MIT Exchange - Carl Tilbury

'I applied for the MIT exchange because I valued the opportunity to study abroad for a year.  I especially think it’s a great change of scene if you’re on a 4 year course (I was Chemical Engineering).  Boston is an awesome city to live in – it’s much more of a city than Cambridge and is full of college students with the huge number of Universities around and there’s a large amount of inter-college mingling.  The sports scene is huge as well, with basketball, ice hockey, American football, baseball and lacrosse all having great teams in Boston.  I went to see each of these live and you can almost always catch a game on TV in the evenings.

MIT itself has quite a different system to Cambridge.  There’s continuous assessment throughout the year, meaning no exam term, but a more spread out stress level over the huge 12 week semesters.  There are many more undergraduate research opportunities, and the careers fairs are excellent – you submit an online resume beforehand and can receive interview offers on that alone.  The sports facilities are unbelievable as well – all weather turf fields, indoor running tracks / ice rinks, huge gyms and Olympic swimming pools.  If you play for an MIT varsity team you also get access to their sports medicine trainers.  I played on their lacrosse team and coming from the Cambridge team the facilities were a huge step up, which helps a lot in developing your game!

There are options to live in fraternities (for guys), dorms or independent houses.  I lived in a frat and it was an incredible way to sample American culture.  Our house was effectively a mansion for 25 people in Boston’s Back Bay along the river Charles, with incredible facilities as well.  Everybody was really friendly to all of us from Cambridge and we spent a lot of time around other fraternities that also had Cambridge students staying.

The exchange has just entered its 10 year, so it’s well established with around 20-25 students going each year.  The coordinators have dealt with almost everything before and can give loads of advice or support with any issues or questions you have.  There are also multiple online resources where you can really get into the details about all aspects of your year at MIT.'

  - Carl Tilbury, Chemical Engineering (in Boston 2009-2010)