The MIT Experience

 Being an undergraduate at MIT was an incredibly unique experience. This place will amaze you from day one, and you will feel every possible feeling towards it. You will love it. You will hate it. You will be happy. You will be sad. You will feel connected. You will feel lonely. But you will most certainly feel glad to have lived through it, and you will take great experiences and friendships from MIT.

First Impressions: Prospective Student/Freshman Year

Everything is beautiful. The campus is nice, the dome is awesome. The columns are really cool. If you visit during summer or spring time the grass is green, the flowers grow and the people are happy (The winter, on the other hand is COLD!)

There is a crazy building by Frank Gehry (The Stata Center)

People seem to have a lot of fun. There are a variety of "hacks", one of the recent ones (and among my personal favorites) was the Tetris Building:

(Yes, this is actually a building on campus, and yes, this was playable Tetris! The lights were programmed to respond to a controller!)

From my first visits, I was impressed and very excited. I could definitely see myself here, and I knew that it would be a worthwhile experience.

The Setting: Boston & Cambridge

The greater Boston area is a great place for students. There are multiple universities and colleges around the area as the map shows. MIT and Harvard are nearly neighbors in Cambridge (we are just two subway, a.k.a. T, stops away), but there are also Boston University, Boston College, Tufts, Berklee School of Music etc... (see map for more)

This means there are a lot of young people around, and a good amount of bars and parties.

Transportation is very good around MIT; the #1 bus goes up and down Massachusetts Ave, and there is a T stop on the east side of campus. There are also shuttles that cross the bridge from Cambridge to Boston, to connect MIT to some of the fraternities on the other side of the river. 

The Settling in: Freshman
Once you get into MIT, you have to pick what dorms you are going to live in. Each dorm has a unique culture, and you can check them out here: Undergraduate Residence Halls. Most undergraduate dorms are located close to campus, and you can definitely walk from any of these dorms to classes, but some people choose to get bikes. For reference, I lived in Baker House, my room had a beautiful view of the Boston Skyline, and most of my classes were within a 5-10 minute walk.

Deciding where you live is very important though, and I advise you to check out each dorm, meet the people there and choose the place that matches your culture as well as possible. I do advise incoming students to make this choice based on their tastes rather than their parents'. Sometimes parents will not like a place and try to get you to the dorm they find the nicest. But this decision should definitely be up to you, as a new student, because you are the one that will be living there for possibly the next four years.

Moving was straighforward, and like most big cities, you can get all your things at any of these Bed-Bath megastores. They usually make lists for college students, to help you get everything, so I did not have any issues there.

Fees and Tuition
Most students get some kind of financial aid from MIT. All financial aid is need-based, so every year we have to complete the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) which calculates how much aid you should receive. MIT is not cheap at all (tuition and fees come out to $42,050, plus costs of living and dining), but MIT does try to help out. 

Drinking water from a firehose, Part I:
You are a freshman, have just picked your intro classes (usually first-years take Calculus, Chemistry or Biology, Physics and a Humanities course) and everything is ready to start. And in orientation you get the great news that your first semester is actually Pass/No Record.

What does that mean?

No grades! (insert celebration dance here!)

MIT, in order to help you transition from high school to, well, one of the most intense universities in the world, gives you a "freebie" semester. No grades, if you get above a "C-minus", you get the credit. 

This may seem great, and a reason to party all semester, but it is not that simple. MIT is tough. It is intense, it is challenging, and it will destroy you if you are careless. So people that take this semester lightly and not use the opportunity to get used to MIT's style, often have a tougher time adapting in the following semester.

Once the semester starts, you begin to understand classes at MIT. Freshman lectures are usually in large lecture halls, with sometimes 300 students in a class. But you do get the opportunity to learn from great people in their fields. Many freshman have had the opportunity to take Introductory Chemistry (5.112) with Nobel Laureate Richard R. Schrock, or Introductory Biology (7.012) with Eric Lander, who worked on the Human Genome Project.

These are great opportunities, to learn from people who play a very significant role in their fields. As a freshman, learning about ongoing research of Nobel Laureates is an incredible experience. 

However, the academic part is not easy at all. Once you get your first problem set (Pset) for homework, you notice that MIT is not at all like high school. The questions really challenge you. They are not simple repetition of what you had done in class, but rather, they require you to read additional sources, collaborate with others and ask your TAs and Professors for help. Very few people work on their psets individually, there is a lot of collaboration at MIT.

And then exams came. You study, do your best, and you get your results back with the lowest grade you have ever seen, and the average score among all students was a 50 (out of 100) or lower. It is a humbling experience. From being among the top students of your high school, used to getting straight-As, getting a 40- or 30-something on an exam makes you realize that MIT is going to be tough. Here, you are no longer the best student, and you need to come to terms to getting bad grades and getting over them by studying harder and preparing better for the next exams.

In the end of the semester, you have your finals. A final at MIT is, jokingly, compared to the following scenario:

You take a class on how to build a house. You learn about walls, and windows and doors and pipes and electric systems. And then your final exam comes and asks you one thing: "How do you build a boat"

MIT finals usually cover a great amount of material, and they challenge you. They ask for applications of what was learned in class, rather than simple repetition of facts. So the exams here actually make you think rather than spit out memorized answers.

This is why MIT is compared to drinking water from a firehose. There is so much happening around you, so much academic material, and you try to grasp as much as you can, but you find out that it is impossible to get it all. 

Drinking from the firehouse: Part II
The rest of my years at MIT required great dedication, but I was able to take all the required classes, get a double major (in Math and Physics) and a minor (in Management Science), I worked as a grader and Lab Assistant (great opportunity to make some money) and I also had the opportunity to do research with great professors (including a brief time at the Higgs group at MIT!) I was also able to get a decent amount of sleep, probably more than the average MIT student, was able to play soccer in Intramural season, and have fun in general.

The main lesson that you take from here is that you have to be balanced. You cannot possibly do it all, and you must accept that. Don't put more on your plate than you can eat. This is just how MIT is, you always have to give something up. Do your work, study, but also go out to eat, go see the Boston Symphony Orchestra, walk around Boston, visit Harvard, go to parties, and you will have a great time.

MIT is a great place. It is very challenging, but you will make great friends, and learn more than you have ever learned. I would not change this opportunity for anything.

I hope this helps to paint a picture of MIT for people that haven't had a chance to come here!

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PS1: One of MIT's informal mottos is IHTFP, an acronym that can stand for many things, but usually meaning "I Hate This F***ing Place", but also used as "I Have Truly Found Paradise". You will use it with both meanings as a student here.

PS2: I love MIT so much that I am doing my PhD here. So this will probably be some 5 more years of MIT and Boston life!

PS3: If anyone has any other specific questions, please let me know and I'll try to edit this answer

Does not cracking the IITJEE make me smaller than those who actually did it?

Does not cracking the IITJEE make me smaller than those who actually did it?

There are a lot of occasions in life where you can feel absolutely worthless.

1. You cracked JEE and joined the best IIT but got 5–6 CGPA.
2. You managed 9+ CGPA but didn’t get a high paying job.
3. You got a high paying job but the work is absolutely boring.
4. You got challenging work but the manager is a tyrant.
5. You got a great manager but the company is laying off.
6. You escaped the layoff but you are unable to find a partner.
7. You found a partner but they can’t stop comparing you with their ex.
8. You found a partner without ex but they don’t love you for what you are.
9. You found a loving partner but have a hard time conceiving.
10. You have a child but they are not healthy.
11. You have a healthy child but they won’t listen to you.
12. You have a lovely, obedient child but you get laid off.
13. You escaped layoff again but your child couldn’t crack JEE.

Life is a giant cycle of ups and downs. The lows teach you humility. The highs teach you thankfulness.

Can my future be brighter than those IITians?

My mother isn’t very educated. She has been a house wife throughout. She managed the limited household budget very well. She nurtured and took care of her children to the best of her abilities. She monitored them during their teenage. As a result, she produced 3 (three) IITians. I think she is more successful today than all 3 of us IITians put together.

Be THAT parent if you want to beat IITians. You will literally become the “mother/father of IITians” :-)

For now, love, respect and obey your parents who have been there for you all along. Their prayers and blessings can take you far far higher than what you and I can imagine.

-Imtiaz Mohammad

Changing the World

Lock in Brain

Rich people work hard or is it just luck ?

Wealth creation is rarely about individual effort alone or pure luck—it's typically about intergenerational advantage. It is not "hard work vs. luck". It is more about how a family can work in tandem to build an advantage over multiple generations. Rich people pass on wealth, wisdom and connections to the next generations, while poor people don’t pass much.

We live in an instant-everything world where we assume that wealth is built in a few years. It doesn’t happen that way. Advantage of any kind is built over generations often taking a century or more. The ones who have the patience to think this and plan for not just themselves but help their kids and grandkids tend to be successful.

The Multi-Generational Path to Wealth

A typical wealthy family today often traces back 3-4 generations:

1. The great-grandfather might have started with nothing, working himself to exhaustion but prioritizing education for his children
2. The grandfather could secure stable employment, moving the family away from starvation
3. The father, with better education, could take calculated risks and build connections
4. The current generation inherits not just financial capital, but social capital, business networks, and opportunities

This pattern appears consistently across successful families. Consider these examples:

• The Tata family built their empire over two centuries, starting with trade during colonial times
• Bill Gates benefited from his mother's IBM connections
• Elon Musk's father (who owned mining operations) provided early advantages
• Even historical figures like Mahatma Gandhi benefited from educational privileges most Indians couldn't access

Family Stability as Economic Advantage

The primary way to build the multigeneration advantage is at the family level. Poor families often have absentee parents, often drunkard husbands. My father used to work in rural development activities of his bank when I was a kid and as I visited the families of poor. The thing that always struck me was how different the fathers were from those in successful families. If the fathers think in terms of multiple generations of slowly building an advantage, the family gets a substantial boost.

Research shows a growing "marriage divide" that reinforces wealth disparities:

• Middle and upper-class Americans [and Indians] have higher marriage rates and more stable families
• Working-class and poor Americans experience higher rates of family instability and single parenthood
• This divide didn't exist before the 1970s but has grown significantly since

The Marriage Divide: How and Why Working-Class Families Are More Fragile Today

Editor’s Note: This research brief is an edited version of a research brief prepared for the Opportunity America-AEI-Brookings Working-Class Group. Go here to read or download the full brief. When it comes to marriage and family life, America is increasingly divided. College-educated and more affluent Americans enjoy relatively strong and stable marriages and the economic and social benefits that flow from such marriages. By contrast, not just poor but also working-class Americans face rising rates of family instability, single parenthood, and life-long singleness. Their families are increasingly fragile and poor and working-class Americans pay a serious economic, social, and psychological price for the fragility of their families. 1 The Fragility of Working-Class Marriages and Families Before the 1970s, there were not large class divides in American family life. The vast majority of Americans got and stayed married, and most children lived in stable, two-parent families. 2 But since the 1960s, the United States has witnessed an emerging substantial marriage divide by class. First, poor Americans became markedly less likely to get and stay married. Then, starting in the 1980s, working-class Americans became less likely to get and stay married. 3 The current state of marriage and family life and the class divisions that mark America’s families can be seen by looking at contemporary trends in marriage, cohabitation, nonmarital childbearing, divorce, children’s family structure, and marital quality. One of the most dramatic indicators of the marriage divide in America is the share of adults age 18–55 who are married. Figure 1 indicates that a majority of middle- and upper-class Americans are married, whereas only a minority of working-class Americans are married. This stands in marked contrast to the 1970s, when there were virtually no class divides in the share of adults married, and a majority of adults across the class spectrum were married. 4 At the same time, Figure 1 indicates that working-class Americans fall almost halfway between poor and middle- and upper-class Americans when it comes to the share who are married.* When it comes to coupling, poor and working-class Americans are more likely to substitute cohabitation for marriage. Figure 2 shows that poor Americans are almost three times more likely to cohabit, and working-class Americans are twice as likely to cohabit, compared with their middle- and upper-class peers age 18–55. Taken together, these figures suggest that lower- income and less-educated Americans are more likely to be living outside of a partnership. Specifically, about six in 10 poor Americans are single, about five in 10 working-class Americans are single, and about four in 10 middle- and upper-class Americans are single. However, when it comes to another fundamental feature of family life—childbearing—working-class and especially poor women are more likely to have children than their middle- and upper-class peers (see Fi

https://ifstudies.org/blog/the-marriage-divide-how-and-why-working-class-families-are-more-fragile-today

Two-parent households provide substantial advantages:

• Shared parenting responsibilities reduce exhaustion
• Combined resources and focused attention benefit children's development
• Long-term planning becomes more feasible with dual support

The Cooperative Advantage of Wealth

Rich people also tend to do work in a group settings better. Poor communities are often scattered in terms of their work and far more prone to infighting. This allows the rich to support each others children in a quid pro quo arrangement as they all want similiar things. Since they all think long term in terms of advantage, they can work in cooperative settings better.

Wealthy communities demonstrate patterns that reinforce advantages:

• Better ability to work cooperatively toward shared long-term goals
• Mutual support networks that benefit each other's children
• Common values around education, career development, and wealth building

Meanwhile, poverty often forces short-term thinking that makes cooperation more difficult:

• Immediate needs take priority over long-term planning
• Diverse urgent priorities make community alignment challenging
• Limited resources can intensify competition rather than cooperation

This creates a middle-class squeeze where upward mobility becomes increasingly difficult—caught between established wealth networks above and fragmented support systems below.

The question isn't simply about who works harder. It's about understanding how advantage accumulates across generations, creating systems where some people's work yields far greater returns than others in similar or even more demanding roles.

As a reader you could point to exceptions about families with hardworking parents but poor and vice versa. It does happen, but it doesn’t last very long. In a couple of generations, the hardworking family eventually gets to the wealthy track while the ones that are throwing away their advantages will get back to poverty.

-Balaji Viswanathan

Luck or Hardwork ?

 

Firstly I want to tell you little bit about my academic background I............

 Firstly I want to tell you little bit about my academic background I am from so called science maths background and I got 47% in 12th class in first time and second time I got 63%. The reason I did 12th second time because my father told me pass it with first division. After that I did graduation from RTU that too without my will.

After graduation I started convincing my father to help me financially to open a start up but he refused to give me a single penny.

So I thought of preparing for govt exam and started preparing for patwari in my state Rajasthan, I prepared seriously for that exam but unfortunately that exam got postponed and I got frustrated, so I thought of preparing for central govt exam.

SSC CGL was something which I thought of giving a try because in patwar I had covered almost everything in GK portion little bit of maths and English. I had almost 7–8 months before prelims of CGL.

I covered maths syllabus thoroughly from CGL persepective and English grammar portion too and I used to work very hard those days, ‘good understanding of English’ was a factor which played an important role because of which I didn’t face many problems in English section.

I started giving mocks initially my score was very bad in maths section I still remember I got 78/200 in my first mains maths mock and I was devastated although It was hard mock. But in prelims I used to get 150 plus which was a good score.

Finally I gave ssc cgl 2020 prelims in which I scored 168(normalised) and raw was-145 and in mains maths-152/200 and English-170/200 so far I had 490 marks and all I wanted was any 4600 gp post which I would’ve got if I had got 40 marks in written exam, and I was very happy because I wrote good in descriptive exam and hopeful of getting Inspector post from cgl-2020. By the way I am from OBC category.

Out of my surprise I got 34/100 marks in tier-3. For the first time in my life I was sad on my performance and there was sheer disappointment on the faces of my family members because they were expecting 3 stars on my shoulders. And I got a post of junior accountant in Punjab.

In the meantime I started preparing for CGL-2021,form of which I had already filed for backup. This time I worked on the nuances of maths like calculations skills, dealing a question with options, percentages calculations, pen free calculations and many more. I gave CGL-2021 and got 170 in prelims 170 in english 186 in maths. Now I was certain that if I get even passing marks in descriptive exam I will become Inspector of CGST.

I got 47 marks in written exam and my AIR was 1432 in which It was entirely impossible to get Rajasthan because vacancies were only around 15–20.

But right before the DV ssc increased the vacancies in Rajasthan to around 90. And I saw a ray of hope of getting my homestate with 4600 gp which most of cgl aspirants dream of.

Finally the day came and I got my homestate. I was the second last person to get jaipur zone that means there was someone who was luckier than me.

Now I have been working here for last 10 months and I am looking forward to achieving the goal of financial freedom for which I am saving 70 to 80% of my salary and investing in safest place(my father’s shop❤️) from where I will surely get good returns.

Unknown Things About Me

 

1. I was bullied when I was a kid. I was living in Bareilly back then, and was around 10 years old, when I became the target of a bully who lived in my colony. He and his gang of 5–6 other kids used to pull my hair and hit me on the head in the school bus. They ensured I had no friends in my childhood days, and made my life miserable for more than a year. It probably worked out well for me in the end, because I started devoting my time to studies as a kid instead of playing.
2. When I was 13 years old, I was diagnosed with severe dengue and jaundice at the same time. I was hospitalized on and off over a period of 6 months, during which I had blood tests taken twice a day. I was fed intravenously, and was on the verge of a coma. I used to initially shout in pain when the needles pierced my arm, but slowly became immune to the pain. This incident, along with the bullying incident, defined my childhood to a large extent, and made me strong and focused.
3. I have a Masters in Management degree from EBS Business School, Germany also, which I got when I went there on a dual degree exchange from IIM Ahmedabad. Very few people know about this since I don’t mention this degree anywhere on my resume in India as it is not very relevant here.
4. I am addicted to coffee. I need coffee in the morning to start my day. I feel uneasy and irritated if I don’t have my coffee on time in the morning.
5. I am not always as sorted as people think I am. I have my weak moments as well. There are times when I feel stressed out because things don’t go according to plan. There are moments when I feel lost and can’t decide what to do. What keeps me going is that I always try to look at the bigger picture and keep pushing myself towards my goals.

-Rohan Jain