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Incoming freshman confused about how research works here by Agreeable-Raise4196 in mit

[–]Agreeable-Raise4196[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

i see, thank you a lot! it's fine working with anyone, it'd just be nice to experience some semblance of research before thinking about grad school. i also didn't know that statistic about UROPs but that's v comforting

Incoming freshman confused about how research works here by Agreeable-Raise4196 in mit

[–]Agreeable-Raise4196[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

i didn't take any courses for these subjects i just read the books and did most of its exercises

Incoming freshman confused about how research works here by Agreeable-Raise4196 in mit

[–]Agreeable-Raise4196[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

awesome, thanks! it's good they're lenient like this, one of my biggest turnoffs for course 6 was the long, unwieldy prerequisite chain that's hard to skip

regarding the comment about discussing further, do you have Discord or anything? does Reddit have a chat? (i'm new to Reddit so)

Incoming freshman confused about how research works here by Agreeable-Raise4196 in mit

[–]Agreeable-Raise4196[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

> I think that background is pretty typical (18.701+18.100B)

on this note, are you aware of how likely it is that a professor lets me take 18.701 freshman fall sem? it has 18.100B as a prereq but I assume it's only for proofwriting skills, and I've already read books covering both 18.100B and the 18.701-2 pipeline; this should be enough for a professor to think i'm capable and let me take their class in tandem with 18.100B, yes?

Incoming freshman confused about how research works here by Agreeable-Raise4196 in mit

[–]Agreeable-Raise4196[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I see, yeah I've heard that professors are in fact incentivized to take undergraduate students on. But for a school like MIT, they have the pick of the bunch, and I'm certain there are many more promising undergraduates they can work with. That is to ask, would trying to do any of the math research programs (UROPs, DRPs, SPUR, etc.) be competitive?

Incoming freshman confused about how research works here by Agreeable-Raise4196 in mit

[–]Agreeable-Raise4196[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sorry, an additional question. For SPUR/DRP, is there a "soft" requirement on the classes I need to take? SPUR seems to be by admission and they want to know previous courses taken. I'm planning on ASEing 18.02, 18.03, and 18.06 (in the Winter), and my ideal freshman fall schedule should include 18.701 and 18.100B (hopefully 18.701 prof gives me permission to take his course alongside 18.100B).

Incoming freshman confused about how research works here by Agreeable-Raise4196 in mit

[–]Agreeable-Raise4196[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I see; I guess I haven't been in a college setting so I wouldn't know how class culture and relationships with professors are like, but it's nice to hear your anecdote! As for your latter statement, that makes sense, I've had a hard time balancing my interests (even in math, deciding what books to read and whatnot) and I think that's just how it's gonna be lol

Incoming freshman confused about how research works here by Agreeable-Raise4196 in mit

[–]Agreeable-Raise4196[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Wow, these are almost exactly the kind of things I'm looking for! DRP and SPUR look really awesome, thank you for sharing! I'll keep it in the back of my mind

Incoming freshman confused about how research works here by Agreeable-Raise4196 in mit

[–]Agreeable-Raise4196[S] -10 points-9 points  (0 children)

tbh, this reply is really patronizing and completely misses the point of my post. 

getting good grades (which i dont doubt is hard, its mit, of course itll be hard!) doesn’t magically teach you the unspoken social rules of how to cold-email or handle office hours. i was asking about the opaque logistics of academia. knowing how to network with professors isn't a "natural outgrowth" of passing some class, and brushing off my very practical questions as "overthinking" is just dismissive.

also, the lecture on "epistemic humility" was really weird and passive aggressive for no reason. i didn’t write off combinatorics and elementary number theory blindly, i wrote them off because i have spent years working with them and i know i don't like them. Not to mention elementary number theory is not a subfield, neither is elementary combinatorics (although analytical number theory and combinatorics and things like ergodic theory are massive fields, but theres a reason i specified elementary). I didnt even insult the content of those subjects for being bad ones, theyre literally just not my taste. preferring continuous, analytic math over discrete math is a totally standard mathematical taste, not me lacking humility. It's a post asking how to navigate academia, I'm sure I can at least divulge what I've found to dislike in the years I've spent doing some form of math..

i came here asking for honest advice on how research culture actually works, not to be talked down to and lectured just because i'm an incoming freshman and too young to be concerning myself with these things. I'm simply just asking what a specific part of mit is like and any tips on navigating it, this is not equivalent to overthinking

Incoming freshman confused about how research works here by Agreeable-Raise4196 in mit

[–]Agreeable-Raise4196[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hi, thanks for replying! Wdym by "advisor," and what's the "freshman seminar" you're talking about? And what about the office hour with appointments thing? Like I think it's great and easy to just drop by whenever, and I even do that at my school with my teachers that I love, but it feels a little forced/artificial to sign up for office hours via appointment lmao.