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The mathematician Paul Erdos used to say that when a student or colleague left the field of mathematics, the individual had "died". To some extent, a student who enters MIT committed to the idea of becoming an engineer, physicist, or mathematician and who then finds that he or she does not quite have the skills to attain that goal will probably find it psychologically difficult at MIT. It's easier to leave U.C. Berkeley's School of Engineering and major in business in the context of a campus of more than 30,000 students. It's easier to switch from a math major to literature at Harvard or Yale. In those schools, one can join a fairly large group of colleagues highly committed to the liberal arts. At MIT on the other hand, a student may trudge on through the math or engineering major simply to avoid the stigma of having "died." I do know of at least one MIT alum who did this, although this was several decades ago.
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And this is precisely why I think that the Sloan School is so important to the social dynamic at MIT.
As a case in point, how many of you know that Sloan management is actually one of the largest undergrad majors on campus - in fact, something like the #3 or #4 most popular undergrad major (I can't remember the exact figure)? Of course, I think it is quite well know that Sloan grants, by far, the most master's degrees (the MBA) of any major on campus, but it also bears mentioning that Sloan confers numerous bachelor's degrees also.
Now, obviously Sloan is still dwarfed by the size of the School of Engineering as a whole (aggregated across every engineering major). But the point is, you now can find a community of people at MIT who are not so technically minded, who are more interested in 'softer' topics like leadership or communication or negotiation. Granted, it's not a very large community. But it's a lot better than nothing, and in particular, is a lot better than how it used to be in terms of social support (as the Sloan ug program used to be significantly smaller in the past).
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I don't know that I'm actually adding anything here, but I want to add my agreement with Laura that I'm following my dreams -- since about sixth grade, I haven't wanted to be anything other than a scientist. And here I am in graduate school with my MIT degree, making probably half (a third?) what I could be making in consulting.
But I have zero interest in doing consulting, or anything else that would make me more money, because the only thing I've ever wanted to do is become a scientist. If somebody told me I wasn't allowed to become a scientist, or if my thesis lab went belly-up, I would take my MIT and Harvard degrees and become a zookeeper.
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See, right there, that's the real problem. I never actually said that MIT students care only about money and nothing else. I said they care about having the career they want (as long as it pays decently), but not that they care only solely about money. Nevertheless, LauraN claims that I said that, and now everybody simply assumes that I did.
So, to wit, what I would recommend is that for those who want to dispute me, please as a first step, carefully read what I actually said. Not what somebody claims that I said, but what I
actually said. And put it in the proper context.
Otherwise, I don't see why I should even bother saying anything at all. Y'all can simply have a debate over what people claim that I said.