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!
Most nights of the week you can find plenty of LMF residents hanging out in the kitchen after dinner or studying in the quiet lounge. On a typical day you might see someone experimenting with a new recipe in the kitchen, or a group of freshmen & sophomores devising everyone's placement on the newest whiteboard chart (we've had everything from D&D alignments to what your zoom background would be). Saturday is the only day we don't cook as a house, so you're likely to find people cooking in the kitchen with friends from other dorms, or groups playing any number of board & card games (we ❤️ Hanabi, Codenames, and Dutch Blitz, but we're always looking to try new games!).
During the week our quiet lounge is usually host to different pset groups, but on the weekend you'll find us watching episodes of our latest show (previously Avatar the Last Airbender & the Marvelous Mrs. Maisel) or holding movie nights. Once a week we get together to eat fancy cheeses, drink various beverages, and chat for a couple of hours to catch up on life. We often go out together to concerts, the ballet, or to see movies at the AMC in Boston Common. If there's something you want to do, you can probably find someone in the house to go with you!
We have a strong house culture of cooking and baking in the kitchen. We have quite a few coffee and tea enthusiasts in the house. Despite having a large concentration of 6-1s, many of our residents share interests in creative endeavors such as drawing, writing, music, dance, and so on.
We have events at least four times a year. After orientation, we take a trip to George's Island or the Arboretum to welcome our new freshmen to the house. In October we TRY to watch all of the Halloweentown movies but we at least succeed in hosting an annual Halloween Party. Finally, we finish the semester with our semi-formal, Dîner de Noël, in December. 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 (including picnics, ice skating, 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 Diner 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 and brunch on Sunday mornings. Each member of French House is assigned to a 5-6 person cookteam and cooks one day per week. The typical time commitment is 4-7pm, or 10-1pm for brunch (which includes time for eating!). Cooking with the house is a great 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 a really great way to end the day.