Paul B. '11 | October 20, 2008
"One Week"
A little bit ago, a prospective student wanted some insight on what a typical day is like for an MIT student. Although that's a very good question, it's actually really hard to answer, for two reasons.
First, MIT is filled with so many different kinds of people, with so many different interests, it's really hard to classify anything as "typical." Academically, I know kids who are taking four classes, but I also know plenty are taking five, six...even two pretty crazy people who are taking eight (and are feeling the pain appropriately). And even beyond the classroom, MIT students have drastically different ways of spending their precious "spare" time. From bhangra dancing to fighting poverty, from helping improve MIT computing to practicing for the upcoming performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream, and much more. And let's not forget the value of simply chilling with friends.
The second reason it's a hard question to answer is because students at MIT don't really take things day-by-day. A typical day is usually not all that stressful - but then you look at all the things you have to do in a week, and you sort of want to die inside. :)
For example, this is my week:
- Studying for my 24.900 (linguistics) midterm tomorrow
- Studying for my 5.12 (organic chemistry) test on Wednesday
- Weekly pset for 18.700 (linear algebra), due Thursay
- Weekly pset for 20.110 (thermodynamics), due Friday
- Meeting with my new UROP mentor at the Broad Institute
- Medlinks Exec weekly meeting
- Organizing the first big editing session for MURJ, the research journal I'm co-editor-in-chief of
- GM meeting to work on a game I'm helping write for the Assassins' Guild
- Starting my summer job search
Yeah, it's a lot for one week - although really, it's only slightly more work than usual (other weeks, I would have had psets in 24.900 and 5.12 instead of tests). And all in all, I'm not terribly worried about things, mainly because I only have one big assignment due each day (as opposed to some truly awful weeks where there's something ridiculously terrifying like two gigantic tests on the same day), and also because I'm not leaving everything for the last minute. :)
Fundamentally, even if the amount of work sometimes feels overwhelming - that's what MIT is. Everyone understands this, and I think it's important for prospective applicants to realize that, yes, MIT is an incredibly challenging four years. But one of the nicest things about MIT is that your friends aren't going to give you funny looks if you say, "Sorry guys, I can't go apple-picking with you because I need to study for my big midterm." They're MIT students too; they probably just happen to have a little more free time this week.
As for me, I'm going to go back to studying x-bar syntactical linguistic theory.
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The author has filed this entry in the "Work/Play Balance At MIT" section; check it out for further reading on this topic. |
Responses To This Entry:
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Sign a waiver? To what waiver are you referring...?
Posted by: Lauren '12 on October 20, 2008 09:33 PM
Apple picking > studying
Posted by: Mickey on October 20, 2008 09:35 PM
@Lauren: This one. Alternately, your matriculation agreement. ;)
Posted by: Paul on October 20, 2008 09:55 PM
Hey Paul, isn't that Jess' gig? :)
Posted by: Ahmed on October 20, 2008 10:10 PM
I know one taking NINE!!!!
Posted by: Enas'12 on October 20, 2008 10:12 PM
Gotta see the show cause then you'll know the vertigo is gonna grow cause it's so dangerous you'll have to sign a waiver...
Posted by: Jess on October 20, 2008 10:49 PM
What are you up to in organic chem?
Posted by: anna on October 20, 2008 11:24 PM
Nice going, Paul. It's 11:30, I take a break from studying for the 24.900 midterm to read the blogs, and what do I see? You talking about the 24.900 midterm, with a link to the wikipedia page that I just closed, no less.
(I went apple-picking again, by the way.)
Posted by: Yan Z. on October 20, 2008 11:39 PM
@anna: The test is mostly on a ton of basic reactions involving alkenes, alkynes, and all sorts of fun reagents that interact with organic compounds. There's also a fair bit about nomenclature (the E/Z naming scheme, R/S molecules, chiral vs. achiral molecules).
Posted by: Paul on October 21, 2008 12:29 AM
24.900 is not my friend.
Posted by: Tamara on October 21, 2008 01:19 AM
"x-bar syntactical linguistic theory."
omg. that just sounds scary.
Posted by: hamsi on October 27, 2008 07:53 AM
