Community & Belonging
Graduate Education at MIT: Mens et Manus
Our educational approach, reflected in the MIT motto Mens et Manus, engages graduate students directly in the process of innovation — hands-on work, often carried out in research groups, that requires creativity as well as camaraderie. Our graduate students’ success depends on their exposure to many viewpoints and their ability to trust peers to provide both support and criticism. Moreover, the experience of working with a range of peers at MIT prepares our graduate students to work effectively in the world outside MIT: it opens their minds and attunes them both to the variety of strengths and the variety of concerns of others.
It is through this experience of the richness and diversity of interests, strengths, viewpoints and concerns of their fellow students that our graduate students become open-minded intellectuals, leaders and innovators, primed to pursue the MIT mission of the betterment of humankind.
The graduate student statement above has been adapted from the CUAFA Statement on the Role of Diversity in MIT’s Educational Mission.