(un)Empty Nest by Dave McOwen
Welcome Back!
There are no undergraduate classes here at MIT over the summer. Hopefully you already knew that, or at the very least figured it out from all the great summer blog posts. MIT encourages students to do research, travel, do service work, or just recharge and have some fun.
While that’s a great opportunity for you, it does make things much quieter on the old homestead. It’s not a complete “Night of the Comet” (or “28 Days Later” for those sadly uneducated in the ways of cheesy ‘80s movies) because there are research opportunities year-round, and we get to meet several thousand prospective students in our Info Sessions. Still, the campus doesn’t vibrate with the same lightning-in-a-bottle energy.
All that is starting to change. Shhhh, listen! Put your ear to your favorite graphing calculator or Petri dish* and you can hear the distant sounds of life returning to the Infinite. The new pre-frosh, sans pre, are arriving on campus!
* On second thought, that second one is probably a bad idea.
It’s been months since I could wander through Lobby 13, enjoying an echoing rhythm as two students practiced ballroom dancing, deftly winding their way around a hurrying, lab-coated young woman cradling a graduated cylinder of purple liquid.
A year ago a sight like that would have stopped me in my tracks. Now having been without the zany, ‘you wouldn’t believe me if I told you’ serendipitous moments that make up a normal day on campus, I can’t wait for summer to end.
I missed you guys!
First!!
Summer is certainly the most beautiful and wonderful time of the year..
Here’s a lovely poem about summer by William Blake
O thou who passest thro’ our valleys in
Thy strength, curb thy fierce steeds, allay the heat
That flames from their large nostrils! thou, O Summer,
Oft pitchedst here thy golden tent, and oft
Beneath our oaks hast slept, while we beheld
With joy, thy ruddy limbs and flourishing hair.
Beneath our thickest shades we oft have heard
Thy voice, when noon upon his fervid car
Rode o’er the deep of heaven: beside our springs
Sit down, and in our mossy valleys, on
Some bank beside a river clear, throw thy
Silk draperies off, and rush into the stream:
Our valleys love the Summer in his pride.
Our bards are famed who strike the silver wire:
Our youth are bolder than the southern swains:
Our maidens fairer in the sprightly dance:
We lack not songs, nor instruments of joy,
Nor echoes sweet, nor waters clear as heaven,
Nor laurel wreaths against the sultry heat.
Actually, there are a small number of undergraduate classes available over the summer at MIT.
http://web.mit.edu/catalog/summer
Course 18 (Math) offers 18.03 (Differential Equations) and 18.06 (Linear Algebra), both of which are undergraduate-level classes.
Kim
MIT Class of 2012
I’ve missed you too, Dave
I went to visit during the first day of July and the place was blooming with people and activity, there were even people walking around near 11:30 pm on July 5th! [yes I was there
I arrived that day late at night and going to MIT was the first thing I had to do in Boston 
]
It’s hard to imagine the place even more lively, I need to go back and see it for myself.
I hate to admit it (since Admissions Officers never make mistakes *ahem*) but I completely missed that MIT offers a limited number of summer classes. You can get more info about summer session at their website. Sorry for the confusion!
What is Dave talking about? Of course there are undergraduate summer classes here at MIT. It’s important to do your homework before posting on a prospective-student blog.