MIT Physics 2026

24th January 2026

A week before the start of the school year, myself and four of my peers had the amazing opportunity to attend the MIT Africa Maths and Science seminar hosted at the prestigious St Johns College in Johannesburg. The course was created in close collaboration between St Johns College, ISASA and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in order to expand the knowledge bases of South African learners, and to develop advanced competencies in mathematics and science. We had applied for the programme last year, and now the time had finally arrived to join around 120 (the largest number of attendees in the course’s history) other incoming matric students from all over South Africa eager to immerse themselves in a week of learning and discovery.

The theme for this year’s lectures was “Quantum Mechanics’’ but we left with a wealth of knowledge that stretched far beyond what we were anticipating, everything from understanding Qubits and the Bloch sphere, how astrobiologists are using spectroscopy to look for ‘biosignatures’ on far away planets, entangled photons and their usages in developing technology, to an introduction to the field of quantum cryptography. Even what I have just listed is only a tiny sample of what we all took away from the expert lectures from the MIT students who were so knowledgeable and more than happy to answer any of our questions.

Besides the learning, we also thoroughly enjoyed exploring the expansive and historic St Johns College campus after our class time. The school was founded all the way back in 1898 making it just short of 130 years old! (A cool 102 years older than ISCT.) It was incredible to walk around the grounds and admire the beautiful architecture and numerous fields.

At the end of the week, each group had to present their own project to everyone else, which was a little daunting considering the sheer amount of other students in the audience. Our project was on quantum tunneling, its history and applications, and is linked below if anyone would like to have a look! Through working together in our groups we were able to meet and form connections with so many different and talented people from all over the country, and it was incredible to be able to learn about the experiences of others who we may never have ever gotten to know otherwise.

Overall it was an unforgettable experience, and I would strongly recommend this year’s year 11 students to take a chance and apply when the opportunity rolls around later this year.

– Angelina