The REX That Was by Chris Peterson SM '13

Today is Reg Day, i.e. Registration Day, when MIT students make official their fall schedule (add/drop notwithstanding). Tomorrow is the first day of classes, and the first meeting of CMS.614/21W.791 Network Cultures, which I’m teaching this fall. Later this afternoon, I’ll be meeting with the (soon-to-be-introduced) new bloggers for the Class of 2020 to help get them ready to start blogging.

But first! The last two weeks or so saw the Class of 2020 arrive on campus for their orientation, of which one major component is Residential Exploration, or REX for short, which is part of how housing is assigned. According to MIT’s Dormitory Council:

REX (Residence Exploration) is a fun time filled with tons of events that will help you get to know the different residential communities at MIT. For those of you who have already decided where you’re going to live, REX is a great opportunity to find out about the different parts of campus that you otherwise might not get to experience. For the rest of you, REX is the perfect time to explore MIT’s dorms and pick the place whose culture and residents feel like the best fit for you. Most of all, REX is a time to enjoy yourself and to meet as many people as possible, freshmen and upperclassmen, and to get a feel for what MIT has to offer socially.

Historically, the guide to REX, which features ~350 events over ~6 days, was published in the Tech in a center-spread titled The Daily Confusion (see e.g. TDC for 2015, 2014, and 2013). This year, in an attempt to make REX slightly less confusing (but just as daily), DormCon also moved the guide online. Reading it can be a uniquely good guide to understanding what the MIT culture is like, at least as reflected by the kinds of events that the different dorms organize to represent their life and culture and attract well-matched new residents.

I’ve embedded a PDF of the guide below if you want to idly flip through it. Hopefully some of the bloggers will post some pictures from their dorm’s REX events soon!

Something else: for Labor Day, MIT released a really nice video profiling the maintenance staff who do much of the hard work that makes what our students and faculty do possible. I think it’s a cool tribute to the maintainers of MIT and have embedded it below.