Get to know fellow first-years and Greater Boston while exploring social and environmental challenges impacting local communities and beyond!
ACE is an engaging, action-oriented, and service-focused introduction to MIT and surrounding communities. Additional details about signing up for ACE as your First-year Pre-Orientation Program can be found below!
How ACE works
ACE is a five-day celebration of community engagement and urban exploration. It’s a chance to collaborate with other first-year students on projects that help strengthen our neighborhood; participate in activities and discussions that delve into social issues such as inequality, privilege, and food insecurity; and develop valuable friendships while discovering local resources that will support you during the school year and beyond.
ACE is coordinated and led by older MIT students (often ACE alumni) who plan and train throughout the spring and summer to be coordinators and counselors. Hear directly from this year’s ACE Counselors in their recent blog post here!
Past ACE cohorts have engaged in:
Community
- Sorting food donations at the Greater Boston Food Bank
- Organizing school supplies for an educational organization
- Collaborating with community health and art centers
Exploration
- Engaging in activities that explore hunger, gender, and cultural issues
- Learning from locals about the social issues facing our community
- Getting the inside scoop on acclimating and thriving at MIT from a team of student counselors
Fun!
- Touring Cambridge and Boston’s diverse, culturally-rich neighborhoods
- Eating froyo, hanging out, and watching movies together
Applications are currently closed. Learn more by visiting the Office of the First Year here!
** We look forward to connecting students to in-person experiences. If we need to adapt programming due to community partner capacity or other emergent circumstances, we will communicate that to all participants.
