East/West home is best?

Tonight, a little bit of MIT undergraduate culture.

I was walking home from rehearsal with a Japanese schoolgirl who lives in Random Hall. On the way, she explained to this cruft (actually, I suspect I don't qualify as cruft, although the implication of her use of the term was that I would) a bit about the MIT dorms.

First, I'll explain something about the MIT campus. Imagine you are standing at the top of the stairs at 77 Mass Ave. If you look ENE, you'll be looking in the front door of building 7. This is the first of the main campus buildings. A large fraction of the academic buildings are joined together. If you keep going through 7 along the infinite corridor, you'll get to 10, 4, 6 and 8 (among others: I'm simply mentioning the ones I frequent). Many other buildings lie connected to these in various ways. Scattered within pi/2 radians each side of this are most of the other academic buildings. Now turn around, to face WSW. You'll see a much greener aspect. Across the road, a wide path leads forward between various buildings. These are not teaching buildings, but house such facilities as the student centre, the chapel, the auditorium and sporting facilities. Well to the left, largely out of sight (I believe: I've never really taken much notice of them) are most of the undergrad dorms. This whole area is known as west campus, while the academic buildings fill the main campus.

There are also some undergrad dorms at the eastern end of the main campus. These are known as East Campus (even though they're on the western side of Ames Street, and hence on the main rather than the east campus).

Now my fellow chorus singer was telling me that East Campus students are the interesting ones at MIT: those who give it its reputation as a hackers' paradise. I won't repeat all the stereotypes, just mention that these are the people to whom they really do apply. Apparently there are a few pockets of west campus residents who fall into the same categories. She lives in Random Hall, which is just a couple of blocks from SP, and is officially northwest. Its residents feel that they belong with East Campus in this east/west divide. Meanwhile, most of the west campus residents are more 'normal', or as she put it "normal for MIT: they're still really interesting and fun to hang out with".

So it seems MIT students really identify with their dorm's culture. I think that's a very good thing, and MIT does a lot to support it. At the beginning of this semester I saw the undergrads going through REX: residence exploration. This was their time to find their niche, and choose where and with whom they'll be living for the next year (or more). It's another piece of evidence in my view that MIT would be an even better place to study as an undergrad than it is for us grads.