Schools

School of Architecture + Planning

The School of Architecture + Planning (SA+P) enrolls about 650 students a year from all corners of the world in an array of courses, from Renaissance architecture to the cities of tomorrow, and to digital fabrication, motion graphics, shape grammars, photography, and construction finance. Design is the unifying theme of all our activities. Through the design of physical spaces, and through the design of policies and technologies that shape how those spaces are used, we aim to sustain and enhance the quality of the human environment at all scales, from the personal to the global. We believe that design and policy interventions should be grounded in a commitment to improving individual human lives, equity and social justice, cultural enrichment, and the responsible use of resources through creative problem-solving and project execution.

School of Engineering

The School of Engineering believes in the future. Everything is changing, and the people making these changes are engineers: we make things, and we make things better. MIT’s strategy for addressing global challenges—improving systems and tools for generating energy, protecting our fragile environment, protecting us from disease—is to approach them on their own terms. By welcoming the widest range of knowledge, experience, and expertise under a single intellectual roof, our faculty, researchers, and students attack problems—and solve them—on the grandest scale.

Founded in 1861, the School of Engineering has a proud history of influencing the world through technological leadership and research innovation. We educate about 60% of MIT’s undergraduates and 44% of our graduate students. Just over a third of MIT’s faculty are in the School’s nine academic departments and divisions.

School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences

Generating solutions for the great challenges of our age requires both advanced technical and scientific knowledge and a deep understanding of the world’s human complexities. The School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (SHASS) researches and advances the cultural, political, and economic dimensions of innovation — the broad range of human realities, from deeply-felt cultural traditions to building codes to political tensions, in which science and technology issues are embedded.

The SHASS research and education portfolio includes international studies, economics, history, global poverty relief, languages, music and theater, political science, security studies, literature, linguistics and philosophy, anthropology, science writing, and new media.

SHASS teaches every MIT undergraduate, empowering students with cultural and historical perspectives, and critical thinking and communication skills, to help them serve the world wisely and well. The School’s seven graduate programs are recognized as among the finest in the world. SHASS also has a central role in international education at MIT, and in preparing students for leadership. Through the MIT International Science and Technology Initiatives (MISTI), the School’s applied international education program, MIT students learn how to work, collaborate, and thrive in cultures around the globe.

MIT Sloan School of Management

The MIT Sloan School of Management is one of the world’s leading business schools—conducting cutting-edge research and providing management education to top students from more than 60 countries. MIT Sloan’s mission is to develop principled, innovative leaders who improve the world, and to generate ideas that advance management practice. To accomplish this, the School:

• Offers premier programs for shaping leaders who will create, redefine, and build cutting-edge products, services, markets, and organizations;
• Collaborates across MIT to capitalize on and contribute to the Institute’s distinctive intellectual excellence and entrepreneurial culture;
• Attracts, develops, and retains outstanding faculty and staff who lead the world in management education and research;
• Enrolls students with integrity, strong leadership potential, high aspirations, and exceptional intellectual ability; and
• Fosters a cooperative and adventurous learning community that includes alumni and business partners; works on important problems; and is based on mutual respect, rigorous analysis, and high ethical standards.

School of Science

The School of Science is an amazing enterprise. With approximately 300 faculty members, 1,200 graduate students, 1,000 undergraduate majors and similarly large numbers of postdoctoral researchers and research staff, it is large enough to carry out research at the frontiers in every field of science. Our faculty members have won 16 Nobel Prizes and our alumni have won 16 Nobel Prizes, most within the past 20 years. The six departments in the School are consistently rated among the best in the world.