East Campus
A Dynamic Renovation
East Campus, one of MIT's oldest and most beloved residence halls, will be closed for a two-year renovation project from Summer 2023 until Fall 2025. Please visit the project site linked above for more information.
Welcome to East Campus
About
A Note from Current Residents:
Hey there, potential East Campers! If your idea of a good time includes hair dye, liquid nitrogen, power tools, 2^12 chocolate chip cookies, or 151 pumpkins plummeting from the Green building, then oh boy, I have just the place for you.
East Campus is a community of ten halls with ten distinct cultures united by our desire to make our home and our experience at MIT exactly what we want it to be. For some people, this means taking advantage of our fully customizable building: we can build loft beds, and paint the walls (and the ceilings!). For others that means owning a cat, or a fish, or a “fish”. Or it could mean cooking for yourself, or your friends, or all of East Campus. Or it could mean staying up late playing Smash, or dancing to crazy techno music, or spending a lazy Sunday afternoon rappelling from the trees in our lovely courtyard.
Some of us are loud, some are quiet. Some like building rollercoasters, and others like talking about philosophy late into the night. Some of us have shaved heads and pierced faces, and some of us look almost nice enough to take home to Mom and Dad! But all of us are bound together by our desire for autonomy, community, and freedom to express ourselves in whatever way we see fit.
Our Head of House Sandy Alexandre is pretty great and keeps us grounded, sometimes even providing free food during times of stress. If your parents are concerned that we are all morally corrupted and/or lawless hippies, have them talk to Sandy. Or any upperclassman, really. We can help you out.
Our dorm is closed for renovations, and will be reopening in fall 2025, when we’ll have swanky new features like an elevator! And air conditioning! But never fear, even without our beloved building, our community is as strong as ever, and we’d love to have you hang out with us. If you are drawn in by the smell of burgers wafting from the courtyard and the idea of a vibrant community full of colorful people, we might be just what you are looking for.
P.S. If you are intrigued by EC but you’ve never yelled from a balcony, or you don’t know how to use a power drill, or you are unsure of your opinions on cults (ironic or otherwise), we would love to have you here. Everyone here is different and our diversity is one of the things that makes us great. Stop by and chat – we’re a friendly bunch, even if some of us do look a little scary on the outside. Plus, most of us came to MIT fresh-faced and inexperienced in the ways of casual anarchy, just like you. And whichever of our traditions, either hardk0r3 or low-key, you decide you’re interested in, there will always be someone here excited to teach you about it.
Dining Info
East Campus is a cook-for-yourself residence hall; residents are not required to be on the meal plan. If your heart still yearns for MIT dining hall food, you can opt into the meal plan anyway, but we’re a tad far from the campus dining halls—if only for the sake of walking fewer steps per day, consider learning how to cook.
“Cook” has a flexible definition. At the very least, you can learn how to pour hot water over ramen or microwave dinosaur chicken nuggets. Should you be more ambitious, each of our 10 halls has a large, shared kitchen with three stovetops/ovens, three sinks, and at least three large refrigerators. Some halls have co-ops or cooking groups that take turns making dinner for each other. And as with anything else in EC: if you want to learn more, just ask.
(If the thought of cooking still offends you, not to worry--we’re a couple cartwheels away from Kendall Square, which has more than enough places to eat.)
As noted above, residents of East Campus may still opt to enroll within any meal plan available through MIT Dining. In-house dining areas are located throughout the campus and are open to the entire MIT community. They provide a broad range of diverse and healthy options prepared from fresh quality ingredients. Please see the MIT Dining website for additional details.
Room Assignments
A unique feature of MIT’s residential system is that student Room Assignment Chairs or "RACs" coordinate individual room assignments in each building along with members of their House Team. Each house approaches room assignments a bit differently but all follow these principles:
- New student preferences will be used to make room assignments.
- Upper-level students will not preference or select students to live on their floors/entry/community.
- First-year students may opt out of exploration and are not required to move.
New residents go through Hall Rush, where they explore the unique personalities, cultures, and traditions of each of East Campus’s ten halls over the course of an evening. At the end of the night, new residents rank all ten halls and receive room assignments the next morning.
First-years may opt out by going to Talbot Lounge during Hall Exploration to talk to the EC Exec and House Teams.
Contact
East Campus
Building 62 and Building 64
3 Ames Street
Cambridge, MA 02139
Tel. (617) 253-2871
Visit the resident-managed website for more information about East Campus. Questions about the community may be directed to resident leaders by emailing ec-exec@mit.edu.
