Massachusetts Institute of Technology

On the way to the MIT museum, my friend and I walked all over the MIT campus. You could access even the inside of the Ivy League institution: corridors, park with a sculpture, etc.
One of the original building was conceived by the famous architect Frank Llyod Wright.

As a school. I went there. 5 stars. Hands down the best place to get an education. But that is not what this review is about.
The tour.
Start by getting off at central square T. Walk to 77 mass Ave to start. Then proceed down the infinite corridor all the way stopping at building 10 and the barker library. Go to level 7 and walk around 360 and also the dome area. Return to the ground level see the green open space and the river and then cut to the left down past 26 – 100 and into 36 and go to level 3 where you can pass all the buildings without having to go outside all the way to Stata building. Explore the Stata building.
Go into the basement level at Stata and proceed into the tunnels. Go to building 54 (green building) where you can then go to the 17^th or 18^th level. Several of the rooms may be open and have an awesome view of Cambridge and boston. Go down to the basement again and wander through to the infinite corridor underground this time. See all the labs for students to do things. Come up in building 7 and then walk to the Harvard bridge proceed along memorial drive along the dorms and frats then come inside to the athletic facilities and the student union.
It’s not the ultimate tour but will take several hours and feel like you’ve seen MIT intimately.

Visually, this campus would probably be a one or a two. The buildings are old, there aren’t many trees around campus, and I felt like I was swimming in an array of gloomy grayness.
But if you happen to look beyond the visually unexciting parts about the campus and look closer at the people that go there, the academics MIT provides, and the opportunities created there, you’ll come to realize that MIT is one of the finest academic institutions in America.
Where else can you light up the side of the building playing tetris? Or drop frozen pumpkins from the top of a building in the name of science? Or be able to spend your summer session giving back to the community or getting together with your mentor to be able to publish a paper by the end of the summer?
These opportunities escape the individual who just goes to a decent sized and simply «good» four year university. I’ve sought these same opportunities for several years in comparison to the average MIT student who is integrated into this way of life the day they get there.
I’m assuming nearly all students that go to MIT do so because of these amazing opportunities. I’ve looked around several different schools, and I have yet to find anything as close to what MIT provides for their students.
If you have a dream of a school where you can expand your knowledge of technology to help you become a more curious individual as well as the ability to make it into a school like this, take advantage of it because you will certainly go far with all of the opportunities the school provides.

The campus is beautiful, modern, and state of the art. Student tour guides are enthusiastic. This would be a dream for any future student.

went there on a campus tour. being such a prestigious school, MIT campus is very down to earth and friendly. Unlike Harvard who locks all their buildings and put offensive yellow papers on each door saying visitors are subject to prosecution if enter, MIT welcomes everyone. the labs are fantastic. the corridors and architecture are unbeatable. a true academic place.

School wise… I know most of these folks are smarties, which I don’t think in my lifetime, if I applied would ever get into.
Esthetics wise, this campus definitely screams engineering, as there are no really beautiful architecture here, just bland grey, concrete offices with students wandering the campus with their heads down (and not in books, it’s just how they walk).
Compared to Harvard a few miles down the street, this isn’t much of a building walking type of campus. Sorry. Still an amazing school that if you attended here, you do have 100 of my respect.

I have been training for the upcoming Dragon Boat races at the MIT rowing center. It’s a very nice building and very well maintained for a facility that handles so many college students.
And the water of the Charles River is noticably cleaner than it was in my youth. That’s a great, great thing.

One time when I was an undergrad at Berkeley, I participated in a student rally that turned into a heated protest that turned into an angry mob. What was it about? I just remember holding up a big sign that said «Michelle Malkin makes babies cry (baby Jesus)!» so maybe it was to speak out against women with opinions.
Anyway, the police were called in to spray down the crowd, and I had the experience of drinking from an actual fire hose. I’m happy to report that being a grad student at MIT was a slightly more pleasant experience. Slightly.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s a phenomenal institution. I would have given five stars, but I was really disappointed when I found out that none of the janitors working for my lab were Matt Damon and I’m still not over it. Also, the address listed is wrong. It should be 77 Mass Ave.

So this review is coming from the significant other/​wife of an MIT grad student, and here is my experience with the place where I’ve:
(1) sat around (in my car, in their labs, and offices) waiting for my husband to finish an experiment late at night, and on several weekends,
(2) used their gym facilities, and thus took advantage of their boat house and sailing classes
(3) attended events hosted by some extracurricular groups on campus
(4) participated in graduate student ski trips
(5) actually took a graduate level course here
(6) parked in their lots when it became free after 5pm on weekdays and weekends
(7) studied in their smelly student centers and libraries, especially Hayden,
(8) went to mass in their chapel,
(9) took advantage of a certain department’s free food and drink on Fridays, and
(10) used their building lobbies when I needed practice space for dancing hip hop and/​or ballroom
Granted I’m not an MIT student, but for the past 7 years I’ve been well entrenched in the culture as a significant other of a graduate student. In the beginning, it’s not easy listening to your loved one complain about this great institution that’s sucking the life out of him, but despite all that, I’ve been very impressed with the whole college. The campus is not my ideal type; the main building is like a big high school with classrooms scattered about, and it’s REALLY confusing to navigate. But once you are there a couple of times you get used to it. There are quirks about the campus (like their annual prank, which I never have been able to pick out myself) and architectural peculiarities — stata center, or Building E15 that supposedly spelled out «MIT» in the weirdest way — which make you appreciate the campus. I’ve seen the campus undergo a change from being a dreary, industrial place with yucky food options, to one that has made more green space and have snazzy restaurant establishments other than Au Bön Pain and Sebastian’s. The university is a very welcoming place, and I applaud it for all the wonderful experiences I’ve personally reaped from it.
Yayyy MIT! I am actually going to be sad that my husband is leaving you soon.

This is the ultimate Boston attraction for the science and technology buff! Anyone who’s toured and/​or attended Caltech or Cal Poly will enjoy visiting MIT.

Really cool campus. Definetely worth a visit while in Boston.

This was my home for 4 years and I loved every bit of it. The campus isn’t impressively beautiful, but the unique secrets and innovative architectures won my heart. The Stata center is a stroke of genius architecture innovation, the intertwining geometric shapes are surely an impressive sight. The chapel — less than eye-​catching from the outside, but the interior displays the most astonishing reflections of light patterns with the combination of glasses and water. The Killian court is an amazing place to relax in the summer for a quick nap or reading a book. At certain days and times of the year, the infinite corridor is blessed with a beautiful ray of sun straight across the hall. Many dorms are right along the Charles river, amazing view of the Boston skyline across the river at night and the best spot for a morning run or biking. The MIT sailing club offers lessons and memberships for sailing on the Charles river. The Z center is one of the best sport/​fitness centers with ice skating rink and Olympic size pools. In the winter, the tunnels connecting almost all of the campus buildings saves one from being exposed to the cold. The famous good nature campus hacks are a legendary tradition and part of every MIT student’s heart.
If you have the chance of interacting with the people, everyone is special and brilliant in their own way. No pretense of grandeur, just simple nerdiness and embrace for technology and utility.

What a beautiful campus! If I were smart enough and not a Yankee fan, I would go here in a heartbeat!
My friend that organized our mini-​trip to Boston had been wanting to visit MIT for a while. After getting our afternoon drinking out of the way, we rolled on over to MIT. It’s about a half-​mile from the subway and in the heat that walked sucked, but it was well-​worth the blood, sweat, and tears!
The buildings are gorgeous. Every single one of them. The courtyard is very pretty and in the back you can watch the boats pass by. We went inside one of the buildings and there was just so much to see and such amazing architecture all around. I love nice architecture.
From what I could tell, this campus is absolutely huge. I can’t wait to visit the next time I’m in Boston.

On campus health plans seem like a great idea — but be prepared for a lack-​luster experience.
Efficient, knowledgeable, personable… you wouldn’t use these descriptors to define your PCP here.
The specialists are decent. They receive a four star rating while the PCP network clocks in a zero. The two star rating is an average.

Cool campus. Definite nerd zone. Stata Center was my fave. The architecture of that building is crazy.

Pretty large fan of the eclectic & varied nature of the architecture of the campus, which spans a pretty vast swath nearly right along the Charles.

Like Katie G, I had to think long & hard about what to say about my alma mater. It’s an MIT saying that you have a love-​hate relationship with the place while you’re there, and then a purely love relationship with it once you leave, and that’s very much true for me. MIT was without a doubt the hardest thing I’ve ever done intellectually, and graduating from here is my biggest accomplishment.
I also took a somewhat untraditional path, less so while I was at MIT than afterwards. I was a physics major as an undergraduate (I took the light version of the major or «physics for potted plants» as its jokingly referred to at MIT), so after my junior year I was basically done with required physics courses. Also during my junior year I took a fabulous Constitutional Law class at MIT (yes, although most people would never believe it, MIT has excellent non-​science and engineering classes), which really got me started thinking about law school. Basically, on a whim, I applied to law school during the fall of my senior year. My reasons were, in order, 1) I didn’t want to go to graduate school in physics and didn’t know what else to do with my life (probably the worst reason to go to law school IN THE WORLD), 2) I liked to argue (without a doubt, the second worst reason in the world), 3) I really liked that constitutional law class (quite possibly the third worst reason ever — law school was nothing like that class and being a lawyer is nothing like law school), 4) I really liked writing (a slightly better reason) and 5) it’s my lifelong goal to do the opposite of whatever my father tells me, and he had made it his lifelong goal for me never to be a lawyer (joking — somewhat — about this reason).
You might think that MIT is the worst possible place to go if you eventually want to be lawyer, but I’ve actually found it’s opened a lot of doors for my legal career, both in the obvious ways (simply having MIT on my resume has gotten me a lot of interviews and most of the job offers I’ve received) and in less obvious ways. In law school, I discovered how much I really enjoyed patent law. I became a registered patent agent, will become a patent attorney if I pass the bar exam, and hopefully will spend my career prosecuting patent applications (nothing to do with criminal law, it means applying for patents and getting them through the patent office) — something I never could have done without my technical degree. Even though the «obvious» thing if I could redo my life might be to go to a different school, the fact that I went to MIT and majored in physics ended up leading me, actually very directly, to a career I love and hope to have for a long time.
MIT also taught me a lot outside of the classroom (a cliché, but true!) Like most MIT undergrads, I was a quiet nerd in high school, and at MIT I threw myself into activities, made life-​long friends (hi Katie G!!), socialized and partied in a way I never would have at most other schools, and even (gasp!) dated — although I must say that the expression about MIT men that «the odds are good but the goods are odd» is very, very true — and I can say that because my boyfriend went to Cornell ;) I graduated from MIT far less confident in my intellectual abilities than I was when I entered but far more confident in my social abilities — and that is as big a part of college as anything else.
Honestly (cheeseball alert), I think if I could do it all again, I would do it exactly the same. Well not EXACTLY the same — I would take a programming class (it’s an essential skill in today’s economy), I would move to Next House after my freshman year (because that’s where most of my lasting friendships were formed), and I would drink a little less and study a little bit more, but not too much more, because the nights of partying were a lot more memorable than the nights of psetting (apologies to my parents who funded said partying). MIT really is like boot camp — it’s not that much fun while you’re there, but it makes you a much stronger person, you’re glad you made it through and you have lasting bonds with the people you went through it with.
(Best _​_​_​: Best University)

MIT is a magical place. A great energy resonates throughout. From the echos of all who celebrated their commencement in Killian Court, to the laboratories where secrets of the universe are discovered, and in the countless ways that Humanity has been enriched by all who’ve passed through it’s corridors. Infinitely.

IHTFP

Working at MIT is not half bad. They are nerdy, but in a good way — brilliant, humbling, but nice. And… I think I make them nervous.
Coming to MIT after my «tenure» at CU was a culture shock to say the least, but in a good way. Sure they don’t understand by Boulderite ways or my psychotic passion for sports — but they will, oh… they will!
I am learning about the history of the dome, the infinite corridor, the pranks, the many many codes to get through doors, the lack of functioning elevators, the niche cafes, and quirky buildings (by name, number and layout).
They are dog friendly, they have a great ceramics and glass lab, they have tons of events, a very active student body and of course, the brain power here is astounding.
All in all — MIT is a great place!

For my 500^th review, I’m going to do something I have not done in my previous 499 reviews: reviewed a place that I have actually worked in. I wouldn’t do this for CVS, Blockbuster, or Bertucci’s (I probably would do this for the Lyon’s Den, but I can’t review that). My logic here is that I was not in a retail position, so I think I’m allowed to get away with that :)
That being said, MIT is so much more than what I was doing (on the East Side of campus, in Course 17). MIT wants you to know that they’re different. They give their course names and buildings numbers. The Stata Center is 32, the main hall is 7, and I worked in E53. You major in course 14 or 18 or 6, or whatever.
I did take one course here: a multivariate calculus course. One of the benefits of working at MIT is the ability to take classes if one wants to work on strengthening their abilities. I did actually learn things here, to the point that I’ve been able to use my knowledge to my advantage in grad school. (On a side note, I learned about two different forms of Stata at MIT, the building and the computer program… you can guess which one I find more useful :))
The campus itself is also quite beautiful, in a weirdly modern way. The mix of modern-​looking health buildings and early 20^th century domes makes for a fascinating dichotomy of old and new, brought together by an underground tunnel system that makes winter walking less painful, and makes gym visits at Stata justifiable.
Amenities are all across campus: the West end of campus has the Student Center, with Dunkies, ABP, a burger place, a food court with Subway, and an Anna’s. The east side has Refresher Course. Both sides of campus are near transportation into Boston (The #1 if you’re near Mass Ave, the Red Line if you’re out towards the Sheraton).
MIT is not for slouches. You will need to work. But for three years, I encountered a variety of great people working on the many questions of the world. It was an incredible learning environment unlike anything I had ever seen before. And hence, the 5 stars.
You want to learn? You want to work your ass off? You want to prank Harvard by giving the John Harvard statue a Master Chief helmet? MIT is for you. :)

Like all those people, «Oh, MIT, yeah, is that one of those schools they advertise on TV?» NO! That’s ITT! This is not a vocational school.
MIT is for people who: don’t know exactly what they want to major in but know it’s going to be science-​y; are good at independently motivating themselves; are wicked smart. Way smart. Very smart. Whatever.
MIT is NOT for people who: don’t know exactly what they want to major in and suspect it might be Greek History; lack drive; can’t do math.