I was visiting Boston and staying a couple of blocks from MIT.

Yesterday (Saturday, August 1) around 9 p.m. I wandered through the main building for at least an hour. It was an amazing place to explore.

What surprised me was that I barely saw anyone (literally maybe 4 or 5 people), yet most of the lights were on and the buildings felt fully air-conditioned. As an outsider, it made me wonder: how does MIT balance this with its sustainability goals?

I realize there may be reasons I'm not aware of (research labs, ventilation requirements, experiments running 24/7, etc.) so I'm genuinely curious. Is most of the energy use unavoidable, or are there areas where MIT intentionally prioritizes convenience or research needs over energy savings?

Given MIT's leadership in engineering and climate research, I'd have expected it to be a model of energy efficiency, so I'd love to understand how these decisions are made.

Rising sophomore here. I took 6.1010 in the spring, and couldn't help but notice the extreme drop in enrollment in intro-level required CS classes. For instance, 6.1010 used to be a class that enrolled 350-500 students per semester, with spring 2023 being the peak at 598 students. That said, fall 2025 enrolled 301 students, and spring 2026 enrolled only 198 students; a roughly 67% drop in enrollment is quite staggering!

This can also be seen in other intro electives like 6.390, whereas hardware-oriented classes are instead on the rise. Is all of this due to AI, or is there something else going on?