Traditions and student activities at MIT

Did You Know?

• MIT students often refer to majors and classes by numbers alone; for example, Civil and Environmental Engineering is 'Course one' and Electrical Engineering and Computer Science is 'Course six'.
• The term 'hacking' at MIT can refer to practical jokes or pranks installed anonymously at night, as well as exploring rooftops, steam tunnels, and utility shafts.
• The annual MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition has supported the creation of at least 60 companies worth a combined $10.5 billion since it started in 1990.

Recurring events

Between the parallel wings of the East Campus dormitories, an event held during the last weekend of January features oddball activities, stunts, and constructions; past iterations have included temporary roller coasters and the Green Building Challenge. Each spring, residents of Baker House drop an irreparable piano off the roof to fall six stories onto the ground, celebrating Drop Date—the final day to withdraw from classes at MIT. The dent left in the asphalt has inspired a unit of volume called the Bruno. Campus Preview Weekend, sponsored by the Admissions Office, invites recently admitted high school students to visit before deciding whether to enroll; the first fully inclusive event occurred in 1999, and the 2013 edition was held in early to mid April. During Orientation Week before the fall term, East Campus residents build large-scale temporary structures—such as a roller coaster—in the space between the dormitory's parallel wings; the City of Cambridge requires detailed engineering drawings and a letter from a licensed engineer certifying code compliance. Independent Activities Period (IAP) is a four-week term in January offering hundreds of optional classes, lectures, and demonstrations; it concludes with a half-day Charm School sponsored by the Student Activities Office, and the first IAP was held in 1971. Dance (previously Drink) Till You Drop (DTYD) is an annual party hosted by the Burton 3rd Bombers of Burton-Conner, typically held on the Sunday of Patriot's Day weekend in the Burton-Conner House Porter Room; first hosted in 1969, it celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2019. The Brass Rat undergraduate ring is designed and presented during the sophomore year; the design is unveiled at the Ring Premiere in the fall, followed by the Ring Delivery in the spring, a formal occasion often held off campus that has been a tradition since 1999.

Non-recurring and sporadic events

A so-called annual event is generally not scheduled in advance but occurs spontaneously in the spring after the MIT administration announces the tuition increase for the following year. The riot typically consists of a noisy protest march across campus with chants of "$$$ is Too Damn Much!" where the dollar amount is replaced by the newly announced tuition. Participants release steam in a good-natured manner, and injuries or property damage are very rare; the tradition has died out and been revived several times. From the 1970s until the early 1990s, student-led projects designed, built, and flew human-powered aircraft (HPA), beginning with BURD and BURD II and culminating in the Chrysalis, which first flew in 1979 and became the first MIT HPA to succeed. Chrysalis later had over 44 pilots, including the first female pilots of an HPA. The Monarch A, built and flown by a student team in 1983, aimed to win a £20,000 Kremer Prize for sustaining a speed over 30 km/h on a 1.5 km triangular course; a modified version, the Monarch B, won the prize the following year. These aircraft were precursors to the Daedalus, which flew under human power from Crete to Santorini in 1988. In 2012, MIT students produced "MIT Gangnam Style," a parody of the viral music video featuring hundreds of students dancing across dozens of extracurricular activities, with cameo appearances by professors Donald Sadoway, Eric Lander, and Noam Chomsky. The Sodium Drop traditionally involved throwing a bar of metallic sodium into the Charles River, causing loud explosions from the rapid exothermic reaction; it occurred sporadically, initiated by impromptu groups from various dorms and fraternities.

Activities

MIT has over 380 recognized student activity groups, mostly governed by the MIT Association of Student Activities. The MIT Educational Studies Program (ESP), created by students in 1957, shares MIT's knowledge with local high school students; its programs now support well over 3,000 students each year, with classes taught by undergraduates, graduate students, alumni, and community members. ESP pioneered Splash, a large short-term academic outreach program involving over two thousand teachers and five hundred classes, attracting students from beyond the Boston area. In 2007, ESP alumni founded Learning Unlimited (LU), a nonprofit that supports similar educational opportunities at universities across the United States and beyond; as of 2020, there are over thirty LU-affiliated programs in the U.S. and one in the United Kingdom. The Lecture Series Committee (LSC) organizes weekly film screenings and lectures by prominent speakers.

Performing arts

The Asymptones, founded in 2007, are MIT's lowest time-commitment a cappella group, performing regular concerts with the improv comedy group Roadkill Buffet and focusing on parodies and meme-based songs. The Chorallaries of MIT, founded in the winter of 1976–77, are the first co-ed a cappella group at the institute, composed of undergraduates, graduates, and occasionally faculty. They give several free public concerts on campus each year and perform at on-campus events as well as off-campus venues. As keepers of the MIT alma mater ("Arise All Ye of MIT"), they sing at Freshman Convocation in September and at Commencement in June. Their signature song is the Engineer's Drinking Song. The Chorallaries compete in the International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella every three years, winning quarter-finals in 2000, 2003, and 2006, and semi-finals in 1996 and 2006. Their album "Stereophony" (2010) included the track "Hot Air Balloon," featured on Voices Only 2010 and Best of College A Cappella 2011. The group has produced 15 albums, including "Seeing Red" (2019), "Dischord" (2017), and earlier releases such as "Take Me Back to Tech" (19??). They are known for their humor and creativity, culminating in "The Nth Annual Concert in Bad Taste."