<p>Datalook,</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I am glad to learn that Stanford’s Aerospace Engineering is doing so well. A few years back, there was a small dinner gathering of Caltech’s AE alum in a conference. There were several department chairs graduated from Caltech attended. They talked about their perspective in their AE’s direction, and the Stanford’s chair, I believe he was then new, mentioned about integrating GPS into AE as their focus. I am glad that he is successful.</p>
<p>Inverse, thanks for the comments. I am so glad I have a chance to chat with you. You should be my example how to be a good father. How come your 3 children are so successful. I myself have 2 kids, they both are in gifted programs. I believe they have the brain to start. I hope you can share your experience with us. Do you have any suggestions?</p>
<p>datalook, thanks. I am afraid my experience may not be helpful as each kid and each family are different. You just try to help them whenever it is feasible, the sooner the better, and hope that they will turn out fine.</p>
<p>Thanks, Inverse.</p>
<p>The number of posts is way beyond my expectation. We have all kinds of responses, from emotionally ( emotion impairs judgment ) charged accusations form MIT fans to some statistics and lists of accomplishments from other places. Clearly, any higher learning institution can claim some credits for the advancement of science and technology (last year UMASS won its first Nobel Prize) and it could be right. The point is, as someone rightfully said before, no longer can anyone claim to have a monopoly on technology or to be the “only,” “ultimate,” , “= engineering,” and “innovation central.”</p>
<p>I just came back today from a caltech alumni meeting in washington DC for accepted students. There was one guy there who had transferred from caltech to MIT as an undergrad. I got excited cuz i thought this guy was going to have all the answers on the Caltech vs MIT debate, but he actually had very little to say. The only reason he said why he transferred was because his parents lived in Massachusetts. He said he slightly regretted his decision because he lost touch with his friends at caltech. I asked him about academic differences between the two but he seemed to say that there werent really any. He also didnt say he had a preference of one over the other, but he did reccommend choosing MIT/caltech over uchicago though (where he went for grad school)</p>
<p>MIT is still the god of colleges/universities. (in my biased opinion)</p>
<p>@ Ben Golub</p>
<p>Ya, very true. I don’t think its very advisable to anybody to trust rankings too much. Because top institutions do fluctuate between themselves. Personally, I don’t find any diffference between these:</p>
<p>1.) MIT
2.) Caltech
3.) Indian inst. of technology
4.) Stanford
5.) UCB</p>
<p>All five engineering giants, and there is nothing that can change this notion. The one you like depends on your needs. Its as simple as that, if you are good enough, you will definitely make it to the famous five!</p>
<p>gotinhere,</p>
<p>Shouldn’t your list be more like,</p>
<p>Indian inst. of technology
Calcutta University
Delhi college of Engineering
Kashmir school of Science
Raj kapoor
MIT
Caltech
Stanford
UCB</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>So let’s talk about that. NONE of these guys came from Stanford. Kleinrock’s contribution was in the mathematical background of packet switching (basically queueing theory). Kleinrock is an MIT grad. </p>
<p>Besides, if you really want to talk about what inspired the Internet, I would point to JCR Licklider’s conception of the ‘Galactic Network’ - which is basically what the Internet is today. Licklider was an old MIT prof. </p>
<p><a href=“http://ecommerce.hostip.info/pages/741/Mit-Galactic-Network.html[/url]”>http://ecommerce.hostip.info/pages/741/Mit-Galactic-Network.html</a></p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Nobody disputes that Cerf is an important man. I might agree that Cerf’s achievements are probably more important than either of Kleinrock’s or Robert’s. But are they really more important than both Kleinrock’s and Roberts’s contributions * put together *? I find that doubtful. Again, if the Arpanet had never been built, Cerf would have never even had the chance to develop TCP/IP. </p>
<p>At the end of the day, Cerf’s contributions do not exceed the contributions of both Roberts and Kleinrock. Hence, there is no reason to believe that Stanford made a larger contribution than MIT did in this particular respect. </p>
<p>Oh, by the way, it should be noted that Kleinrock served as Cerf’s doctoral thesis committee advisor while he was a graduate student at UCLA. Cerf also worked in Kleinrock’s research center while he was a graduate student. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Sure. But he’s far more connected to MIT than he is to Stanford. After all, he has * no * connection to Stanford. </p>
<p>Besides, I don’t see you refraining from including Stanford people who had done their seminal work before they had arrived at Stanford, or afterwards. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>And my response is simple - why does USNews still rank MIT #1 (tied with Stanford) in CS? After all, if what you are saying is true, then shouldn’t Stanford have a higher ranking in CS? </p>
<p>Like other people have said - YOU are the one who is making a definitive statement that Stanford is better than MIT (and everybody else, I gather). I have never made a definitive statement that I thought that MIT was better than Stanford. Like we agreed on our previous thread, why don’t we just say that both are top notch engineering schools, and leave it at that?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>So, datalook, what are you going to do if, in the new NRC rankings that come out at the end of this year, it turns out that MIT is higher ranked than Stanford in any of the 3 disciplines that you named? Are you going to then come here and state that that makes Stanford look bad? </p>
<p>Personally, I expect you to say nothing at all. After all, seems to me that you’re only interested in making MIT look bad and Stanford look good, right? But if something might make Stanford look bad, you don’t want to talk about that, right? </p>
<p>Besides, let’s follow your logic more closely. MIT beats Berkeley and Caltech (especially in CS) in ME, EE, and CS. It’s a clean sweep for MIT compared to those 2 other schools. Are you prepared to say that that makes Berkeley and Caltech look bad? In fact, there isn’t even a single category in the NRC among engineering/CS disciplines in which Berkeley beats MIT and only one (Aero) in which Caltech beats MIT. So according to your logic, that must mean that Berkeley and Caltech are clearly inferior schools to MIT, right? </p>
<p>I’m not prepared to say that. I have always said that MIT, Stanford, Caltech, and Berkeley are top-notch technical schools. But hey, I’m just trying to see how far you are willing to push your logic. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Funny that you keep bringing up GPS. I note that Parkinson is an MIT graduate (master’s degree, 1961). One might argue that that’s only a minor connection to MIT. Yet, the other co-inventor of GPS, Ivan Getting, has NO connection to Stanford. </p>
<p>So at the end of the day, one could argue that MIT is at least as big of a claimant to GPS than is Stanford. After all, MIT has a connection to both co-inventors, whereas Stanford is connected to only one.</p>
<p>I don’t think it was ever a monopoly.</p>
<p>MIT may lose the rank every once in a while, but at the end of the day, it will still be a top notch university :P</p>
<p>I’m still confused as to why people think that college rankings mean…anything at all, really. They include data about selectivity and alumni donations, which in my humble opinion have approximately nothing to do with…anything important, really.</p>
<p>Furthermore, I don’t think any school can take the credit for the success of its graduates. All of these people you guys keep arguing back and forth- who was more important in the development of some technology and which school gets to “claim” him- was it really the school that made the student great, or the other way around?</p>
<p>Hm, this thread is funny. I thought science was a collaborative endeavor, all about working together with people even from (gasp!) different institutions. Really, what do you get out of “person X graduated from this college A, and he did this, therefore college A is better than college B”?</p>
<p>Zoogies</p>
<p>Are implying that schools do not make a difference in a person’s career?</p>
<p>mathwiz, they might but I don’t think going to Harvard as opposed to Princeton or going to Stanford instead of MIT would make much of a difference.</p>
<p>I have always thought that when people say “if they can land a man on the moon why can’t they do (fill in the blank)” was a cop out - there is no “they” - there is you and me. The point is Cal Tech didn’t get a Nobel prize, MIT doesn’t have the best engineering program, it’s the individuals that work, study, interact, etc. that succeed. I happened to graduate with good grades from MIT - but in my field I have met people much smarter than me, better team players and leaders than I am - and many have gone to state schools in the bottom half USNAWR rankings. There are myriad reasons why people pick the schools they attend, but most universities will give you a great education if you work at it. Beginning calculus is the same subject at MIT and University of North Dakota - it’s been the same stuff since Newton. I have never been there but I can guarantee you there is a boring History prof at Stanford and a great one at Cal Tech.</p>
<p>To the OP - if you are choosing an undergraduate school pick one that you feel is a good fit socially with people you want to work with and learn from - even if it’s your state college - then go out and get that Nobel prize yourself - and you will be from a department that earned a Nobel prize. If you look close enough you might find that a lot of great scientists at all the schools mentioned went to a wider variety of undergraduate schools then you might have imagined.</p>
<p>Sakky,</p>
<p>
Besides, if you really want to talk about what inspired the Internet, I would point to JCR Licklider's conception of the 'Galactic Network' - which is basically what the Internet is today. Licklider was an old MIT prof.
This is a crappy argument. You keep bringing up MIT’s story in old history. Mind telling us when the ‘galactic network’ happened? The basic buiding blocks for today’s internet are ‘packet switching’ and TCP/IP. Did Licklider contribute anything to this? Nothing!
Nobody disputes that Cerf is an important man. I might agree that Cerf's achievements are probably more important than either of Kleinrock's or Robert's. But are they really more important than both Kleinrock's and Roberts's contributions put together ? I find that doubtful. Again, if the Arpanet had never been built, Cerf would have never even had the chance to develop TCP/IP. </p>
<p>At the end of the day, Cerf's contributions do not exceed the contributions of both Roberts and Kleinrock. Hence, there is no reason to believe that Stanford made a larger contribution than MIT did in this particular respect.
Again, the building blocks of internet are packet switching and TCP/IP. Kleinrock shares 1/3 of the contribution to packet switching with Paul Barren and Donald Davies. But Donald Davies might argue that Kleinrock's contribution was less important. Cerf shares at least 1/2 of the contribution to TCP/IP with Kahn. Roberts was more or less a manager roll of ARPARNET. He couldn't claim any contribution to the invention of packet switching or to TCP/IP. TCP/IP is more important than packet switching, because TCP/IP's inventors Cerf and Kahn have been honored by some top notched prizes: Turing prize, National medal of technology, and medal of freedom.
So let's do some simple math here. MIT's contribution is Kleinrock's 1/3 packet switching. Stanford's contribution is Cerf's 1/2 TCP/IP. Since TCP/IP > packet switching and 1/2 > 1/3. Hence Stanford > MIT in the birth of internet.
By the way, in terms of APARNET, Stanford was one of the 4 NODES. UCLA was the 1st NODE. Stanford was the 2nd NODE. MIT was not even a NODE.
After the birth of internet, Stanford has been the clear dominate leader in making it better through a series of inventions such as 56k Modem, DSL braodband internet connection, multiprotocol router, yahoo, google (altavista), and SUN workstation. Again, MIT has no way to match against this.
Sure. But he (Tim Berners-Lee)'s far more connected to MIT than he is to Stanford. After all, he has no connection to Stanford. </p>
<p>Besides, I don't see you refraining from including Stanford people who had done their seminal work before they had arrived at Stanford, or afterwards
Of course, you can claim Tim Berners-Lee has a tie to MIT. But you can NOT claim MIT has contributed anything to the invention of WWW.
And my response is simple - why does USNews still rank MIT #1 (tied with Stanford) in CS? After all, if what you are saying is true, then shouldn't Stanford have a higher ranking in CS?
Again. The most recent USNEWS ranking put Stanford, MIT, Berkeley, and CMU tied for #1. But Stanford is the only one ranked #1 in all years. In NRC ranking, Stanford ranked ahead of MIT in CS. In addition to that, there are plenty of other reasons to claim Stanford CS is better than MIT CS. 1) Stanford has 18 ties (faculty, former faculty, or graduates) to Turing awards, far more than MIT. 2) Stanford has created lots of milestone level inventions in IT which I have listed on this thread. Again, MIT’s inventions in IT are less impressive to say the least.</p>
<p>SSfa</p>
<p>You brought up an excellent point. In fact, " It " does not exist anywhere or wherever you go you’ll find it since it is you that is “It.” I have also met brilliant people from “no name” colleges that have awed me and seen a few from top names that … People as you mentioned should choose colleges based on wide variety of factors. Names do not mean much. To make this point I asked the question where the influential innovations have come from? Although as someone else rightfully mentioned that science is collaborative, I doubt the answer is what people would have guessed 30 yeras ago.</p>
<p>I hate to break it to you, but you’re all wrong.</p>
<p>Al Gore invented the Internet. Everybody knows that.</p>