Student Disorganizations

MIT students run an incredible variety of social experiments, also known as Student Groups. These groups offer researchers a splendid opportunity to study the various forms of geekery and nerdiness known to mankind in peak laboratory conditions. These groups create an environment which can be, and often is completely isolated from society at large and they often exhibit tribe-like behavior when accepting new members of partaking in any other such ritualistic activity. Sociology majors dream about these kinds of things.

As part of the experiment, members are subjected to a wide range of tests, depending on the individual nature of each group. These tests include, but are not limited to math marathons, table-top role playing sessions, bad movie nights and endless games of beer pong. The responses of each test subject is monitored, recorded and uploaded to YouTube. These uploads serve as the basis for the comparison between the group's members' responses and are often enjoyed by all. I mean, who wouldn't enjoy watching a video titled "Crazy thing Ben did last night at the beer pong tournament"?

However, this is all a very well kept secret (shh... you never heard it from me!), so rest assured that as an MIT student, you'll hardly notice the people in the lab coats hanging back at every social function and pointing strange devices at random people. Don't approach them, though. You may end up thinking you're a chicken if you get too close to their strange apparatus. Plus, they're really boring people.

You may be happy to note that as a lab rat, your isolated testing environment may not be all that bad for you. The groups are very varied and you will likely enjoy your contribution to science too much to care about the whole 'man behind the curtain' thing.

For instance, whether you are Christian, Jewish, Islamic or Pastafarian, MIT has a group for you. They also have lots of ethnicity based groups, so even if you're originally from Andorra, or Intercourse in Pennsylvania, you'll always find a few more folk from your home town to hang with. There are also the Greek life societies, which endorse both toga parties in December and funny names involving a lot of mathematical symbols that are often mistakenly related to the language of dead Greeks.

All of this is in addition to groups such as a the MIT newspaper, the MIT marching band, an MIT World of Warcraft guild and the billion and one other organizations that have sprouted up over the years.

Oh, and the secret societies, of course. They're the ones who run the experiments, and they do a lot of other cool things besides. If you want to know more about these secret societies and how to join them, meet the man in the black jeans and red bandana at the entrance to 3rd East. The password is "goldfish". Don't tell anybody I told you! Shhh!