Pros
Great community: smart, hardworking, interested, motivated, curious. I loved the people that I met at MIT. Every one was interested in something and the people at MIT love to talk. Even though it is a competitive atmosphere, it is also a very sharing community. Best location to Cambridge and Boston--I loved working at MIT because it was easy to walk home to Central, but just as easy to walk across the bridge and down the esplanade in Boston on a beautiful day.
Cons
MIT is full of very smart people. As a lab assistant who did not attend MIT as an undergrad I found it easy to feel discouraged. I had to remember that my work was important, and that not every one is a genius. Hard work is hard and it takes many hours and for me, it took longer than for some of the MIT students I was working with.