The Experimental Study Group (ESG) describes itself as a freshman learning community at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
It was created in 1969 by Professor George Valley to explore alternative teaching and learning methods in a small group setting at MIT.
Students in ESG take their courses through a combination of small interactive classes, problem-solving sessions (often run by upperclass TAs),and discussion-oriented seminars.
The program consists of 50 first-year students, 30 upperclass teaching assistants and associate advisors, 10 staff and faculty members, as well as ESG alumni and friends of the community.
[1] Many ESG students have gone on to become celebrated alumni, including: three Rhodes scholars (Toby Ayer ’96, Christopher Douglas ’99, and Susanna Mierau ’00); two Fulbright scholars (Anna Waldman-Brown ’11 and Alicia Goodwin-Singham ’14); one MacArthur fellow (Marin Soljacic ’96); and a Nobel Prize winner for physics (Carl Wieman ’73) and "Danny" Hillis, designer of the Connection Machine, a parallel supercomputer, and co-founder of Thinking Machines Corporation, the company that produced the machine.