Classes I’m Taking My Freshman Fall!(And Other Things Too) by Leya E. '30

It’s 2020. I am sitting in my room reading blogs from MIT students about classes they’ve taken.

It is 2023. I am sitting in my room reading blogs from MIT students about classes they’ve taken.

It is December 2025. I am sitting in my room, crying after getting my admissions decision, and reading blogs from MIT students about classes they’ve taken.

It is September 2026. I am sitting in my dorm room, writing a blog about the classes I’m taking.

It really doesn’t feel real. Even as I’m sitting here, writing this, I still can’t quite believe I’m actually here.

I still slightly think this whole blogger thing is a lie and that nobody will actually read this except me.

But in case someone is actually reading this, I felt that it was only right to start my blogger career with my favorite type of post: one about my classes!

I’m taking 5 classes this semester, which is kind of a heavy workload, especially when one of those classes is estimated to take 15 hours a week. But we’ll get to that.

I’m taking:

ES.1802 – Multivariable Calculus

ES.5111 – Principles of Chemical Science

8.012 – Classical Mechanics

6.1903 – Introduction to C and Assembly

21L.032 – Afrofuturism, Magical Realism, and Other Otherwise Worlds

ES.1802

Let’s start with my ESG classes. ESG stands for Experimental Study Group, and it’s one of a couple of first year learning communities that first-years can apply to. One of the main appeals of ESG is having classes in small group formats that are more hands-on than large lecture-style mainstream classes.⁠01 You also get to call all your professors by their first names, if you’re into that Another thing about ESG classes compared to mainstream is that, at least for the ones I’m taking, they meet every day and are all attendance required. ES.1802 is multivariable calculus, like mainstream 18.02, except my class has 12 people instead of like 500. I really like the way that things are explained in this class, like the very cool derivations of the dot product and cross product we did. However, I hadn’t seen multivariable calculus material before arriving at MIT, so it’s going to be a lot more new to me than to some of my classmates. We’re starting pretty slow though, so I think I’ll be able to catch up.

ES.5111

This is normal chemistry, just like mainstream 5.111. I actually wanted to take 3.091⁠02 Intro to Solid-State Chemistry, taught in the Material Science department instead of the Chemistry department instead but it didn’t fit in my schedule :(. It’s fine though, this class is still very cool! I kind of forgot just how interesting chemistry is, at least when you’re not agonizing over sig figs which our first PSET is focused on. The first week, we went through some history of how our understanding of the atom has evolved, which leads us to how quantum mechanics was created! This is very exciting to me as a physics nerd. Speaking of…

8.012

At MIT, everyone has to take some version of Physics I⁠03 Classical Mechanics unless you test out of it with AP scores. I did not. Another way to get out of it is to pass the 8.01 ASE. I did not. But because I have a lot of belief in myself, I decided to take the harder version of 8.01! 8.012 is designed for people who have above-average math skills and above-average baseline physics knowledge. I’d like to think I have these things, and I also discussed it with my advisor⁠04 Who is a physics professor , and we agreed that I could try 8.012 and potentially drop to ES.801 if it got too hard. This class is also a lot more work than 8.01. This is the class that is projected to take 15 hours a week. I don’t think that it will take that long for me, but crowdsourcing opinions is always a good idea to sanity check your schedule. I reviewed both the textbook and the syllabus⁠05 Which are both things you should do if you’re trying to decide if a class is too difficult for you! and so far I believe that I can do it. The class moves at a faster pace than 8.01, which is what I mainly wanted since I thought that 8.01 would be too much review for me. It also covers a couple more topics, which is also something I wanted. Right now I think I’ve made the right choice, but I’ll let you know in a few weeks if I end up changing my mind. The first class was interrupted by a humanoid robot, so that was pretty cool I guess.⁠06 Guys i was freaking out why was he there who put him there why was he SPEAKING TO US

He waved at us.

6.1903

This class is, like it says from the title, an introduction to low-level programming in C and Assembly. I’m pretty sure this is the first time it’s been taught over a full semester instead of 6 weeks, so I feel like the workload might seem less intense than previous years, but you never know. This class has “optional” recitations which is pretty cool, but I do also have a mandatory lab from 7:30pm to 9:30pm. So. At the very least it’s not every week. We also get a cool little lab kit with a cheap little microcontroller! I love microcontrollers. They’re like computers but…micro…

21L.032

I am SO EXCITED for this class! Like guys you don’t understand the first thing I did when I was admitted was make a list of classes I wanted to take and this one was literally FIRST ON MY LIST! I was so happy when I got the email saying I got in.⁠07 This class is a CI-H, and all CI-H classes have lottery-based admission We are watching 8 films this semester including Sinners, Nope, Black Panther, and Encanto, and reading a lot of books and short stories, starting with Toni Morrison’s Beloved. This might be my favorite class ever just from the syllabus. I also really appreciated the discussion we had on the first day, because it feels like it’s been a long time since I’ve been in a humanities class where everyone was actually invested in having thoughtful discussions about the material. It’s nice to find a space like that at MIT, especially considering the amount of technical classes I’m taking.

So yeah! That’s my freshman fall in a nutshell. I am also of course, sidequesting as best as possible, since it’s PNR⁠08 All MIT freshmen are graded Pass/No Record for their freshman fall, so there is no GPA and as such no difference between getting an A or a C in a class. so like nothing matters if you think about it…⁠09 This is a joke and I am still worried about my grades but trying not to be as worried So here’s a list of other things I have done so far:

Larping but like actually

I went to the Assassin’s Guild’s⁠10 MIT’s live-action roleplaying club patrol game last saturday to fulfill my childhood dreams of shooting people with nerf guns. I cannot say that I was very good at it. I also got roped into applying to their next actual role-playing game, which is about potatoes I think. I’m so excited.

Being too close to fire

After the patrol game I walked with the other patrol players to the MIT Spinning Arts club’s firespinning show! It was the first time I’d ever seen firespinning and we were also in the front row so that was slightly unnerving. However, watching firespinning is awesome and probably the closest thing to witnessing real life magic.

Learning what Ultrakill is

I went to a DAAMIT⁠11 Digital Art and Animation at MIT! meeting and through various conversations tangentially related to digital art learned what Ultrakill was.⁠12 Not entirely I just know its a game where you shoot people and I think hell is involved Fun! We also played Gartic Phone⁠13 An online game similar to telephone but with drawings and words instead of just words and learned that all roads lead to Hatsune Miku. Miku dayo!

Singing!

I “auditioned” for Next Sing⁠14 They let everyone in which is nice and filled out a form CORRECTLY⁠15 hopefully! to list what acts I want to be in. One of the options is the Cafeteria Song from My Little Pony Equestria Girls. I NEED to be in the Cafeteria Song from My LIttle Pony Equestria Girls.

Learning About Various Non-Academic Topics

I went to the firestorm event hosted by the Educational Studies Program⁠16 ESP, not to be confused with ESG , where people got to host five minute talks about whatever they wanted! I did arrive late and so did not get free food, but did get a very comfortable free shirt. And of course, learned about things such as the dvorak keyboard layout and the fact that Italy can make bad pizza too.

what are they doing in Italy

There are other things I’m planning on doing too, like joining Next Haunt just to get the guaranteed run-through of the escape room,⁠17 Half joke... being part of Next Act⁠18 Next House puts on a musical in the spring during CPW! so most of the work is actually in spring. , joining combat robotics, auditioning for a role in the Shakespeare Ensemble’s production of King Lear, and pretty much anything else on dormspam⁠19 Basically campus-wide emails that seems slightly interesting.

I think the point of freshman year is to explore everything, and if you don’t feel awestruck with the amount of possibilities you have at least once, you’re probably not doing it right. I know I can’t do everything, and that the fun I’m having right now probably won’t last,⁠20 Guys why do I have five classes on one day what is this but I want to take advantage of the freedom I’ve been given as a newly minted college student and deprived myself of as a high schooler.

Coming to MIT, I feel like I’m finally surrounded by a community of people where I don’t need to hide parts of myself to be accepted.

I am cringe but I am free.

Here’s to the next four years!