What are some of the most common frustrations for MIT students?
By Quora user
Votes by Andres Romero (MIT 2014 Undergraduate Computer Science), Sherwin Wu (MIT Class of 2014), Alex X Chen (MIT 2016), James Thomas (MIT undergrad, Class of 2016), Anvisha Pai (MIT 2014, EECS)
Not enough sleep.
Too much stress. Getting an education at MIT has been likened to "drinking from a firehose"
Mailing list spam. You can easily get 100 emails in one hour when a flamewar starts.
Lack of good on campus or near-campus food.
Everyone seems so much smarter than you. No matter how smart you are, people with gold medal at International Math Olympiads are not hard to find. There's those who started programming at the age of 6, those who skipped two grades and still got into MIT. People breeze through problem sets in half the time you take and never have to go to office hours for help. We were all above average in high school. At some point you're going to be below average at MIT, even the very best students. It's just a very difficult feeling to get used to, but once you accept that you're not the biggest fish in the pond, you'll realize how much you can learn from an environment like MIT.
Everyone seems so much cooler than you. In a school legendarily filled with nerds there are quite a few amazing people who "seem to have it all": Attractive, popular, everyone recognizes them at parties, boyfriend/girlfriend of everyone's dreams, a 5.0 GPA, job at Facebook lined up, sleeps 8 hours a day and seem to be having the time of their lives while you say "I hate this frickin place"
Everyone seems to know what they're doing except for you. While everyone rambles on about internships, the next 3 years of classes in their major, what UROP to do, what advisor to get, etc. you are just lost. In the end, it's just an illusion caused by the vast number of people around and the fact that people rarely reveal their doubts or insecurities in public. You only see the one side they are amazing at: they, like everyone else, are human too and have worries, self-doubts, and frustrations just like you.
Someone is inevitably jealous of you. See the above three points.
Finding your home at MIT. The housing system can cause a lot of consternation, especially if you wind up in a dorm you really don't like and can't transfer out. Every dorm has its unique personality, which they advertise to freshman incomers during a 3-day period called REX (Residential Exploration) at the beginning of the school year. After basing their preferences on this, various gossip, friends made in the past few days, and CPW (Campus Preview Weekend, for admitted freshmen), freshmen make their choices - and then have to decided which wing or floor of their dorm to live in - each of which also has a unique personality.
This gives a lot of freedom and ability to create communities but is also radically different from every other school I've heard of, and creates a lot of drama for freshmen. Immediately afterwards, fraternity rush and sorority recruitment begins - 50% of MIT men and 30% of MIT women are in the Greek system, which makes this a big deal unlike many other schools. Do you pledge? Do you not pledge? Which is the right place for me?
Too much frickin' snow. Being from California, I'm not used to waking up to this:
The dining plan is now mandatory in certain dorms. If you don't use the 12-17 meals required per week, you lose all of them. This was a giant change from the previous meal plan which was optional and much cheaper. There were also no guest meals in 2011-2012 - guests had to pay $13.50 cash for a dinner.
You're often stuck on campus and where the Saferide/Tech Shuttle takes you. The T is pretty good but takes effort to ride. To someone from California walking 15 minutes in the snow to the Red Line + 5-10 minute wait for a train + 10-20 minutes into Boston seemed like a major pain to do frequently. Especially if it's late or a far destination outside the reach of the T. Driving usually is not an option. Until I discovered Zipcar of course.
Updated 7 Aug, 2012
Votes by Andres Romero (MIT 2014 Undergraduate Computer Science), Sherwin Wu (MIT Class of 2014), Alex X Chen (MIT 2016), James Thomas (MIT undergrad, Class of 2016), Anvisha Pai (MIT 2014, EECS)
Not enough sleep.
Too much stress. Getting an education at MIT has been likened to "drinking from a firehose"
Mailing list spam. You can easily get 100 emails in one hour when a flamewar starts.
Lack of good on campus or near-campus food.
Everyone seems so much smarter than you. No matter how smart you are, people with gold medal at International Math Olympiads are not hard to find. There's those who started programming at the age of 6, those who skipped two grades and still got into MIT. People breeze through problem sets in half the time you take and never have to go to office hours for help. We were all above average in high school. At some point you're going to be below average at MIT, even the very best students. It's just a very difficult feeling to get used to, but once you accept that you're not the biggest fish in the pond, you'll realize how much you can learn from an environment like MIT.
Everyone seems so much cooler than you. In a school legendarily filled with nerds there are quite a few amazing people who "seem to have it all": Attractive, popular, everyone recognizes them at parties, boyfriend/girlfriend of everyone's dreams, a 5.0 GPA, job at Facebook lined up, sleeps 8 hours a day and seem to be having the time of their lives while you say "I hate this frickin place"
Everyone seems to know what they're doing except for you. While everyone rambles on about internships, the next 3 years of classes in their major, what UROP to do, what advisor to get, etc. you are just lost. In the end, it's just an illusion caused by the vast number of people around and the fact that people rarely reveal their doubts or insecurities in public. You only see the one side they are amazing at: they, like everyone else, are human too and have worries, self-doubts, and frustrations just like you.
Someone is inevitably jealous of you. See the above three points.
Finding your home at MIT. The housing system can cause a lot of consternation, especially if you wind up in a dorm you really don't like and can't transfer out. Every dorm has its unique personality, which they advertise to freshman incomers during a 3-day period called REX (Residential Exploration) at the beginning of the school year. After basing their preferences on this, various gossip, friends made in the past few days, and CPW (Campus Preview Weekend, for admitted freshmen), freshmen make their choices - and then have to decided which wing or floor of their dorm to live in - each of which also has a unique personality.
This gives a lot of freedom and ability to create communities but is also radically different from every other school I've heard of, and creates a lot of drama for freshmen. Immediately afterwards, fraternity rush and sorority recruitment begins - 50% of MIT men and 30% of MIT women are in the Greek system, which makes this a big deal unlike many other schools. Do you pledge? Do you not pledge? Which is the right place for me?
Too much frickin' snow. Being from California, I'm not used to waking up to this:
The dining plan is now mandatory in certain dorms. If you don't use the 12-17 meals required per week, you lose all of them. This was a giant change from the previous meal plan which was optional and much cheaper. There were also no guest meals in 2011-2012 - guests had to pay $13.50 cash for a dinner.
You're often stuck on campus and where the Saferide/Tech Shuttle takes you. The T is pretty good but takes effort to ride. To someone from California walking 15 minutes in the snow to the Red Line + 5-10 minute wait for a train + 10-20 minutes into Boston seemed like a major pain to do frequently. Especially if it's late or a far destination outside the reach of the T. Driving usually is not an option. Until I discovered Zipcar of course.
Updated 7 Aug, 2012