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I think that focusing on undergraduate credentials as a measure of engineering ability is largely unproductive, and phrases like "they don't get hung up on new
by loeber 10y ago
I think that focusing on undergraduate credentials as a measure of engineering ability is largely unproductive, and phrases like "they don't get hung up on new Javascript framework" are stereotypes, and you will meet many counterexamples. To be clear, these schools turn out plenty of mediocre engineers.
Usually, the selection process of which you're seeing the results is that kids who are very good at engineering will choose to go to one of these schools to maximize the chances of meeting like-minded people.
These people were already budding great engineers in beforehand. The schools they attend do not apply some kind of Midas' touch that turns an ordinary person into a great engineer or scientist.
So, I think your proposition has its causality inverted. Potential great engineers often end up at MIT/Stanford/etc., and they continue being great engineers. It is not the case that MIT/Stanford produce great engineers by having some magic classes that the other top-20 schools don't.
- akhilcacharya 10y ago>that MIT/Stanford produce great engineers by having some magic classes that the other top-20 schools don't. They also have rigorous DS&A courses that make it easy to get into top companies, but the rest of the Top-20 schools have those too.
- yomly 10y agoI would assert that, given that great engineers end up at these top unis, they are able to widen their gap with others by a) accelerating their skills/knowledge by associating with like-minded individuals, and b) being stretched by their respective colleges. My observation is that top colleges tend to lump more work of greater breadth and depth in their students. It's like joining a great sports academy where you develop faster by constantly being in competition with your peers and by also training harder.
- loeber 10y agoI think this assertion is accurate.
- SkyMarshal 10y ago/second, came here to say this too. The top schools give their students much more, harder problem sets, exams, etc. than others. Some grade on a curve too, meaning that if everyone scores between 90-100, they don't all get A's, rather the bottom third gets C's, the mid 90s get B's, and the top third get A's. Creates an extremely competitive environment that pushes folks with raw talent to really work hard to hone it. Finally, most of the work is focused on learning problem solving methodologies, rather than learning the syntax and grammar of particular languages.
- intrasight 10y agoYes. Competition is a powerful motivator. I recall at CMU one day when they gathered all us ECE students together in an auditorium and said "There are an order of magnitude (base 2) too many of you here - we will have to fail half of you out. Look to your left. Look to your right. Those two students may soon be gone." Swear to God a true story. Any fellow classmates ('88) can vouch for the meeting. Meant that a "C" was a great grade since you got to stay. Was terrible for one's GPA however.
- compsciphd 10y agoits a common engineering thing. In my Dad's EE class in the mid 60s they did the same thing.
- nunez 10y agorutgers did the same thing iirc
- jghn 10y agoWhat modern top level colleges scale grades downward?
- hackermailman 10y agoOn the topic of curriculum Robert Harper has some good posts on reasons why CMU jettisoned their entire curriculum and rewrote[1] it from scratch back around 2011 and it's success[2]. It really is a great curriculum I haven't seen at other schools that focuses on verification, functional programming and parallel algorithms. [1]https://existentialtype.wordpress.com/2012/08/17/intro-curriculum-update/ https://existentialtype.wordpress.com/2012/08/17/intro-curri... [2]https://existentialtype.wordpress.com/2011/03/21/the-dog-that-didnt-bark/ https://existentialtype.wordpress.com/2011/03/21/the-dog-tha...