5 ms·

Reading this made me downright sad that I didn't, and probably never will, attend MIT. Oh, the interesting people! The interesting projects! How I wish I had

Reading this made me downright sad that I didn't, and probably never will, attend MIT. Oh, the interesting people! The interesting projects! How I wish I had worked harder.

my_opic_farseer 11y ago
From what I heard, working hard is like 10% of the effort to get into over-hyped shit schools like MiT. The rest is who you know, what you can pay, and what you're willing to do to get in.
- azinman2 11y ago
  I wouldn't actually say that's true. Maybe Harvard but not MIT. I didn't know anyone, didn't pay (they paid me), and I didn't do anything specific for MIT admission. What makes you say it's a shit school?
  - leblancfg 11y ago
    I agree. And certainly don't think MIT, nor Harvard, are shit. You get what you put in. Mostly, I was educated in the Québec system, and had no idea before I was 16 that if I got good grades I could get into interesting universities -- even the American ones. Reading up voraciously on Richard Feynman, only to discover that if things had been different, I, too, could have gone to that school. By that time, it was too late, I simply didn't have the grades. My parents' perception that it would cost a fortune certainly didn't help. Not that I'm complaining, I can't change the past. But the idea of never attending MIT is one of those very few, recurring what-ifs? that will sometime keep me up at night, half a lifetime after.
    - azinman2 11y ago
      There's always grad school. I didn't get in undergrad, and I probably wouldn't have been ready had I.
    - tjalex 11y ago
      You're not missing out, don't sweat it :-) I went to a similar university, and one of the best things about working in tech is that the culture is so similar to that environment.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
    - ridgeguy 11y ago
      Referring to another current HN post, if Hugh Everett was right, at least one of you did attend MIT.
      - MichaelGG 11y ago
        If Everett is right then doesn't that mean that one of him also, say, choked to death on his acceptance letter? I like the idea of immortality (no matter what happens, I'll always wake up OK in some branch, and that is me), but I'm not sure it actually helps otherwise, day-to-day. In fact, I'd guess there's more potentially bad universes so it seems rather much of a downer in that sense.
peterwwillis 11y ago
You really don't need to attend MIT to work on projects with people like these. Near me there's a tool library, a makerspace, two hackerspaces, a biotechspace, an art college, several medical schools, many different kinds of collectives, and several big art-focused festivals with grants. As a person who dropped out of high school and never went to college, i've worked on big art builds involving mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, software engineering, thermodynamics, biotech, and mixed media art. The only thing i've ever worked hard on are these projects, which were all for fun. I'm sure a school like MIT is great, but thankfully you don't need it :-)
- akhilcacharya 11y ago
  There is a massive difference in how credible you seem (and ergo, are treated) if you have an MIT, Ivy, or Stanford degree. I'm not 100% sure, but my hunch is that very few YC founders come from state schools like mine (although I know at least one did).
  - peterwwillis 11y ago
    Schools only give credibility as a replacement for experience. If you don't have school credibility, go get some experience. This applies to practically everything in life, the exception being when a degree is legally required to do a job.
    - akhilcacharya 11y ago
      I'm sure, but that takes a heck of a lot longer.
noname123 11y ago
FWIW, I never went to MIT (went to a small liberal arts college); but I work at an MIT affiliate, so by virtue of proximity and affiliation, go to talks given on campus, eat at their cafeteria, have audited classes and play basketball at their gym. But basically a third-party observer to campus culture, my subjective $0.02: The undergrad population is much to my dismay similar to any American school trained on the professional treadmill; most conversations I overhear involves seniors applying to medical school or law school or consulting or underclassmen discussing Google internships. To use a Bostonian (maybe NYC too?) metaphor that Bostonians can understand, there are just as many people with Canada Goose jackets on MIT campus as on Newbury Street. Like any school, it is not a homogenous population, "nerd's paradise" as parodied in the 80's movie "Real Genius"; although there are people who are genuinely interested in tech, there are people who want to pursue academic route who don't care for the Slashdot culture, jocks who are also science nerds, theatre geeks, int'l students who don't get the "American geek" culture... The only real insight I can offer in a Computational Biology class I audited, I've never seen so many interruptions in lecture when the professor is flying through the slides on the derivation of this algorithm and that proof. Hands fly up right there asking for clarification on what is this greek variable on the previous slide... whereas during the same undergrad class I took years ago, none of us would have spoken on the spot due to lack of confidence to avoid looking dumb/lack of drive to try to understand something right there on the spot.
- phd514 11y ago
  You're definitely missing a significant subculture that exists among MIT undergraduates. The kinds of MIT-affiliated events that you describe are certainly not the ones where you are likely to discover it. You are correct, though, in observing that not all MIT undergraduates fit into that subculture and many will go into finance, law, or medical careers. And there is certainly nothing wrong with that.
  - noname123 11y ago
    Hi phd514, in reading your comment, you are absolutely right; my comment did paint a broad brush. In reconsidering my response, I'd retract what I said about MIT culture and say my remarks really says more about me and my own cynicism/preoccupation at my age, late twenties. It is in direct response to the parent post where the poster lamented about missing out a chance to experience the idealistic/radical youth culture when he was young, I responded more cynically about how in college I and my other friends did live in creative undergraduate communities; but whereas it was easy and natural to take on that attitude during undergrad, I found it became much harder to sustain those ideals in adulthood, as hard choices and realization of human nature creeps in, whether to truly sacrifice precious time and energy in your adulthood working towards them vs. "establishing" oneself professionally and socially; and because I struggle mightily with this, I put more value on what imperfect choices that people commit to as adults vs. the exciting (albeit memorable/enriching) experiences that they partook in as undergrads.

Reading this made me downright sad that I didn't, and probably never will, attend MIT. Oh, the interesting people! The interesting projects! How I wish I had worked harder.

my_opic_farseer 11y ago

From what I heard, working hard is like 10% of the effort to get into over-hyped shit schools like MiT. The rest is who you know, what you can pay, and what you're willing to do to get in.

azinman2 11y ago
I wouldn't actually say that's true. Maybe Harvard but not MIT. I didn't know anyone, didn't pay (they paid me), and I didn't do anything specific for MIT admission. What makes you say it's a shit school?
- leblancfg 11y ago
  I agree. And certainly don't think MIT, nor Harvard, are shit. You get what you put in. Mostly, I was educated in the Québec system, and had no idea before I was 16 that if I got good grades I could get into interesting universities -- even the American ones. Reading up voraciously on Richard Feynman, only to discover that if things had been different, I, too, could have gone to that school. By that time, it was too late, I simply didn't have the grades. My parents' perception that it would cost a fortune certainly didn't help. Not that I'm complaining, I can't change the past. But the idea of never attending MIT is one of those very few, recurring what-ifs? that will sometime keep me up at night, half a lifetime after.
  - azinman2 11y ago
    There's always grad school. I didn't get in undergrad, and I probably wouldn't have been ready had I.
  - tjalex 11y ago
    You're not missing out, don't sweat it :-) I went to a similar university, and one of the best things about working in tech is that the culture is so similar to that environment.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - ridgeguy 11y ago
    Referring to another current HN post, if Hugh Everett was right, at least one of you did attend MIT.
    - MichaelGG 11y ago
      If Everett is right then doesn't that mean that one of him also, say, choked to death on his acceptance letter? I like the idea of immortality (no matter what happens, I'll always wake up OK in some branch, and that is me), but I'm not sure it actually helps otherwise, day-to-day. In fact, I'd guess there's more potentially bad universes so it seems rather much of a downer in that sense.

peterwwillis 11y ago

You really don't need to attend MIT to work on projects with people like these. Near me there's a tool library, a makerspace, two hackerspaces, a biotechspace, an art college, several medical schools, many different kinds of collectives, and several big art-focused festivals with grants. As a person who dropped out of high school and never went to college, i've worked on big art builds involving mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, software engineering, thermodynamics, biotech, and mixed media art. The only thing i've ever worked hard on are these projects, which were all for fun. I'm sure a school like MIT is great, but thankfully you don't need it :-)

akhilcacharya 11y ago
There is a massive difference in how credible you seem (and ergo, are treated) if you have an MIT, Ivy, or Stanford degree. I'm not 100% sure, but my hunch is that very few YC founders come from state schools like mine (although I know at least one did).
- peterwwillis 11y ago
  Schools only give credibility as a replacement for experience. If you don't have school credibility, go get some experience. This applies to practically everything in life, the exception being when a degree is legally required to do a job.
  - akhilcacharya 11y ago
    I'm sure, but that takes a heck of a lot longer.

noname123 11y ago

FWIW, I never went to MIT (went to a small liberal arts college); but I work at an MIT affiliate, so by virtue of proximity and affiliation, go to talks given on campus, eat at their cafeteria, have audited classes and play basketball at their gym. But basically a third-party observer to campus culture, my subjective $0.02: The undergrad population is much to my dismay similar to any American school trained on the professional treadmill; most conversations I overhear involves seniors applying to medical school or law school or consulting or underclassmen discussing Google internships. To use a Bostonian (maybe NYC too?) metaphor that Bostonians can understand, there are just as many people with Canada Goose jackets on MIT campus as on Newbury Street. Like any school, it is not a homogenous population, "nerd's paradise" as parodied in the 80's movie "Real Genius"; although there are people who are genuinely interested in tech, there are people who want to pursue academic route who don't care for the Slashdot culture, jocks who are also science nerds, theatre geeks, int'l students who don't get the "American geek" culture... The only real insight I can offer in a Computational Biology class I audited, I've never seen so many interruptions in lecture when the professor is flying through the slides on the derivation of this algorithm and that proof. Hands fly up right there asking for clarification on what is this greek variable on the previous slide... whereas during the same undergrad class I took years ago, none of us would have spoken on the spot due to lack of confidence to avoid looking dumb/lack of drive to try to understand something right there on the spot.

phd514 11y ago
You're definitely missing a significant subculture that exists among MIT undergraduates. The kinds of MIT-affiliated events that you describe are certainly not the ones where you are likely to discover it. You are correct, though, in observing that not all MIT undergraduates fit into that subculture and many will go into finance, law, or medical careers. And there is certainly nothing wrong with that.
- noname123 11y ago
  Hi phd514, in reading your comment, you are absolutely right; my comment did paint a broad brush. In reconsidering my response, I'd retract what I said about MIT culture and say my remarks really says more about me and my own cynicism/preoccupation at my age, late twenties. It is in direct response to the parent post where the poster lamented about missing out a chance to experience the idealistic/radical youth culture when he was young, I responded more cynically about how in college I and my other friends did live in creative undergraduate communities; but whereas it was easy and natural to take on that attitude during undergrad, I found it became much harder to sustain those ideals in adulthood, as hard choices and realization of human nature creeps in, whether to truly sacrifice precious time and energy in your adulthood working towards them vs. "establishing" oneself professionally and socially; and because I struggle mightily with this, I put more value on what imperfect choices that people commit to as adults vs. the exciting (albeit memorable/enriching) experiences that they partook in as undergrads.