Any advice for a first visit to the MIT? | Hacker News Reader

Any advice for a first visit to the MIT?

3 pointshhm10 comments

This is going to be my first visit to USA, and what I'd need is some advice for visiting MIT and maybe Harvard too in July, for a pair of days only. I'm interested in knowing those universities, to see the latest trend in tech research and to learn more about some of my current interests, on subjects like computer vision interfaces and robotics.

I've been developing games for years (I founded a local national game dev association, and my own game studio) and the last time I've been doing other more general tech projects (some of them about them anyway): including a computer vision interface for a game for Intel (which was used for advertising in a few countries), and a massive video chat system I'm still working in these days. A local university has given me a small funding for doing research on vision interfaces for health, but I couldn't yet start working on that. In the future, I'd like my career to shift completely to the applications of AI to industry, interfaces, search, data mining, etc, but I know I still need to learn a lot about it.

Is there any specific advice about what I should see, or who should I contact, or where I should go, that you could give me? (I already contacted some researchers from interesting projects there, but maybe you can point me to some specific advice I should really know.)

Please reply here, or if your reply contains any sensitive information, by mail to hhmdev@gmail.com (I'll be using that address only for this post, for a small time period).

Thanks a lot in advance!

http://boston.openguides.org/?Mary_Chung's :) Be careful if you don't like spicy food, though.

That's my only specific advice, since I know nothing about AI.

General advice: Get introduced to a grad student, and have them introduce you to other grad students, until you find one that can run down the list of professors and tell you how each one's research is really going. In my experience, third or fourth-year grad students -- who often have friendly peers scattered throughout the university, who have spent much time comparing life in one research group to life in another, and who know where to find good beer at reasonable prices -- are the ones who are most likely to give you glimpses of the cold, hard facts, instead of merely a beautifully crafted line of funding-agency-ready marketing copy. If all you do is look at hallway posters and chat with profs, you won't learn anything that you can't learn from reading journal articles or attending a conference in your field.

If you're interested in applications of AI, consider trying to find some local companies (the letters "ITA" come to mind here... to say nothing of "iRobot") and asking them for "informational interviews". From the sound of your CV, companies might well be willing to have someone spend an hour talking to you, just on spec. Be prepared to detach them politely if they cling to your leg and beg you to join the technical staff.

Thanks a lot for your pointers and ideas; they are indeed very useful! I'll look for such companies.

Did you already read this? I spent 12 years at MIT (4 as student, 8 as employee) and agree with the advice:

http://web.mit.edu/visit/

Yes, I read the general advice, but I was looking for some specific details, if you think there could be anything that is useful other than what is mentioned on that page.

mechanical_fish's mention of Mary Chung's reminds me that you might want to contact the SIPB about other interesting computer-related things to see. If you're there on a Monday night you might sit in on the meeting (probably brief in July) and go to Mary Chung's with them after.

Thanks a lot for your pointers too. I'll be there on Monday night so I'll do as you advised.

If you're really interested in seeing the latest research, you should email relevant professors ahead of time with your bio and ask them to set you up with a graduate student to talk about what they're doing.

Thanks a lot; I didn't know that was the way that was done (asking for a meeting with a graduate student).

Harvard Initiative in Innovative Computing

http://iic.harvard.edu/

Thank you! I didn't know that one!

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