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Comment by gumby | Hacker News Reader

The intellectual value of an MIT degree is only partially the classes themselves — it’s the whole experience, including who you meet, how you learn to think and the stuff you do.

It’s hard for me to appreciate the value of the MIT brand as a graduate. This feels like a small dilution of that brand, but so what?

I wonder what the Institute’s objective is. Education is such a minescule part of what MIT does that perhaps it’s just an experiment in democratization of the MIT curriculum that someone wanted to try, and nobody else cared enough to say no?

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I have never understood this sentiment about the classes only being a small part. To me the classes were the only thing of value. Not once did I engage with any classmates outside of class on any academic subject. There was no scholarly learning or discussion. I did have those with professors during class or office hours. The availability tutors was beneficial. Most of the rest I felt was a distraction and a waste of time. There was no network to develop. I am not in contact with a single person I went to college with. It may work for some, but most of my colleagues say very similar things.

its not completely binary, but the comment was specific to MIT, which is known for having strong academic extra curriculars, which is instilled as a core value into all incoming classes of students. It matters and people care what you do outside of class at MIT.

but even state schools, you get out of it, proportional to what you put in. I'm not sure your exact association with the word "value" , but even basics like resume building are directly impacted by clubs you are a part of. I know many that received job offers explicitly because of their involvement in a robotics F1 or nasa affiliated competition

Was that at MIT? I think the culture was key. I started a company with a fellow alum 15 years after graduating. We hadn't known each other as students (!) but we had a lot of attitudes in common (which we'd both acquired there).

I did study with other students and learned a lot from them. I'm still friends with a lot of people I met there. The stuff we were learning was often the source of interesting conversations. I'm sorry that didn't work out for you. I do know some of the undergraduate dorms are more isolating than others.

Also MIT is very research oriented -- a lot of faculty only tolerate undergrads because they can be put to work on research. That experience had a huge influence on what I did after graduating and how I approached what I was learning in class. Also by being in the lab I met lots of interesting people from outside the institute who visted for one reason or another.

At MIT? That's such a shame. I had such a different experience.

The intellectual value of an MIT degree is only partially the classes themselves — it’s the whole experience, including who you meet, how you learn to think and the stuff you do.

I think that's true of many good schools; perhaps it's even the definition of a good school. It certainly was true of my own relatively well regarded engineering school. Who I met who influenced my future success, the opportunities I got access to, the way to approach learning new things, my preferences in extracurriculars, many more, all came from my time there.

I feel the prestige MIT has comes from somewhere, probably engineering prowess and the genius of hacker culture. But in terms of how to think, I'd say any engineering/stem degree from any university touched on that as you see the dividend of that years later.

Their reputation comes from the high volume of high quality and influential research that they do, as well as their deep integration with other institutions (e.g. when I was doing the Aero Astro sequence as an undergrad the head left to become head of the US Air Force; instead we had the former head of NASA. Or maybe it was the other way around).

When you look at the rankings of world universities the judgement is mostly by research output, not quality of education (though I think an MIT education is great, for the right students).

MIT is a large research organization with a small school attached: tuition revenue is less than 10% of MIT’s total revenue and education is about 15% of expenses though the web site mixes it in with other activity to make a larger number (you need the more detailed budget to dig the true number out).

Paraphrase> "engineering/stem teaches you how to think"

Surely there are papers studying that? I'm certainly interested if you know of any.

My personal experience was the opposite - engineering degree teaching maths and how to be compliant[1] to an academic system of grading, but virtually nothing on practical engineering, causality or interpersonal skills. I have noticed the same problems in many of my academic peers. I went to a university in my country that was supposed to be an excellent engineering school.

After graduation I have met great piratical engineers with zero academic skills. Two close examples: a dyslexic friend, another who left school at 14.

[1] I think this is relevant where it talks about being taught to be compliant: "Escalation Theory: Compliance, Violence, and Overachievement In Society - How Elites Cause Crime By Acing Marshmallow Tests - Conrad Bastable" https://radicalcontributions.substack.com/p/escalation-theor...

Good compromises and independence of thought are engineering skills.

> Paraphrase> "engineering/stem teaches you how to think"

This is an exaggeration. Mathematics and physics teach you a way of thinking. Engineering another way. Chemistry, biology et al require another. Philosophy (king of the sciences) and the humanities yet another way.

FWIW MIT has a significant philosophy department and a whole school of Humanities. You can get a degree from that school, and people do. These are historians, linguists, musicians etc who also took differential equations, lab science, E&M etc

Isn't this analogous to Harvard Extension? People are particular about Harvard vs Harvard Extension.

That seems like the brand side, yes, though I don't place a lot of value on institutional branding (but it seems like I'm in the minority on that on HN, so who knows?)

On the learning side, I really wonder how much you can really learn that way. Maybe some math.

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