Students

student cross the street in front of 77 mass ave

MIT students drive sustainability through classes, research, clubs, and campus life. Whether you're organizing an event or contributing to a reuse program, your actions help build a more sustainable MIT.

How can MIT students get involved with sustainability activities on campus?

Work in the Office of Sustainability

The Office of Sustainability regularly offers internships and other positions for both undergraduate and graduate students.

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Join a student group on campus
  • Student Sustainability Coalition: Acts as a centralized overarching student sustainability organization, making connections between groups to elevate student voices
  • UA Sustain: A committee of the MIT Undergraduate Association that’s working to make MIT more sustainable
  • Waste Watchers: Students trained on the details of MIT’s waste disposal system (i.e. what items go where) and paid to provide information at campus events
  • MIT Food and Agriculture Club (FAC): Brings together students and other MIT community members to coordinate and support work in the areas of food and agriculture.
  • MIT Water: Brings together creative, passionate, and motivated individuals to explore ways by which research, innovation, and policy can help solve the most pressing challenges in the water sector.
  • Graduate Student Council (GSC) Sustainability: A gathering point for climate-conscious, action-driven students to collaborate on implementing sustainable practices on the MIT campus with the knowledge, motivation and interest of graduate students at its center.
  • MIT Sustainability Summit: An annual student-run event that has grown to include hundreds of attendees ranging from professionals, academics and students.
  • Sloan Entrepreneurs for International Development (SEID): The intersection of international development and entrepreneurship at MIT Sloan.
  • MIT Outing Club (MITOC): Dedicated to helping the MIT and Cambridge community enjoy the great outdoors.
  • MIT Solar Electric Vehicle Team: Road legal, fully solar powered vehicles designed and built by students since 1985
Become an Ambassador

wordmark reading "campus climate action ambassador"

The Campus Climate Action Ambassadors program empowers MIT staff, faculty, and students to lead sustainability and climate action efforts within their departments, labs, centers, and student groups. Ambassadors receive training, resources, and support from the MIT Office of Sustainability to integrate climate action into their everyday work and academic roles.

Attend an event

Check out an upcoming event at MIT related to climate and sustainability.

Travel sustainably

How you get around campus and the city can make a real difference. Walking, biking, and using public transportation are low-carbon, cost-effective options for getting to class, labs, and exploring the city.

A person walking their bicycle near an MBTA 'T' sign, with green trees in the background.

MIT students are eligible for a discounted Bluebikes membership, giving you affordable access to Boston's regional bike share system. To learn more about Bluebikes, visit their site.

If you use a personal bike, scooter, or skateboard on campus, be sure to review the MIT Personal Wheels Guide for safety tips, registration requirements, and best practices.

For travel beyond campus, the Student T-Pass Program offers discounted public transit throughout the Boston area. 

For regional trips, Amtrak provides student discounts on train travel (a lower-carbon alternative to flying).

Choose the major for addressing climate change

 

New career paths require graduates who understand the science of climate change and who also possess the engineering and analytic tools. The Course 1–12 Climate System Science and Engineering degree program, jointly offered by the Departments of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) and Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences (EAPS) at MIT, prepares students to become leaders in the field, helping to accelerate high-impact, science-based solutions to solve global-scale environmental problems. Be part of the solution: Choose the major for addressing climate change

Check out MIT's Environment & Sustainability Minor

The Environment & Sustainability Minor is an undergraduate minor offering interdisciplinary coursework and investigations into the real-world challenges facing people and the planet.

Participate in a challenge
  • IDEAS is an annual innovation and social entrepreneurship competition for MIT students and their collaborators.
  • The Lemelson-MIT Student Prize honors promising collegiate inventors around the country. The student prize is open to teams of undergraduate students and individual graduate students who have inventions in categories that represent significant sectors of the economy; healthcare, transportation, food and agriculture, or consumer devices.
  • The MindHandHeart Innovation Fund seeks to leverage the enthusiasm and problem-solving skills of the MIT community to find new and inventive ways of increasing awareness about mental health, building communities of support, and promoting life and wellness skills.
  • The MIT Climate and Energy Prize is a multi-stage, student-organized business plan competition.
  • The MIT Water, Food, and Agricultural Innovation Prize brings together early-stage, student-led startups from across the US driving the future of sustainable water, food, and agricultural solutions.

Progress Report

20+

number of student groups on campus focused on climate or sustainability issues

100%

percent of incoming First Year students invited to experience Climate Interactive’s En-Roads workshop at orientation in 2024

63%

percent of undergraduate programs include sustainability-focused learning outcomes

>20%

percent of MIT students participate in sustainability activities outside of the classroom