A Comprehensive Guide to Crying on Campus by Nisha D. '21

You trudge out of Walker after your third midterm this week, disheartened and hoping that the test will be ridiculously curved – it couldn’t just have been you who did bad, right? You want to sleep, preferably for around 24 hours to catch up with all the sleep you’ve missed this week. Seriously, when’s the last time you went to bed before 5 AM? But alas, your wish is to go unfulfilled. You have another midterm tomorrow morning at 9 AM, a pset due at noon, and a lab due at 5 PM. You haven’t started working on any of them, and it’s already around 9:45 PM.

If you’re like me, you’re probably undergoing what I like to call This Is Fine Syndrome, a condition in which the sole symptom is verbal/mental repetition of the phrase, “This is fine”, when in reality, stuff probably looks a little more like this:

I imagine everybody here has felt like this some time in the past two weeks, and it’s definitely a normal thing to feel. MIT is hard, and some days are harder than others. There are some mornings when it’s difficult to force yourself out of bed, and there are some nights when you probably just want to cry, which is fine. Crying is healthy from time to time and nobody will judge you for it. So if you ever find yourself in need of a cry but don’t know a good place for it, I’ve got you covered.

This map originated from a poll taken last year by Casie Chen ‘17, who asked the ec-discuss mailing list where people have cried/recommend crying on campus. Most of the answers included fairly standard locations – rooms, bathrooms, dorm lounges, or with a friend. The other places (which are marginally more public than one’s own room) are mapped above.

The three most popular places that people have cried on campus were:

MIT Medical:

Building 66:

Stata (and the Stata amphitheater, shown in the picture):

The most recommended place to cry on campus was the Cheney Room:

Please keep in mind that these results are preliminary – the results in this particular poll are fairly East Campus centric (as evidenced by the concentration of crying spots on the right of the map). We need all of you to help us expand the list of places to be sad, so fill out this survey and let us know your favorite locales for a good semi-public cry. And post pictures in the comments!

I personally haven’t had a good cry yet, but when I do, it will probably be in one of the lounges on my floor at East Campus, the East Campus music room, or in Barker library (the one under the dome!), which is where I go when I really need to get work done. If you’d like to cry with me, feel free – I’ll bring tissues.

The East Campus music room, where you can probably find me crying/angrily singing:

The full results from last year’s poll can be found here, if you’re interested.

Depending on how many poll results come back in, there will be an updated map up sometime later this year!