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  • Discover / Life and culture

    The MIT community

    Ask anyone at MIT what their favorite thing is about the Institute and they’ll probably say “the people.” The quality of the MIT community is the single biggest reason why…
  • Discover / Life and culture

    Eating at MIT

    You can choose to join a conventional meal plan with access to dining halls, or cook for yourself (and often, your friends) in a community setting. Everyone prefers to eat…
  • Discover / Life and culture

    Housing at MIT

    Housing is a very important part of undergraduate life at MIT. You choose where you live, and each living group is a community with its own distinct culture and traditions.…
  • Discover / The MIT education

    The first year

    During the first year at MIT, you will explore your interests by choosing among a variety of ways to complete core subjects and prepare for further undergraduate study. Academic exploration…
  • Discover / The MIT education

    Global education

    A majority of MIT students travel to study, research, work, and perform service around the world. As an MIT student, you can expect to have at least one international experience with…
  • Discover / The MIT education

    Cross-registration

    In addition to the thousands of courses already offered by the Institute, you can cross-register for no additional cost at Harvard, Wellesley, and MassArt. We believe that MIT students should…
  • Discover / The MIT education

    Maker education

    MIT’s dozens of makerspaces, dedicated hands-on classes, and experiential programs give you training in modern means of manufacture: what has come to be called a “maker education.” Our motto The…
  • Discover / The MIT education

    Undergraduate research

    One of the earliest programs of its kind in the United States, the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP) supports thousands of projects each year with 95% of MIT graduating seniors…
  • Discover / The MIT education

    Majors & minors

    At MIT, majors are conventionally called courses, and they’re numbered rather than named; meanwhile, our credits are called units and they’re counted differently than at most other universities. The terminology…
  • Discover / The MIT education

    General Institute Requirements

    General Institute Requirements (GIRs) are MIT’s core curriculum and foundation for the rest of your education. William Barton Rogers, MIT’s founding president, once wrote that “the abstract studies…of the philosopher…
  • Discover / The MIT education

    MIT’s educational philosophy

    MIT believes the best education occurs when students are self-motivated and engaged participants in a dynamic community of learners. We combine rigorous academics with a learning-by-doing approach. Our guiding principles…
  • Discover / About MIT

    Life after MIT

    As hard as it might be to imagine sometimes, there is life after MIT, as shown by the ~146,000 MIT alumni living around the world. Here are some of the…
  • Discover / About MIT

    Inventions & innovations

    For more than 150 years, the Institute has married teaching with engineering and scientific studies—and produced an unending stream of world-changing advancements. These innovations translate the novel discoveries of basic…
  • Discover / About MIT

    A brief history of MIT

    In 1865, the founding of MIT established a new kind of independent educational institution relevant to an increasingly industrialized America. Since then, MIT has built a robust tradition of solving…
  • Discover / About MIT

    Basic facts

    MIT’s primary purposes are teaching and research with relevance to the practical world and transforming society for the better. To that end, we seek the best possible community of scholars…