Random Hall
Welcome to Random Hall
About
A Note from Current Residents:
Welcome to Random Hall, just north of campus and home to 93 students, a smattering of helpful adults, and, possibly, you!
We really do mean home.
Random Hall is a community where you'll always be accepted for who you are: any background, any major, any lifestyle, any orientation, any miscellaneous eccentricities. Our community is wide-ranging and spans many interests, identities, and hobbies, but we're all united by a desire to support each other, a willingness to embrace each others' differences, and a nigh-indescribable brand of nerdiness.
This mutual acceptance goes beyond just making Random a welcoming place to live. When everyone respects each others' ideas, one person's ridiculous suggestions, rather than being ignored, might get picked up by everyone else and expanded into something truly unique. You'll often find Randomites spontaneously creating things, having impromptu dance parties or other get-togethers, or just talking late into the night. This explains many things that you might find in Random, from murals and artwork in the hallways, to our 25-year-old milk, to the source of those strange noises and delighted laughter you happen to hear from a nearby staircase.
Random is split into eight floors of 12-14 residents, each with a distinct culture and set of traditions. We're all connected by our common values and several twisting staircases and passages, but your floor is the tight-knit group of people that you'll see every day. All floors welcome visitors from anywhere in Random and we all come together for weekly study breaks and many other events. Full descriptions of the floors are available on our website, or you can ask any Randomite. We love sharing our stories! Some important points, though: one of our floors is for female and non-binary identifying residents only, and two floors allow cats.
Dining Info
Random Hall is a Cook-for-Yourself Community which means a meal plan is not required to live within the building. Some people form cooking groups, but most people cook their own meals. Each floor has a fully-equipped kitchen, with each large fridge being shared among 3 or 4 residents, while each resident has their own personal cabinet space. We have recently started a dorm-wide food delivery service via Peapod. Each week Randomites place their orders and all the groceries are delivered together. Other places for groceries include Target, Harvest and H-mart in Central Square, while Randomites also frequent the nearby restaurants with groups of friends from the dorm. Floor dinners, study breaks, and other food-filled occasions are frequent. For the students who come in not having any idea how to cook, Random is filled with various cookbooks, learn-to-cook events, and helpful upperclassmen.
Residents of the building may still opt to enroll within any meal plan available through MIT Dining. In-house dining areas are located throughout the campus and are open to the entire MIT community. They provide a broad range of diverse and healthy options prepared from fresh quality ingredients. Please see the MIT Dining website for additional details.
Room Assignments
A unique feature of MIT’s residential system is that student Room Assignment Chairs or "RACs" coordinate individual room assignments in each building along with members of their House Team. Each house approaches room assignments a bit differently but all follow these principles:
- New student preferences will be used to make room assignments.
- Upper-level students will not preference or select students to live on their floors/entry/community.
- First-year students may opt out of exploration and required moves.
At the end of REX, Random Hall holds, a floor rush during which first-year students visit each floor, get to know upperclassmen, and learn which rooms are available. After this, first-years rank all the rooms in the dorm and indicate their preferences and restrictions. RACs use this information to assign permanent rooms using an optimization algorithm.
Contact
Random Hall
290 Massachusetts Avenue
Building NW61
Cambridge, MA 02139
Tel. (617) 258-6344
Visit the resident-managed website for more information about Random Hall. Questions about the community may be directed to resident leaders by emailing random-info@mit.edu.
