Student life and culture at MIT
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The student life and culture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology encompasses hundreds of student activities, organizations, and athletics that contribute to MIT's distinct culture.
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[edit] Events
[edit] Independent Activities Period
Independent Activities Period is a four-week long "term" offering hundreds of optional classes, lectures, demonstrations, and other activities throughout the month of January between the Fall and Spring terms.
[edit] Steer Roast
Steer Roast is an annual bacchanal hosted by Senior House.
[edit] Spring Weekend
Spring Weekend is an annual event that includes performances by local as well as major recording artists as well as picnics, parties, home varsity games, and other celebrations.
[edit] Activities
MIT has over 380 recognized student activity groups,[1]. These are generally governed by the MIT Association of Student Activities.
[edit] Robotics competitions
[edit] Lecture Series Committee
- The Lecture Series Committee (LSC) has weekly screenings of popular films as well as lectures by prominent speakers.
[edit] Performing arts
- MIT Marching Band
- MIT Symphony Orchestra
- MIT Concert Band
- MIT Wind Ensemble
- Musical Theater Guild
- DanceTroupe
- Tech Squares
- MIT Folk Dance Club
- MIT Ballroom Dance Club
- A variety of a capella groups exist at MIT. Their performances are very popular. Among them:
- The MIT/Wellesley Toons
- The Chorallaries
- Resonance
- The Logarhythms
[edit] Publications and media
[edit] Competitions
- "mystery hunt"
- The annual MIT Entrepreneurship Competition has supported the creation of at least 60 companies worth a combined $10.5 billion since it started in 1990.[2]
[edit] Miscellaneous groups
- MIT EMS - student-run ambulance
- Pi Tau Sigma
- Eta Kappa Nu
- The MIT Science Fiction Society claims to have the "world's largest open-shelf collection of science fiction" in English.
[edit] Student government
MIT's student body has several governing organizations. The Undergraduate Association is the primary representative body for undergraduate students while the Graduate Student Council represents the interests of graduate students. Organizations like the Interfraternity Council (IFC), Panhellenic Council (Panhel), and Dormitory Committee (Dormcomm) are independent bodies that represent the interests of fraternities, sororities, and dormitories respectively.
[edit] Undergraduate Association
Represents the undergraduate student body.
[edit] Graduate Student Council
Represents the graduate student body.
[edit] Interfraternity Council
Governs MIT fraternities.
[edit] Panhellenic Council
Governs MIT sororities.
[edit] Dormitory Committee
Governs MIT undergraduate houses.
[edit] Athletics
MIT has 41 varsity sports teams. MIT also has an extensive club and intramural sports team. MIT undergraduates must complete physical education classes as well as a swim test in order to graduate.
[edit] Course numbering
MIT students refer to both their majors and classes using numbers alone. Majors are numbered in the approximate order of when the department was founded; for example, Civil and Environmental Engineering is Course I, while Nuclear Science & Engineering is Course XXII.[3] Students majoring in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, the most popular department, collectively identify themselves as "Course VI." MIT students use a combination of the department's course number and the number assigned to the class number to identify their subjects; the course which many universities would designate as "Physics 101" is, at MIT, "8.01." For brevity, course number designations are pronounced without the decimal point and by replacing "oh" for zero (unless zero is the last number). Thus, "8.01" is pronounced eight oh one, "6.001" is pronounced six double oh one, and "7.20" would be pronounced seven twenty.[4]
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ MIT Association of Student Activities. Retrieved on 2006-11-01.
- ^ MIT $100K:: About. Retrieved on 2006-11-01.
- ^ MIT Education. Retrieved on 2006-12-03.
- ^ Course numbers are traditionally presented in Roman numerals, e.g. Course XVIII for mathematics. Starting in 2002, the Bulletin (MIT's course catalog) started to use Arabic numerals. Usage outside of the Bulletin varies, both Roman and Arabic numerals being used). This section follows the Bulletin's usage.
