Survey: Students, though stressed, are glad to be at MIT
Survey: Students, though stressed, are glad to be at MIT
Results from the Student Quality of Life Survey are now available online. In early March 2013, Chancellor Eric Grimson PhD ’80 invited all students enrolled at MIT to participate. Over 54 percent of the graduate and undergraduate population responded to at least part of the survey before it closed on April 3, 2013.
90 percent of respondents reported being somewhat or very satisfied with being a student at MIT, and almost 82 percent said they would choose to come to MIT if they could decide all over again.
Students were also asked to describe the atmosphere at MIT across 13 dimensions. For each dimension, the survey provided a pair of words and students ranked MIT’s climate on a six point scale. For most word pairings, students were more likely to select positive words over negative words, such as “Exhilarating” over “Boring,” and “Friendly” over “Hostile.” However students were also much more likely to select “Stressful” over “Calm” — 87 percent of students chose 1, 2, or 3, on a scale of Stressful(1) to Calm(6).
When asked how many of the past seven days students got enough sleep, 34 percent of graduate students and 42 percent of undergraduates reported that they felt well-rested fewer than three days per week. Nearly 50 percent of all respondents said they felt exhausted (not as a result of physical activity) four days or more over the past week.
Visit http://web.mit.edu/ir/surveys/sql.html to find more survey highlights or a complete summary of the survey results.
—Stephanie Holden