IHTFP - Loving it or hating it, come discuss.

differential
Thu, 01 May 2008 17:45:26 +0000

@lizbee: "I’m beginning to think that MIT might be a dead-end for all but the very brilliant.
Recent news from the front lines:

1. Chemistry t.a. (not a M.I.T. grad) gave students erroneous factual information."

This is unusual, but on the other hand this has happened to me too. I found this suspicious and
discussed it with upperclassmen and did some googling. Turned out my TA was wrong. So I asked him
about it and he agreed with me.

I suppose in the real world, at times my boss might not give me the correct factual information.

“2. Math test: 98% = A; Class Average = approx. 85%; Under that = C and below.”

Uh… what were you expecting? An A is given to those who demonstrate excellence. A C is average.
Giving A’s to too many people defeats the purpose of an A. And besides, wait till you see some of
the curves (yes many classes at MIT in some way use a bellcurve, although the professors do show
mercy when it is needed) in the harder classes.

“Of course many MIT students get into Harvard Med School, etc. But those are the elite of MIT. What
about those students who are further down the MIT ladder? What about Mr./Ms. Average-MIT? Obviously
they are smart, obviously they would do well at an institution where the competition isn’t quite so
searing. Are they in any way “protected?” Or do they loose out in the academic re-shuffle after
graduation?”

There are many support mechanisms built into the institute. But MIT is an engineering school, deflated
grades are to be expected, and the institute is not going to make life easier if it means it is harder
to distinguish the most brilliant of the student body. Often times the reason people get screwed on
tests with curves is because a subset of genius students have gotten insanely high scores while the rest
of the class got screwed. But the best a student can get is an A, so that’s where the best students grades
map them too. You would think that it can be unfair to students if they are competing with genius types,
but its MIT, and things aren’t suppose to be fair.

“Sub par living conditions? Don’t get me wrong here – dorms were relatively low on both my and
child’s priority list. But compare MIT dorms with those of many other so-called “top tier” universities…”

I find this interesting… I would consider by a large margin that MIT’s dorms are the very best in
the country, and arguably the world. You give interesting people a shoddy place to live, with some money
to do awesome things, and suddenly the place becomes awesome. Allow them to modify some of the property
to make it more interesting. Then your home suddenly because badass.

On the other hand, you could get some dull person to give you a uniformly designed, dull dormitory. Then
your room would be dull. And dull environments are conducive to producing dull people.

Also MIT is better than most schools for the important things like fast internet… and actually that’s
the only important thing I can think off that any student might ever need… oh and lots of caffine
in different locations around campus.