how the first midterms actually were by Aiden H. '28

Contrary to popular (and probably well-founded) belief, I once was psychic. Not only did I successfully predict the 2021 Pantone Color of the Year (with a Google Slideshow as evidence) and COVID-19⁠01 tl;dr not actually, but I was CONVINCED a trip I had planned to Italy was going to get canceled for the almost two years I had it planned, and the morning of we went into lockdown. coincidence?? , but I believed in my abilities so much that I genuinely go around telling people and even wrote college essays on the topic.

Tragically, I am here today to confirm that I have lost my powers.

MIT is infamous for humbling people, so when our first midterm season⁠02 first is crazy I know, but a lot of MIT classes and essentially all required classes don't actually have one midterm in the middle of the term, but instead 2-3 midterms plus a final exam, making them more 'quarter-terms' or 'monthly-s' rolled around I was casually prepared to use the phrase “C’s get degrees” and move on with my life as soon as possible. But–in the least ignorant way possible–wow! these exams are really hard and mentally draining! When predicting my scores, I failed (kinda?) a test I thought I aced, passed a test I thought I got a 30% on, and had no clue on the others? Never did I think that even the wrath of MIT could shake my solid foundation of psychism, but I stand dumbfounded.

Fortunately, I am taking 3 GIRs⁠03 General Institute Requirements - aka 6 classes everyone has to take to graduate and a class essentially everyone takes anyway, so I’m here to explain how your first midterm seasons at MIT will realistically go, class by class, and spread the TMZ-worthy insider-deets about what our exams are actually over.

18.02 (Multivariable Calculus)

My first midterm was for 18.02, which has been my favorite class so far so I wasn’t particularly stressed? I haven’t taken multivariable calc before, but that turned out to not put me at a disadvantage because the class started with a mini linear algebra unit instead to introduce random concepts we would need for the rest of the class.

Lecture is three times a week (Tuesday/Thursday/Friday) with recitations⁠04 Recitations are review sessions hosted by TA's that may or may not be required based on the class--for 18.02 they take attendance but I haven't tested if there is a consequence for not showing up. on Monday/Wednesday. Psets for this class are the shortest I have with a mix of online and written out problems that are due on Tuesday nights.

What was covered:

• Vectors
  • Addition & scaling
  • Dot product & cross product
  • Vector projections
• Matrices
  • Multiplication, determinants, and inverses
  • Linear transformations
• Linear Combinations
  • Linear dependence
  • Span and basis
  • Systems of equations
• Eigen-stuff
  • Eigenvectors and eigenvalues
  • 2×2 characteristic polynomials
• Complex Numbers
  • Arithmetic of complex numbers
  • Polar form/euler’s formula

Looking at it in list form looks like a lot considering there was only 8 lectures before the exam, but the class runs really smooth and a lot is covered each lecture, so there was no “we literally never learned this” panic like there was for other classes.

Like most GIR exams, since the class was so large (>400), we had the split the exam location. Half were in 26-100⁠05 The largest lecture hall on campus where most GIRs are taught, and also where you will hear some of the craziest coughing fits of your life , but I was in Walker Memorial⁠06 A separate building in memorial of a former MIT president, and also the building with the gym a lot of exams are held in , which gave me the amazing opportunity to walk along the river and develop a deep anxiety before the test!

In all seriousness, the hype around the “first midterm” and how hard MIT is definitely psyched me out for this test. I’m fortunate to not typically have test anxiety, but the amount of sweat that dripped on my paper during the exam was criminal. Was the test hard? No. Was it different from any practice problem or pset⁠07 Problem set, aka homework ? No. Did I choke anyway? Of course!

I walked back to my dorm fully believing I got a 30% and immediately started busting out laughing with my roommate about how awful we felt we did.

In the end, we both passed and had days of nerves and melodrama over nothing, and this class continues to be my favorite.⁠08 I have another midterm in a week and half though, so we'll see

17.41 (Intro to International Relations)

The same Friday as my 18.02 exam, I had my first paper due for my HASS class⁠09 Humanities, arts, and social sciences. MIT students are required to take 8 to graduate, one in each of the three sub-disciplines and then another set in a specific concentration. .

Technically this wasn’t a midterm exam, but it was still a larger assignment at the same time with the same weight in my grade. A lot of HASS classes will actually have one midterm exam and one final exam with a few papers sprinkled through the class. Since this is my CI-H⁠10 Communication intensive. Also as a part of the HASS requirement, students have to take these classes specially designated by their more intensive writing requirement (so more papers instead of exams). , I count the paper and my suffering equally as much.

Except I actually wouldn’t call it suffering because I generally enjoy this class? I did debate in high school so I have a general understanding of the concepts we’re covering in class, just not in a formalized and academic way. The first half of the class is the overview of the main three theories of international relations, with the first two papers being us having to apply them to current international news, and the second half will be issues/dilemmas/other parts of international relations that are important (climate change, nuclear weapons, proxy wars, etc.).

The prompt for this paper was: “Having read the US National Security Strategy, assess how well the United States is adhering to its own strategy. Offer at least two examples of international relations situations where the United States behavior supports the position taken in the essay. Provide a counterexample to the stated position and explain why it  doesn’t sway the ultimate assessment.”

Despite being very tame, in a true procrastinator’s fashion, I started the paper the day before and still managed to finish it on time and clutch a passing grade. Not the most applicable class to others unless you’re going to major/minor/concentrate in course 17⁠11 Political science , but an untold truth of MIT is that even in the middle of all the psets and midterms, I will still have to open MLA Citation Machine.

5.111 (Principles of Chemical Science)

The following Monday I had the dreaded 5.111 exam. The general consensus across the class, including the upperclassmen⁠12 While the math and physics GIRs are prerequisites for a lot of classes for most majors, 5.111 and 7.01 (Bio) are only really prereqs for people going into those majors, so some students decide to put these requirements off longer and take classes in their major earlier , was that this was where we were gonna all fail.

Naturally, I decided the weekend was to cram.

Except I didn’t (oops!). I studied for a decent amount the day before with the exam review the professor posted, but unlike the psets for the class, it was very emphasized the test was going to be conceptual and almost entirely long answer, which I find harder to study for because it’s not the same as memorizing equations or practicing a specific type of problem.

The class structure isn’t specifically noteworthy: lecture Monday/Wednesday/Friday, recitation on the days between, and psets are due Friday nights.

What was covered:

• Atomic Structure
  • Models of the atom
  • Cathode ray experiment
  • Gold foil experiment
• Electromagnetic waves
  • Photoelectric effect
  • Particle in a box
  • Spectroscopy
  • Schrodinger’s Equation
• Hydrogen Atom Wavefunctions
  • Quantum numbers
  • Orbital nodes
  • Electron probability densities

I took two years of IB chemistry in high school and by no means was some chemistry godsend, but I assumed coming into the class that I would know enough to not have to break my back over the class. But this first section of the class really shows why MIT doesn’t give credit for high school chem, because never did I talk about light’s wave-particle duality as in-depth as I needed to for this exam. It was overly complicated or difficult, just a lot of really niche concepts that you have to be able to explain in extraneous situations⁠13 One exam question was set in the Avatar universe and another had us extrapolate the findings of an MIT professor's Nobel prize-winning experiment through what we learned in class .

Leaving the test, though, I was sure I passed with a near-perfect score. I answered every question, finished early, and was never confused–the polar opposite of the 18.02 exam.

The surprise on my face when I received a failing grade⁠14 They actually calculated my score wrong and I had just barely passed, but the lesson remains. was priceless. My first MIT blindside had occurred, and it was only two days before my worst fear…

8.01 (Physics I)

What I would do to not have to do physics. Tax fraud? Arson? Casual murder? All on the table.

One time I was convinced I wanted to be a physicist, but then I took AP Physics C: Mech in high school and it was genuinely the worst class I’ve ever been in.⁠15 Half of it was I'm bad at physics, the other half was the teacher who got fired because she quite literally didn't teach or even show up to class, so we were essentially left to self study. I’m just genuinely not interested in physics. I understand that it is super important and I get why it’s a GIR, but it also makes me slightly homicidal and those two things just have to coexist.

Considering I took mechanics in high school and didn’t entirely fail, I expected to feel like a solid 5/10 in this class. By the first exam, though, I was sure I was going to have to take this class eight times, fail each one, and eventually never graduate. The concepts aren’t that different from mechanics for the first exam, but pretty much 75% of the AP content I remember was covered in 3 weeks and the extent of the problems was 1000% greater. What is really different is where the emphasis for the problems is. Whereas AP was “get the right answer”, 8.01 is “do you understand this through vector decomposition” and “can you use differential analysis to derive this equation”.

The structure of the class is kind of a flipped-learning style, which MIT calls “TEAL”. Unlike the other classes, there is not one lecture section for everybody, but a bunch of smaller classes that meet with different professors. We watch lecture style videos on our own time that are due on Sunday and Tuesday of each week, and then you meet with your section twice a week to review the video content and do practice problems with your group. Then on Fridays every section meets and completes 2-3 problems with their table group that count towards the week’s pset, which are due Wednesdays.

What was covered:

• Kinematics
  • linear(? is that what non-rotational is called?) and rotational
• Newton’s Laws
  • Constraint/pulley/block systems
  • Identifying third law pairs
  • Pressure, buoyancy, resistive, and spring forces
• “Circular motion”
  • I still have no clue

Looking at all this doesn’t look that bad, and when I started reviewing I noticed that too? One of the professors released a 3 hour review video that pretty much did near-identical free response questions to the exam, and I vow to protect that man with my life because that was the most educational and mind-opening three hours of my life.

Coming out of the exam, I also felt shocking fine? And when I got my grade I also did shockingly fine?

Somehow the class I hated the most I got the highest score in.

6.100A (Intro to CS Programming with Python)

The same day as the 8.01 exam, I had a “midterm” for 6.100A. Except it isn’t really a midterm because this class doesn’t really have exams. The class is a 6-credit, half-semester class with near-weekly psets that take anywhere from 1-8 hours and 4 “microquizzes” instead of midterms, which are 25 minute in-class coding quizzes every week or two. Like the homework, the quizzes vary from the easiest problems I’ve ever seen to questions I genuinely have no clue how to answer.

Since the class moves really fast, it looks like a lot of content, but if you have any coding experience, the first half or even the whole class will be pretty easy.

You might think you have no interest in coding or course 6⁠16 Computer Science , so you’ll never have to worry about this class.

Wrong. Want to do aero/astro? 6.100A. Archaeology? 6.100A. Materials Science? Nuclear Science? Brain and Cognitive Sciences? All of them. Everyone has to. You can’t escape it (unless you do, like, chemistry).

What was covered:

• Objects, types, and variables
• String operations, conditionals, loops, enumeration
• Approximation/bisection search
• Decomposition/abstraction
  • Functions
  • Scope
• Tuples, lists, dictionaries, mutation, aliasing
• Exceptions, testing, and debugging
• Recursion
• Classes and data attributes

I actually passed this quiz (which I cannot say for all of them.) and I was definitely more focused on the 8.01 exam, so there’s not much to say except that it happened and the next quiz was already a week later.

Overall the experience wasn’t as traumatic as people like to make it out to seem, and I wouldn’t even call it comparable to AP weeks in high school (but that might be because I’m in the easiest classes rn). And now that I’ve procrastinated three hours by writing this, there’s nothing to do now but start studying for the next ones⁠17 I literally have a paper due in 4 days and three exams in two days next week and I haven't started anything for any of them. .