You should live in EAsT camPUS by Cristen C. '10
A few of the basic things to know.
1. You can learn how to cook. What better way to learn how than to live in a place where you can have a big, awesome kitchen with personal cupboards for everyone?
4. We’re not afraid to put our engineering skills to the test. With ourselves often playing the test subjects.
6. A hall has no kinks or turns. No wavy or winding paths here. Mostly this means you can look down the entire length of your hall and see EVERYTHING..
8. You can leave your mark. With pens, markers, paint and such.
The second photo was actually taken by Anthony the blogger, as seen in this older entry about EC.
Cool! EAsT camPUS for life!
About the bathrooms.. How many people share one bathroom?
to FuLanKe:
Well, in the east parallel the whole hall (~35ish people give or take a bunch) shares 5 distinct bathrooms, the largest of which can accommodate 3 showerers and two potty-users all at once. ^_^
So you could say, for x length of hall the bathroom to resident ratio is about 1:7ish. The ones closer to the ends of the hall are not as high-traffic though.
It’s a pretty comfortable situation.. I’ve never felt like it was too crowded, or that there weren’t enough facilities to go around.
Thanks for the reply!
BTW.. How does the self-cooking process work at the East campus(in terms of buying groceries/the costs)?
I am not well acquainted with dining system in MIT as a whole.. So may you please shed some light?
I’m temped in EC! It’s rather exciting! Just remember to not pack ridiculously large boxes since there are no elevators!
Eat pus?
Wow! That kitchen looks great. Do all dorms have at least one communal kitchen, or is this unique to East Campus?
My choices were EC and Macgregor too. Different cultures doesn’t mean incompatible with both. It would’ve been a different experience had I lived in Macgregor, but I don’t think a bad one.
@Anon – Don’t choose a dorm based on facilities.
Hey, the dorm looks cool! 8) Would want to live there if I can get in….
Haha. But I’d have to say my choice would be either East or MacGregor.
Come on class of ’14…
@Tyler: East and Macgregor? Those are two completely different cultures, so I’m kinda curious as to why you picked those as your top choice? Not that there’s anything wrong with it (I picked BC and Macgregor, haha) but it’s not a combination you see everyday.
the kitchen seems cool……….
and even leaving marks……….
great
Haha. I like to pick between options that are considerably different. (For example, I want to double major in XVI and XVII.)
I lived in MacGregor my first 3 semesters. Granted, that was over a decade ago, so things may have changed, but here were my thoughts on that dorm.
MacGregor Pros:
* Mostly singles
* Huge windows in each dorm room
* Convenience store in the building (is that still around?)
* Awesome view of the Charles River and Boston, if you manage to get a dorm room on the Memorial Drive side.
* If you belch in the G-Entry stairwell, you can get some amazing resonance, such that the guy living in G-225 will come running, asking “what the hell was that?!”
* Chance to get to know other residents of your Entry fairly well.
MacGregor Cons:
* I personally found that there did not seem to be much social interaction between Entries.
* I found that, in some cases, there did not seem to be much interaction between Suites in the same Entry.
(MacGregor is divided into Entries, effectively physically sub-sections. Each of these Entries is then divided up even further into Suites of several rooms sharing a kitchen.)
I had some buddies in Next House, who I would sometimes visit. I found the contract between Next and MacGregor startling.
Next felt much more social and open. I could easily visit several friends at Next just by walking down a hall or 2.
To visit some friends at MacGregor, who lived in different Entries, it almost felt like I had to make trips to several different dorms, even though they all technically lived in the same dorm.
Now, I will say that my mom wanted me to live in MacGregor. She liked the privacy, and felt it would be great as a study environment. And I think she is right, if you want to study alone. But, I will also say that most of the study groups I was in, such as for 8.01, were held in Next House, either in freshman triples or quads, or in lounges outside of door rooms.
Personally, I think if I had to do it all over again, I would have spent my freshman year in a more social dorm, like EC or Next.
To be honest, I think MacGregor is a great dorm. You can get a lot of privacy, and the dorm rooms are nice. But, you sometimes get more privacy than you want.
I was pretty shy coming to MIT, but I wanted to socialize more, and while MacGregor does not prevent you from socializing, I think you have to put more effort into it if you live there.
If you are naturally very outgoing and can easily make friends and socialize, then I think MacGregor is great.
But, if you are shy (like I was… okay, okay, like I still am), then I think being in a more socially conducive dorm (like EC and Next) may be a better way to go.
At least, that is what my experience taught me.
My too bits!
I picked East Campus and Macgregor as my top 2 choices also and got temped in EAsT camPUS.
Single in my room.Kitchen is just for me.And I can specialized it.This is perfect if I forget bathroom.
Can we call visitors?
Dude… if I am offered admission, I think EAsT camPUS will be my first choice. From what I have seen, it seems like the place is just oozing with creativity.
@ Tyler – Or scam
That kitchen is not the dorm’s communal kitchen. Each hall has their own kitchen like that (and no, this is not true of every living group).
That’s funny. I chose EC and MacGregor as my top choices too.
I liked EC for its cultural uniqueness and creativity but I liked MacGregor since I tend to be a little more quiet but could maybe become more social with other nerds. I got temped in EC so I guess I’ll see how much I like it very soon.
@ Olive
Most dorms have communal kitchens like that, yeah. You hope your floormates do their part to keep it clean… that picture looks abnormally tidy for an EC kitchen.
And, I’d love to see a Baker/Bexley combo, hah
If we’re really interested in EC kitchens, the Putz kitchen (2W) has a live webcam here:
http://www.collegecoedsgonewildinthekitchen.com/
Its functionality varies, but when it’s on it works great . . . if you like kitchens.
Wow, the EC/Macgregor combo seems a lot more popular than I initially thought :o
Another interesting combination that’s cropping up this year is Next/Random, anyone have thoughts on that?
I have a feeling that the definition of “nerd” differs between East and West Campus as well, but maybe that’s just me..
Visiting east campus was one of the strangest experiences of my life.
I remember last year there was a ’12 who had a McCormick/Random combo, which just confused me.
@ Snively
I actually know someone who had the McCormick/Random combo. She was a perfect fit for random, but her parents forced her to rank McCormick first. She was just hoping she’d get into random and not McCormick. But yeah, a true McCormick/Random combo is kinda weird…
I find there are a lot of weird combos in the summer rankings, because a lot of people don’t have a good sense for the dorms yet.
Haha, yeah, that’s definitely true.
I know someone this year who had a Random/Baker combo – and those were actually his top two choices, he wasn’t just trying to play the system.
Yeah, don’t get that one at all…
@ Anon @ 3:03 AM: That’s kinda a shame, since she has no shot at getting into random. I hear if you basically rank McCormick decently at all, you are likely to get in there. Random is difficult to get into when you rank it first already (I’m in EC, second choice, but that may have been playing the system a wee bit. They both could have been rank #1) And once you are in McCormick, you cannot go into the Adjustment lottery, which sucks too. I think her parents overstepped their boundaries.
This is where I *belong*
When I chain myself to EC after graduation and refuse to move out, you guys can just be all like, “yeah, we saw that coming.”
w00t 3W :D
Just wondering…why is it that the letters capitalised in the title spell out “EAT PUS”?…
Can anybody do a blog entry on New House and Next dorms, please, if possible? I guess that most of the bloggers don’t live in either dorms.
I can’t believe I’m linking to College Confidential, but for those of you planning on proclaiming your undying love of $livingGroup, you should read some of the comments near the bottom.
@ Anonymous on August 2, 2009 11:53 AM
I was a Baker/Bexley/BC combo.