Salaries and stipends
MIT strives to offer salaries and stipends that enable students to live and pursue their education in Cambridge and the Greater Boston area. The base salary rates (RA/TA/IG appointments) are established by the collective bargaining agreement (cba) between MIT and the MIT Graduate Student Union. These rates only serve as a guideline to base salary […]
Cost of Attendance
The cost of attendance for graduate students enrolled in degree or special programs of study at MIT consists of both direct costs and estimated living expenses. Like other major cities across the US, the cost of living in Cambridge and the Greater Boston area is high, and it is important to anticipate indirect costs. Living […]
Costs & funding
Many academic departments provide financial support for graduate students, and funding can vary significantly among disciplines. Whether a student receives funding, how much, and what form that financial support takes depends on the degree program to which they apply. These policies and practices will vary from program to program. Applicants are considered for appointments or […]
Certificate & Online Programs
MIT’s commitment to education extends beyond the classroom and includes opportunities to learn online or pursue advanced certificates. As the world of online learning and Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) continues to grow, MIT has provided more opportunities to reach individuals across the world through online platforms. There has also been incredible growth in the […]
Exchange, Special, & Visiting Students
MIT has several different student statuses. Regular graduate students are enrolled in a degree-granting program and must meet a specific set of requirements in order to graduate. Non-degree students may be divided into several different student statuses based on the nature of their study or visit to MIT. These statuses are broken down below. Exchange […]
Degree programs
MIT offers a wide range of degrees and programs. All graduate students, whether or not they are participating in an interdepartmental program, must have a primary affiliation with and be registered in a single department. Every applicant accepted by MIT is admitted through one of the graduate departments. MIT has a number of established interdepartmental […]
International Applicants
The application and admission process for international applicants is the same as for domestic applicants, except for a language requirement. The immigration process itself is addressed by MIT’s International Students Office (ISO) after a formal offer of admission is provided by the admitting department. English Language Proficiency Test Requirement English is the language of instruction […]
Application fee waivers
Requesting an MIT Graduate Admissions application fee waiver NOTE: Emails asking for an application fee waiver do not constitute a formal request and will not be reviewed. MIT Sloan School of Management programs Applicants to the MIT Sloan School of Management should request a fee waiver by contacting the respective program office directly. These graduate […]
Standardized tests
Standardized tests requirements and policies Standardized tests play an important role in the application process. Although applications are reviewed as a whole, the most competitive applicants often attain high test scores on required examinations. Each graduate program has their own policies and requirements regarding standardized tests, however. Please review the specific requirements for the program […]
Summer research programs
MIT offers a variety of summer research opportunities for current undergraduate students interested in enhancing their education and developing their research skills to become competitive graduate applicants. Below is a selection of programs and research opportunities geared toward undergraduate students. For non-MIT programs, please visit PathwaysToScience.org for a searchable database of 650+ summer research programs in all STEM […]
Prospective student programs
Fall Preview Weekend Programs MIT offers dedicated preview weekends for prospective applicants interested in graduate school. Programs offer exposure to the MIT campus and opportunities to interact with graduate students, staff, and faculty. Preview weekend programs require an application and acceptance in order to attend. MIT ACCESS Program ACCESS is a weekend of educational and […]
Routine in chaos
About a month into my first semester at MIT, I found myself sitting on my couch at 4pm, still in my pajamas I’d been wearing all day, working on a math Problem Set (PSET), with a bag of pretzels as my only meal of the day beside me when I thought: What the heck am […]
PhD parenting in a pandemic
When I first heard about SARS-CoV-2, my wife and I had just flown back to the U.S. from visiting her family in China. She was already in her second trimester of pregnancy and was concerned that the virus might spread to North America. At the time, I didn’t think too much of it. Evidently, her […]
Experimenting with love
As far as bad dates went, this one was catastrophic. My date (we’ll call him “Brad”) was drunk, not just on his own ego, but also quite literally drunk. Though really, this was not my fault, as he had decided to come that way. As the waitress cleared our table, he swiveled around to look […]
Pandemic pupils
Going to graduate school anywhere can be a form of culture shock. Often, the transition is from cosmopolitan to erudite and razor-focused, or team-based and casual to more isolated. But moving to do graduate school in a northeastern city in the U.S. from somewhere more rural, such as southwestern Virginia (where I came from), can […]
When is the best time to start graduate school?
I’ve technically had two “first days” of graduate school. The first one was in September 2012. Fresh out of undergraduate, I arrived that fall semester at MIT – completely burned out. After graduate school applications and a grueling final senior semester, I was running on fumes. I joined a lab that semester in a field […]
Hunting for what we lost
It is a unique feeling to be having such a fantastic time that you make yourself hopelessly, achingly sad. During the Independent Activities Period (IAP) this past January, the annual MIT Mystery Hunt took place, and I competed with my undergraduate team, NES*. For those that don’t know, the MIT Mystery Hunt is a puzzle […]
Mayan, what else?
I was tired. My first semester at MIT was tougher than I had expected. I still have vivid memories of that defining evening of November. I was making my way back home with research ideas spinning in my head and started to feel anxious about the three p-sets I had to finish by week’s end. […]
Launching into the new year
Though I’ve been called a space nerd and a rocket scientist before, I’ve never felt that I never really earned that title. After all, I’ve never witnessed a live rocket launch before—that is until this past MIT’s Independent Activities Period (IAP) in January 2020. After finishing my first term as a Ph.D student at MIT, […]
Getting closer to my “luck”
This is a story about an imperfect person finding her way towards incredible mentors and places. One day, I wish to hear your version of this story. 4 years ago, I was a sophomore in Singapore, studying signal processing and software development. I wasn’t the person I aspired to be – I wanted to be […]
Fostering success
Over the course of the fall semester, places in the US underwent varying stages of lockdown in hopes of slowing the spread of coronavirus. My hometown had some of the most severe lockdown rules, with all nonessential businesses halted for an extended period of time. But for all the personal sacrifices and isolation, my family […]
A food scientist’s views on instant foods
What comes to your mind when you hear the word “instant”? How about “instant foods”? When it comes to food, people tend to relate instantaneity with unhealthy, “bad for you”, or processed. All those associations were also on my mind as a consumer. However, other questions were: Why do people still consume instant foods regularly? What benefits does […]
Join today, plan for tomorrow
Whether it’s IEEE, ASME, AIChE, APS, or a different acronym, you are probably familiar with your field’s specific professional society. I became a member of the American Nuclear Society (ANS) as a college freshman in 2013. Eight years later, serving on the ANS board of directors and working toward a PhD, I credit ANS with […]
Does this make Epstein my boss?
MIT’s Money Mistakes Just as I was starting graduate school at MIT, my pride in coming here was tainted by a national scandal that made me think twice about sporting that MIT hoodie. The arrest of Jeffrey Epstein in July of 2019 may seem like a lifetime ago, considering all the issues we grappled with […]
My musical journey in Boston
An Instrumental Encounter “I am a musician.” I did not expect to hear those words during my lab rotation for the Health Science Technology program. I clearly remember the day. It was a chilly winter afternoon of 2018 at Lansdowne Street in Cambridge when I was introduced to a lab administrator, who showed me around […]
Grad student by day, standup comic by night
According to Psychology.com, Americans fear public speaking more than death. Personally, I’ve never been followed by an unknown man in an alley after dark and thought I bet he’s trying to take me to a convocation. To the contrary, I have always loved making people laugh. Some of earliest memories include imitating my family members, […]
Packing for MIT: Laptop, winter coat, math phobia
When I put my pencil down after muddling through the last particularly hairy integration-by-substitution puzzler on the 2013 AB Calculus AP exam, I felt relieved – both that I had survived the exam, and, more fundamentally, that I’d never have to take a calculus class again. Seven years later, picking up a different pencil to […]
New England-themed reading list
First Impressions I grew up in southwestern China and Singapore, two sweltering hot places on Earth. In 2015, when I graduated from a college in Connecticut not too far from here, I decided that never again would I venture back to the New England climate and promptly moved to California. Well, fast forward to 2020, […]
A journey through time: Voyaging into Boston’s “other” history
When you read the words “Boston” and “history,” what do you think of? For most folks, two events typically come to mind: 1) The Boston Tea Party, or 2) Paul Revere’s Midnight Ride (contrary to popular belief, he never actually shouted “The British are coming!”). Boston is often considered “the birthplace” of the American revolution: […]
This isn’t Canada, eh?
Born and raised in Canada, I wasn’t expecting a big societal change coming to MIT for grad school. In my mind, Canada and the US had essentially the same culture. But in this post, I wanted to share some of my experiences in the US that left me deeply confused. This isn’t going to be […]
Unleashing my inner rockstar
How can we have work-life balance when the “work” part is infinite? This was my excuse for not prioritizing exercise when I came to grad school. In reality, I was drowning in insecurity. I despised every form of exercise while I was growing up. In school, I always had the slowest mile (by far), and […]
COVID-19 elevates incidence of impostor syndrome in 1st year PhD student
“Please have your tracking number or a copy of this email and your MIT ID with you when you come to the Facilities Customer Service Center located in Building 7 Room 019. Keys may be picked up Monday through Friday from 7:00 AM to 3:00 PM excluding MIT holidays.” Great! Today was the day I […]
The silent 50%
Every year, I look forward to the annual Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology (HST) Fall Dinner. Not for the free food, open bar or rare opportunity to dress up (although they surely don’t hurt), but almost exclusively for the company. HST is a unique program that allows PhD, MD and MD-PhD students to take classes […]
![Be the [climate] change you wish to see](https://oge.mit.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/unnamed-file-156.jpg)
Be the [climate] change you wish to see
“What were they thinking?” That’s a common phrase we might say when we shake our heads at past generations for war, genocide, and slavery. As we eat our cheeseburgers in our air-conditioned cars while rolling past carefully manicured and fertilized lawns (otherwise called a climate change crisis), we might not think this phrase may one […]
There is more to MIT than lectures and labs!
I couldn’t have been more excited when I joined MIT in summer 2018 and started with research straight away. I came here thinking that all I could do at MIT is complete the coursework and conduct research because that is what I had done as an undergrad. However, I knew not that something very exciting […]
An unconventional path to MIT
For many of us, MIT has been our dream school since childhood. My personal journey leading to MIT took four years. It was a long time, but worth the wait. Let’s start at the beginning, in the summer of 2013. I had recently obtained my bachelor’s degree, and had decided to take some time off […]
