Concourse was founded jointly in 1970 by members of the Schools of Engineering, Science, and Humanities and Social Science and made a regular part of the MIT curriculum in 1975. Concourse is currently overseen by the Office of the Dean for Undergraduate Education. Its purpose is to present the freshman curriculum in as unified a manner as possible in an intimate environment. Our dedicated and talented faculty, as well as our small class size, serve to create student-faculty and student-student ties that are far stronger than those that occur in the regular curriculum. Concourse has all the advantages of a small school while not isolating you or sacrificing the advantages of a large institution.
Historically, Concourse has offered a very successful base in the Institute Requirements and is excellent preparation for entrance into any department at MIT during the sophomore year. The Concourse science core is unique in that it will maximize your freedom of choice of major field. The stress on fundamentals in the regular course work and their development in Concourse assures Concourse students a level of preparation in the Institute Requirements that has led to the past successes of Concourse alumni and alumnae. The substance and the diversity of Concourse provide an excellent introduction to upper-class majors.
In any undergraduate environment you should learn a lot from your classmates. This process will be much more focused and effective in the friendly, supportive environment of Concourse. The process will go on during classroom breaks and in the lounge, simply because your classmates will be much more familiar to you than in a mainstream setting. In addition, a relatively large number (typically 12 in a single year) of undergraduate Concourse alumni and alumnae are involved in a more formal way, as tutors, graders, and in exceptional circumstances as recitation instructors. Such teaching activities are accompanied by academic credit (SP.315 and SP.316 in the MIT Bulletin) or by payment, and resemble in many ways the UROP program for undergraduate research. These activities are both demanding and very rewarding, as is typical of the rest of the program.