French House is a group of ~35 undergraduate students at MIT that live together within New House. One of four cultural houses, French House is a community with shared interest in French language and culture. Additionally, a special part of our living group is our immense interest in cooking and baking. For many of us, French House has become a home away from home. For more information, feel free to watch our i3 video or reach out to us directly by email!
On a typical weeknight, you can find plenty of LMF residents hanging out in the kitchen after dinner or studying in the quiet lounge. You might see someone experimenting with a new recipe in the kitchen, or a group of us devising everyone's placement on the newest whiteboard chart (we've had everything from MBTI types to what you'd wear to career fair). Saturday is the only day we don't cook as a house, but you'll often find groups of us going grocery shopping and making meals together anyway.
During the week our quiet lounge is usually host to different pset groups, but on the weekend you'll find us holding movie nights, singing karaoke, or just catching up. We do lots of activities as a house, including sailing, skating at MIT's ice rink, and watching performances that other members of the house are participating in (a capella, dance, piano, etc.) We regularly go to concerts, the BSO, and movies together. If there's something you want to do, you can always find someone in the house to go with you!
We're a very tight-knit community and many of us have found our best friends at MIT in the house. We also love cooking for each other -- we "surprise" every house member with cake on their birthday, and those of us that are free cook breakfast for house members with early morning exams during finals week.
We have events at least three times a year. Every October, we TRY to watch all of the Halloweentown movies but we at least succeed in hosting an annual Halloween Party. We finish out the fall semester with our annual Secret Santa and semi-formal, Dîner de Noël. At the end of the Spring semester, we say goodbye to our seniors at Senior Brunch, a lovely event which includes gifts, speeches (toasts and roasts), and plenty of baking. Our social chairs also organize events for the house at least once a month (apple picking, karaoke, snack nights, etc.), and our Resident Peer Mentor holds events regularly for the freshmen to come and chat.
We love to keep in touch with our alumni and invite them to Dîner every year. Alumni that remain in the greater Boston area continue to visit French House even after they graduate.
We have dinner together as a house Sunday-Friday. Each member of French House is assigned to a 5-6 person cookteam and cooks one day per week. The typical time commitment is 4-7 PM (which includes time for eating!). Each week, one member of each cookteam is responsible for "cheffing," or providing the set of recipes their cookteam will prepare. Cooking with the house is a really fun way to experiment with new dishes, or share a taste of home with the rest of the house. As you might imagine, spending 3 hours a week cooking with other people is a great way to get to know other members of the house, and sharing a homemade meal with the rest of the house is the perfect way to end the day.