A love letter to MIT | Hacker News Reader

A love letter to MIT

tech.mit.edu

207 pointsilamont40 comments

I attended college in Boston at a different, much less prestigious institution. After wandering around the MIT campus a handful of times, I began to wonder if there was any way I could possibly get involved in the ecosystem. So that fall, I volunteered to help run the annual business plan competition and was accepted on the organizing team without any questions.

Over the course of the next 3 years I became more and more involved at MIT, helping run other student organizations and attending as many talks and events as I could. I can honestly say that no one ever snubbed me or looked down on me for not being an MIT student, and that I truly felt like one of their own. If I ever see significant success in this life, I look forward to being able to repay the debt I owe to this marvelous institution. MIT truly is a special place.

A lot of this rings true to my memory of grad student days at MIT. For example, MIT libraries were open, but I wasn't even allowed to browse the stacks in some of Harvard's libraries-- let alone to check out a book.

In my memory, one of the things MIT did very well was avoiding barriers between academic departments. They had lots of research groups comprising professors and students from multiple fields, and there were no limits on what classes you could take based on what department you were in. (When I moved to Berkeley a few years later, I was surprised to discover I couldn't take a class in the journalism school unless I was enrolled as a journalism student.)

On the other hand, MIT did somewhat cultivate an exclusive attitude among its students-- particularly the undergrads. During my time there, I felt there was a pervasive strain of "We're the best in the world..." getting shaded into "...therefore nobody else is any good." I imagine if I had gone there after attending Harvard, I wouldn't have noticed so much, but as a midwesterner whose prior academic experience was at University of Cincinnati, it did seem to me that MIT spent a lot of time stroking the egos of its community.

Other aspects of the institute do a pretty good job of putting those egos back down.

Yes, they do. And the "Tute culture can be perversely proud of those, too.

But I don't want to give the impression I didn't like it there. Those were, in many ways, the best years of my life, and MIT culture contributed strongly to that.

> On the other hand, MIT did somewhat cultivate an exclusive attitude among its students-- particularly the undergrads. During my time there, I felt there was a pervasive strain of "We're the best in the world..." getting shaded into "...therefore nobody else is any good."

When I was in the military there was always a few officers from the service academy that liked reminding you that they were "special", we called them "ring knockers". Never encountered that 'tude from MIT grads until one day I showed up for work where we had very limited park slots. A very nice sports car with custom plates "MIT" was occupying four spaces. The driver shortly received a small interoffice envelope that morning with four valve stems and a business card to a local garage.

'On the other hand, MIT did somewhat cultivate an exclusive attitude among its students-- particularly the undergrads. During my time there, I felt there was a pervasive strain of "We're the best in the world..." getting shaded into "...therefore nobody else is any good."'

Really? I never ever felt that way during undergrad. I interacted with many grad students and every single one seemed more capable than I would ever be at their field (not self deprecating, just a true statement). While I would like to speak on behalf of all MIT students to say that this isn't likely, I can fully see this happening in small social circles. Maybe I got lucky, but I just never really saw this happen or felt that way towards grad students.

While interacting with some Harvard students, I definitely felt like I was the "lower pedigree" though. This is probably due more to the Cambridge rivalry than anything else though.

MIT is a pretty stressful place for grads and undergrads a like. Sometimes social skills aren't necessarily placed at the top of the list when there are many PSets, Exams, and other items above some pecking order ;).

I did not go to MIT; heck I haven't been to the States. But, this post does really warm my heart!

I am about to graduate from an elite Indian university and I can only gasp at the vast difference. Restrictions on what courses you can take up as electives, exams that many a times test only on memory, the end goal to academics is to land a decent job, subpar internet access, etc.

But, I have benefitted greatly from MIT's OCW. I haven't signed up for any course on edX but have religiously completed a couple of courses on Udacity and eagerly waiting for NLP to commence on Coursera.

I somehow managed to become a software engineer with narry a high school diploma, how? I had the good forture to be born to two recent MIT graduates who, during my childhood worked on campus. I wouldn't be me, or know what I know, were it not for how open and inspiring an environment that MIT fostered.

That's quite interesting, did you ever end up attending college at all? What are you doing now, and what did your parents do?

I still haven't gotten around to going to college, don't think I ever will, unless I get bored and someone wants to take a PhD candidate with no formal education. Currently, I build websites and educational software for WGBH.

My parents, step-mom, and godparents (all MIT grads) have each held a number of eclectic jobs, from comptational biologist, to technical writer, to human/machine interface in college admission offices, to webmaster, to landscaper, to politician, to managing large philanthropic organizations.

What strikes me, is that in each of those jobs all of them have excelled, and MIT played no small part in the matter.

Having gone to school in a small college town (UWaterloo), I always thought that 24hr open libraries and labs were the norm. I can't imagine not being able to work through the night on hard problems.

For MIT, such open policies must be more logistically challenging because they are close to a city. And my school never had the same culture of collaboration between departments and humble but famous professors.

I think by "open" we are not talking about hours here, but the fact that a non-MIT student can walk in off the street, wander the halls, use the libraries, and study in a classroom.

Waterloo is mostly that way as well. Classroom use is tricky - there tends to be lock up at night after cleaning staff go through, but outside of the research labs, there aren't many controlled access areas.

Though a case can be made that this is mostly irrelevant in Waterloo's case, as for all intents and purposes, everyone in Waterloo who might be interested in what Waterloo has to offer is a student at Waterloo.

As a current student at uWaterloo, I was actually quite saddened reading the article, and knowing that UW could be so much like this, and yet it's so far away from it.

Not sure when you graduated, but as of a year ago, even buildings that used to be open 24/7 have started to close at nighttime. Sure you can still get around by finding an open one, and then going through the tunnels and passageways, but the friction is there. And there is no access from people who are not students. You can probably get in, but I don't think the university is encouraging it.

It is as hard as ever for students to take courses from other faculties, unless you are in engineering where it becomes somewhat easier. Still have to go through different people a number of times in order to get all the paperwork done.

And now we have a new dean of engineering. She's alright, nothing special. However one point where I am completely at odds with her is regarding Coursera type efforts at UW. When interviewed on her inauguration for the Iron Warrior, she stated that she did not want to get into the whole Coursera type courses, the reason being that there were plenty of other schools doing it, and they all had more resources and that the race was lost. Instead she's going to focus on professional development courses for graduates where she's interested in "upgrading practicing engineers", while later stating that only 30% of engineering graduates go on to engineering roles (the rest going in management). As only 30% work in engineering roles, I'd hazard a guess and say that the percentage of professional engineers is even lower.

I find her reasoning for not wanting to invest effort in open courses completely BS. There would be many more people who would find value in those than the professional engineers who will want to take more PDENG or WatPD courses. All those companies have just started, and they are at the very beginning. And the biggest mistake is the type of thinking where this is a competition between Waterloo and other universities.

I'm glad however that due to the IP rules of Waterloo, researchers and students maintain rights over anything they come up with. If that also applies to course materials developed by professors, it might be worthy to go around the administration and talk to professors directly. Though you would still have to deal with the university in the end, so as to publish the courses as being uWaterloo courses. Need to start looking into this.

To finish up this reply, that's already much longer than it needs to be, I think what the university needs is a President who's willing to cut the fat, and make the whole institution lean. Rumors are David Johnston, previous president of UW, had a plan to do just that before being offered his current role of current Governor General of Canada.

My school didn't lock doors and I had friends visit and be amazed at how every building was open to study and meet in. Unfortunately we did have to pay for printing. It is very easy to take these liminal spaces for granted and abuse privilege of access. Overtime students began to do drugs and abuse other things because of the "open" attitude. Buildings I used to stumble out of at 4am from studying in the summer time were now closed at 12:00AM during the semester.

It is nice to read someone else is aware of the power of access and space... I try not to forget there is an assumed privilege, responsibility, and level of maturity that comes with access.

Out of curiosity, where did you go?

In a time when I didn't really know what to study/learn, MIT OCW gave me a huge repository of credible and well-structured information. The SICP and intro to algorithms/data structures lectures were among the coolest introduction to computer science/programming, their physics class helped me study for the MCAT in college and I recall they had a very intuitive intro calculus class that made it click for me in a way my own university's class did not. I've gotten dozens, perhaps even over 100 hours of entertainment and enrichment from their FREE resources. A truly awesome institution.

I now live very close to MIT and have experienced its openness and benefit to the community firsthand. I'm also thankful, however, that I could say many of the same things about my alma mater Berkeley. Something about these schools that foster this sort of love is very special. We should strive never to lose that.

Fiat Lux!

What can organizations generally do to help cut down on "logistical hurdles to overcome"?

MIT makes available to all free printing and shuttles.

What can organizations generally do to help foster the sharing of information?

MIT encourages collaboration and their professors are accessible.

Of course, simply applying these tricks to an organization is doomed to fail. To do so would simply be to create a cargo cult.

What matters is the attitude with which you approach your organization. Your attitude is what drives the organizational experience.

Completely agree. The key point is not "applying" these traits, or treating them as "tricks," its simply that the professors there embody that ideal. As an undergrad, it was easy for me to grab 10 minutes of any professor's time, even if it wasn't related to their courses or study. A lot of my classes had over 300 students in them, yet that didn't keep a professor from meeting with me either.

How would you summarize MIT's attitude?

May sound corny, but I'd have to say "Fostering." If you show interest in something, be it knowledge about a subject or field (or entrepreneurship), they will always make sure you have all the resources you need. Part of this (and has been voiced in some of the other comments) is that they will never block you from learning or exploring something.

Fostering is a great word for the attitude we should strive for.

Your attitude is what drives the organizational experience. MIT's attitude is revealed through these "tricks". They're not giving away freebies to win people over; they're building an environment where you can focus all your time and energy on your work.

> MIT's attitude is revealed through these "tricks".

Precisely.

MIT's behavior is the projection of its attitude. Through inertia, MIT aligns its participants' attitudes to various approximations of the overall attitude.

Or, the overall attitude is the reduction of the participants' attitudes.

My sisters went to non-MIT schools in Boston. While visiting as a curious high school student, I decided to go wander the MIT campus. All I have to do to be inspired is remember the sights I saw through all the open doorways.

I'm wondering if the reason MIT can afford to trust its students so much is that it's recruiting the types of students with more of an internal drive, who aren't just trying to skate through college.

But it isn't just the students that they trust. I have never taken a course at MIT but I, too, can visit the libraries and roam the classrooms.

It's awesome.

All the stuff that is mentioned here is applicable to most of the US universities. At least the one I attended to, had similar open access to everything and an environment that fosters collaboration and innovation.

I just graduated from a mid-size university in the midwest. Engineering students pay $300-$500 per year (based on engineering credit hours) for "tech fee" which gets us unlimited printing and lab access basically. Open labs are virtually nonexistent with the exception of 2 small 24-hour labs around the printers. Engineers have 24-hour swipe card access, but other majors do not. It is not especially known for research, but about half of the professors are actively performing research and most are willing to talk to you about anything.

i feel the same way about stanford...but i went there so i don't know how open it really is.

Having lived in Mountain View, I can attest to the openness of Stanford.

The campus is fairly accessible. Including a number of seminars which are open to the public.

Other facilities, notably the library, not so much by reports.

yeah you can only get in with a student idea, and up to 7 times a year without one. I think it's a real shame because they have an amazing collection of up-to-date periodicals in there. Basically, any major newspaper & magazine from around the world is available the day after publication in the home country. Not sure how relevant it is in the age of ubiquitous online publications, but it's still nice. The green library also has a fabulous collection of old books.

This makes me want to Doctorate there

This name-dropping, panting puppy of an essay is pure garbage.

Did anyone else notice how many times the author mentioned free printing? Is it really that big a deal?

Perhaps MIT should adopt a new motto: "We offer free printing!!!"

And who cares who she dated or who she married? What self-indulgent tripe!

So MIT is more open than Harvard. Whoopdie fucking doo.

At lots of less "exclusive" universities access is really not an issue. They have open doors to their libraries, their buildings, and their classrooms to anyone who wants to drop by. There's no ID check except to check out library books or register for courses.

Is this really the best that can be said about MIT?

Taken massively out of context:

From MIT, I’ve dated the […] wrong guys. […] I got to experience the fraternity life, being a “rush” girl, throwing rush week events, and taking childish jabs at other fraternities. I even lived at an MIT fraternity over a summer, as they [became] co-ed over the summer, and lived unofficially as a resident girlfriend [passed around???] during other times. You gave me the best times of my life at MIT. I got to party [what kind of parties???] with people […] and all the while had substance[s]. [I saw] your students […] from two o’clock a.m. to sunrise. [I] will be secretly thinking about all the people [I've] dated while [I'm] saying [my] wedding vows.

What value does any of this add?

Whatever.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com