r/mit

Hi! I was going through a bunch of MIT web pages that are for the different advising options.

I was wondering what advising options you guys have chosen and what you feel like the advantages/disadvantages have been that aren’t necessarily easy to see while searching online!

hey, I'm an incoming freshman and I've been trying to figure out how undergrad research actually works at MIT, specifically for math and theoretical CS. I'd love any honest advice from people who've navigated this

for context on where I'm coming from mathematically: I've worked through Axler's Linear Algebra Done Right, Rudin's Principles of Mathematical Analysis, Munkres' Topology, Lee's Introduction to Smooth Manifolds, Folland's Real Analysis, Conway's A Course in Functional Analysis, Aluffi's Algebra: Chapter 0, as well as some other texts, lecture notes, etc. i read most of these books front to back. am currently working through evans's pdes and a book on operator algebras. the areas that excite me so far are functional analysis, operator algebra, functional calculus, C*-algebras, pdes, and stuff about manifolds (i prefer working with manifolds analytically over algebraically), though I'm still figuring out what I actually want to spend years on. on the CS side, I've built a compiler, a networking library, and a game engine, mostly in Rust and C, but I don't find typical course 6 material all that interesting.

but i have a few things I'm generally confused about.

How do you actually find people to work with? ik the nominal answer is "email professors," but that feels impossibly vague. do you cold-email? do you need to take their class first? are there informal channels, reading groups, or seminars where you can just show up as a freshman? i have no idea how the hell this works, and I don't want to embarrass myself by approaching this wrong.

How do you connect with professors? one thing i'm also really lost on is how to actually form a relationship with a professor outside of just emailing them cold. like, is it normal to go to office hours just to talk about the material even if you don't have a specific question? i feel like showing up and saying "hey i just think this is cool" would be weird, but i also don't know how else you build any kind of rapport before asking someone to work with you. do people just attend seminars and hope someone talks to them, or is there a more natural way this happens? i guess what i'm asking is: what does the path from "i have no relationship with this person" to "they're willing to advise me on something" actually look like in practice, because from the outside it feels totally opaque. on a side note, i also really dont understand the idea of office hours. i know some classes you have to fill out appointments to have office hours with profs, and that just feels really odd.. what am i even meant to talk about? why would a prof ever want to talk to me? lmao

How do you figure out what you're actually interested in? i've read a lot, but reading textbooks isn't really the same as knowing what kind of problems you want to spend a year stuck on. is there a way to sample research areas without committing? do people do short rotations, or is the expectation that you pick a direction and go deep immediately?

Math vs CS? my background straddles both, but I'd probably be course 18, pure. I've heard that theoretical CS (things like complexity, information theory, or TCS adjacent to operator algebras) can have a different culture and a different relationship to "publications" and "results" than pure math. i'm not planning to take course 6 classes just to be in CSAIL, but I wonder if there's some version of theory research that would fit my interests and still be housed on the math side of things. and, very expressly, i loathe things like combinatorics and elementary number theory, and tbh this is basically all i see in cs research.

Why would a professor want to work with me? this is honestly what holds me back most. I can read at a decent level and I can implement things, but I have no research output, no publications, and no contest credentials. there are people here who have done all of that. what actually makes a professor say yes to working with an undergrad who is just enthusiastic and reasonably prepared?

any honest takes would mean a lot. ty all

Starting at MIT in the fall and trying to figure out what to bring. Not looking for the obvious stuff, more like the random things you wish someone had told you about before move-in. Gadgets, room setup, whatever you actually use day to day. What would you get if you were starting over?

Hi all

Mods/admin - please delete if this isn’t suitable for this sub!

I’m from the UK and back in the days of msn messenger, one of my best friends was a guy at Caltech.

Unfortunately I made a boo-boo and he ghosted me. 20 years later, I still think about him and would LOVE to try to find him and get back in touch, if he even wants to reconnect.

Details I know about him: Viet Ngo, Born in the 80s. Had a cousin called Nam. Was an EMT while at Caltech. Moved to MIT. He wanted to cure cancer. He might have also been wary of giving his info out so some of these memories might not be true.

He initially knew me as Courtney Watson, the name I gave him to try and protect my identity (being an internet savvy teen in the early 2000s, I didn’t want creeps doxxing me). When I fessed up and told him my real name, that’s when he ghosted me, which is totally understandable. I tried emailing him a few times after he disappeared and unfortunately no longer have access to that email address and can’t remember his email address anymore.

This isn’t a missed connection, we never had a relationship more than a friendship, and I’m happily married with kids now, but would love to find out what happened to him and try to reach out now we’re a bit older and wiser 🤞🏻

If anyone knows of any way I might be able to get in touch, please let me know!

Thanks!

Has anyone explored concurrently pursuing a graduate degree (esp. MA, MS or PhD) at Harvard? Is it possible in general, and is it possible for international students on an F1 (on a fellowship)?

I'm currently a PhD student at MIT, and have been cross-registering a lot in Harvard's HAA. I might be able to eventually fulfil certain programmes' course requirements and could likely find professors there to supervise a thesis or qualifying paper.

I'm not completely sure what's the best way to also pursue an arts degree at Harvard. Advantages of something official and concurrent would be to partake in programme-related activities, also, being part of the community there. But perhaps accumulating credits and popping over to Harvard (after MIT) then fast-tracking would be more realistic, though this would detract from the fun of being a full-time student.

Is it possible to apply separately to Harvard HAA, concurrently-officially register there, and work simultaneously toward 2 graduate degrees?

any current students willing to share their thoughts/experiences/application tips? :D - rising senior hoping to go to MIT for grad school

afaik, the programs are very comparable, barring that Berkeley has a higher acceptance rate for in-state students for other majors and that it has larger class sizes for lower divs.

EECS is one of the most competitive major at Cal so I was just wondering how it compares to MIT, which has the best EECS program in the world. if students from each were to collectively work on a project, would MIT students view Cal students as significantly behind or unprepared?

is there a lot of intellectual exchange and collaboration between these two universities across EECS? I know Stanford and MIT students work on research together often, but wondering how often EECS students from Berkeley do as well.

PS I did search online, but the results were mainly from Quora and from people in the workforce who were looking at it from a hiring perspective. My question is more academic and project oriented.

I am contemplating taking 18.701 (Algebra 1) with him coming fall. Are his exams / psets fair, and is he a harsh grader?

I was wondering if there is an ongoing tier list for the mit media lab groups. Are certain groups harder to get into than others? Is it common to not get into a group at all?

I am a Harvard student interested in doing research work with certain groups that align with my interests, but worry those groups will be too competitive, and am looking for other options to get my foot in the door and build a foundation first.

Hello! graduating 2026 here, trying to continue my current UROP into the summer. Does anyone know if there's an established process for this? I've heard of MITemps, but would like a bit more clarification before approaching my PI with this idea.

Hii,

I have the chance to take classes at MIT and the prison initiative really stood out to me :)

Wondering if anyone has taken these classes and what they think!! Also logistics like how was transportation, etc?

hello!

so.. i only managed to visit a couple dorms during CPW, and of the dorms i visited, i only talked to a few people. so! i'm kind of lost in the ranking situation for housing! i have a couple things i'm looking for out of housing, and at the same time, i've been trying to get a sense for culture at each house based on the internet and a few MIT friends i have. my findings and current thoughts:

what i know about me:

- 100% not a heavy partier

- heavily prefer single due to insomnia / personal reasons

- proximity to gym, makerspaces, etc. would be a plus

- not super quirky/nerdy? wait honestly i suppose i could be considered boring LOL

- down to cook for myself!

what i know about the houses:

- liked the EC students i talked to a lot! the culture seems so fun, the people were so fun. however, i'm concerned about the whole lax culture and everything. tbh knowing me i'm not sure if i'd feel super at home if the people around me weren't also like.. idk i'm slightly boring in some way. hopefully this is understandable

- similar things with BC except maybe a little more "boring" and aligned with me!

- macgregor major plus = singles!!! but... not really sure about total lack of culture? the view is bangin though. also didn't get a chance to visit it during cpw rip

- new vassar! tbh i only came here to eat food i barely talked to anyone from new vassar, but there also doesn't seem to be much culture. it's just the building itself is really nice loll

- next! i also didn't get a chance to visit next rip but i heard all the math oly kids congregate here which ... slightly appeals to me?

- simmons! again, didn't get a chance to visit, but there appears to be a chance of a single during my first year. also there's a ball pit. not sure about the people at all, but they seem to be pretty nice?

- random! i honestly .. just don't think i'm quirky enough

ok yeah so summary is i have no clue what i'm doing. i def feel like i don't know enough to make an educated decision right now... does anyone have any advice? thank u so much in advance for helping this lost pre-frosh out

does anyone know if hmart accepts dining dollars? ik they accept tech cash but i have a billion dd left and i really want some pineapple cakes

Hi! I recently committed to MIT’s class of 2030. I’ve been to CPW and a couple of other MIT programs, so I understand general offerings.

I was wondering what are some opportunities (especially for first year students) that you guys enjoyed? Also, what opportunities were you guys unaware of but wish you had done?

Hi, I'm a pre-frosh wading through the end of my high-school career and eager to get started at MIT. I've always been dead set on majoring in chemistry but I also hear that Course 5 is quite small so I'm also considering Course 10.

Anyways, I was wondering if there's any opportunities (clubs, internships, fun classes) I should be on the lookout for.

is lecture for 18.C06 mandatory? is it recorded? i’ll have a conflict on mondays in the fall

or, can 6-7 just take 18.06 instead? or are they super annoying about having it be C06?