently is now (when I was at MIT it bounced around during fall semester and seems to have landed relatively early in the semester), but one thing that could potentially mitigate the pressure to pick a fraternity and pick one quickly is that freshmen are now required to go through dorm rush prior to fraternity rush. (I’m correct, yes, that previously fraternity rush and dorm rush were concurrent, and picking a fraternity meant not being assigned a room in the dorm lottery?)</p>

<p>So freshman guys go through dorm rush, pick a dorm, and pick a sub-group within the dorm. Even though this only happens a few weeks before fraternity rush begins, it’s enough for freshman guys to establish relationships within the dorms and think about whether they really want to leave those communities for the fraternities. </p>

<p>(If you ask me, this ends up screwing over the more social dorm communities, because they invest time in recruiting guys who end up moving to the fraternities. But some number of guys decide they’d rather stay with the dorm community.)</p>

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<p>I go to school in Boston and MIT has a rep for throwing awesome parties. I’ve never been to a party there, so I can’t vouch for this.</p>

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<p>I go to MIT, and I can vouch for the fact that we deserve that reputation. :slight_smile: Well, parts of campus do, anyway.</p>