MIT is as unusual as the stereotypes make it out to be - geeks who spend most of their waking lives buried in seeking solutions for esoteric problems. Minimal social interaction, maximum obfuscation -- calling buildings by number instead of name, pride in UNIX being the official OS on campus, I.M. Pei buildings that were brilliantly conceived in theory but structurally unsound in real life. It is similar to Duke in some ways. Aramark caters (yuk) and administrators are heavy-handed on controlling certain aspects of social life *coughalcoholcough*.

Kevin Bong, old classmate from 4I, took the time to show me around. He seems to be doing alright, though I guess that it's very much an issue of personality matching. I.e., if you want to learn something, if you want to make an erudite discovery (and be one of three people in the world to understand it), go to MIT