Setting up & preparing for campus life

2024 incoming graduate students: While this page provides helpful information on setting up your access to an MIT Kerberos email account to access Canvas, your primary source of Orientation material should be the Canvas module “2024 Grad Student Orientation.”

This website has indexed that material for easy reference.

ID cards, accounts, certificates

Departments will notify incoming students once they are eligible to create an MIT Kerberos email account. Further instructions about creating an account can be found online at ist.mit.edu/accounts.

At MIT, installed web browser certificates as well as two-factor authentication called Duo are required to access all secure websites. Immediately after you have created your MIT Kerberos account, you should register for Duo. After you have registered for Duo, you will be able to install browser certificates that will grant you access to many secure sites, such as Housing. Further information about each of these steps can be found at ist.mit.edu/students.

For information on receiving your ID card, check your Atlas app’s onboarding tile.

Housing

Watch a Graduate Housing webinar for up-to-date information.

Required courses

MIT is committed to working with all students to create a healthy and vibrant campus community, and to advancing a respectful and caring community that embraces diversity, equity and inclusion and empowers everyone to learn and do their best.

One aspect of these efforts are the following required courses, which incoming graduate students must complete:

  1. Sexual Assault Prevention – Grad Pt. 1
  2. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: Student Pt. 1

Health insurance and MIT Health

Visit the MIT Health admitted students page for facts and resources to know.

Info for incoming international students

To gain essential information as an incoming international student, watch the webinar recording from the International Students Office (ISO).

International students are also invited to visit the Office of Graduate Education’s international students page for their homebase on this public-facing website.

Download the MIT academic calendar for important dates

Prepare your calendar automatically with the graduate student-specific academic calendar from the Registrar’s Office. You can check the calendar online or download a file to import into your preferred digital calendar platform.