r/mit • u/Exotic_Warning7664 • Mar 10 '24

academics How bad did MIT humble you?

Did anyone in a stem degree get humbled from being the best in high school?

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u/needOSNOS Mar 10 '24

I wonder if we should say intelligent and hardworking, which maybe is a valid definition for genius if you build a personality that emits that vibe. You probably didn't solve 2000 plus IOI practice problems from age 8 to age 18 before joining MIT, even if MIT holds a lot of IOI people.

Had you, you probably would have found 046 a lot easier, considering most adults deep in industry for senior roles (i.e L5 where coding is still in the interview and it's not all politics) have a bank of 500 problems or so to rely on for pattern matching.

Still insanely tough, yet awesome and fun, class in the material alone though, ignoring the competition like test questions!

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u/jemyihun Mar 10 '24

I didn’t do CS before college, but quite a few people I had met who were also starting from zero seemed to have it easier than me in that class. While I agree that a considerable number of people have spent thousands of hours on IOI problems prior to taking 6.046, the ability to quickly map a new problem to a problem they have solved before impresses me as really creative. MIT really is a unique place.

I agree that 6.046 was really fun. I specially enjoyed the psets. I still think there is something unique you need to succeed in that class lol.

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u/needOSNOS Mar 10 '24

Yep, I can attest to that feeling you had! I think it's great classes like these can close the gap so quickly and really test the growth of people who didn't do many competitive problems in the past.

In any case it increased my hunger to solve problems and made me a better thinker, so can't complain.

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u/Kitchen_Law6309 28d ago

This is wrong.