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Ayup. When I was an undergrad about twenty years ago (brlewis, you were an undergrad then, too, right?), the Dean for Undergraduate Education was on record as

by sethg 16y ago

Ayup. When I was an undergrad about twenty years ago (brlewis, you were an undergrad then, too, right?), the Dean for Undergraduate Education was on record as saying “too many MIT graduates work for too many Harvard and Princeton graduates”, and the administration was retooling its admissions policy and curriculum so that the school wouldn’t have such a single-minded focus on training people to be brillant engineers. Has the pendulum swung back since then?

rglovejoy 16y ago
I was an undergrad there twenty years ago too, but I was a physics major, not CS. My experience was that for science graduates, their training is mostly geared towards getting them into graduate school, not a job in industry. The prevailing attitude then (and probably now too) was that if you went into industry instead of academia, there was something wrong with you.
- Periodic 16y ago
  I went to University of California - Santa Cruz for my undergraduate in physics. Around my year, the administration realized that a lot of the students were having trouble transitioning to non-academic jobs. So much so that they started an "applied physics" program which allowed more classes in electrical engineering and computer science, and made a required class called Physics in Industry that I have had the privilege of speaking in a few times to tell young physicists how and why they could transition into a career in software.
brlewis 16y ago
I graduated in 1990 but worked there for 8 years afterward. I never saw any pendulum motion. Today it does not look at all like they want to brand themselves like the Marines, judging by the "LIFE AT MIT FAQ" on http://www.mitadmissions.org/ http://www.mitadmissions.org/
- hga 16y ago
  Yeah, but that doesn't mean the Admissions Department isn't lying through their teeth, knowingly or unknowingly. E.g. they were strongly emphasizing the tradition of hacking (http://www.mitadmissions.org/topics/life/hacks_traditions/ http://www.mitadmissions.org/topics/life/hacks_traditions/) at the same time the Campus Police changed their posture on it and started arresting students in situations they hadn't previously. And while it's ugly to point out, they had to fire the Dean of Admissions in 2007 for falsifying her resume; she started in the Admissions Office in 1979 (if early in the year, she very possibly looked at my application...) and became the Dean in 1997. They might also be trying to change MIT by attracting different students; as noted by sethg there was a strong push to change MIT from its traditional role of producing Sons of Martha who work for Sons of Mary, and it started a few years before he showed up (here is a fantastic rant by Hal Albeson on one of the early signs of that: http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/hal/papers/coop.html http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/hal/papers/coop.html). The Admissions Office even drastically changed its real admissions policy for a couple of years until the hard subjects (e.g. physics) faculty forced a correction of that. The admitted classes were overall having too much trouble with the core curriculum, but even if they were less capable on average they were still dedicated to the traditional MIT mission. Self-selection by applicants is so strong (MIT survived for a dozen year without a professional as the Director), whatever gloss the Office is now putting on the Institute, it's able to change things only so much. E.g. MIT remains the a place where you don't graduate without taking (or placing out of) a year of the calculus and classical physics (taught at MIT speed), for all majors.

by sethg 16y ago

rglovejoy 16y ago

I was an undergrad there twenty years ago too, but I was a physics major, not CS. My experience was that for science graduates, their training is mostly geared towards getting them into graduate school, not a job in industry. The prevailing attitude then (and probably now too) was that if you went into industry instead of academia, there was something wrong with you.

Periodic 16y ago
I went to University of California - Santa Cruz for my undergraduate in physics. Around my year, the administration realized that a lot of the students were having trouble transitioning to non-academic jobs. So much so that they started an "applied physics" program which allowed more classes in electrical engineering and computer science, and made a required class called Physics in Industry that I have had the privilege of speaking in a few times to tell young physicists how and why they could transition into a career in software.

brlewis 16y ago

I graduated in 1990 but worked there for 8 years afterward. I never saw any pendulum motion. Today it does not look at all like they want to brand themselves like the Marines, judging by the "LIFE AT MIT FAQ" on http://www.mitadmissions.org/ http://www.mitadmissions.org/

hga 16y ago
Yeah, but that doesn't mean the Admissions Department isn't lying through their teeth, knowingly or unknowingly. E.g. they were strongly emphasizing the tradition of hacking (http://www.mitadmissions.org/topics/life/hacks_traditions/ http://www.mitadmissions.org/topics/life/hacks_traditions/) at the same time the Campus Police changed their posture on it and started arresting students in situations they hadn't previously. And while it's ugly to point out, they had to fire the Dean of Admissions in 2007 for falsifying her resume; she started in the Admissions Office in 1979 (if early in the year, she very possibly looked at my application...) and became the Dean in 1997. They might also be trying to change MIT by attracting different students; as noted by sethg there was a strong push to change MIT from its traditional role of producing Sons of Martha who work for Sons of Mary, and it started a few years before he showed up (here is a fantastic rant by Hal Albeson on one of the early signs of that: http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/hal/papers/coop.html http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/hal/papers/coop.html). The Admissions Office even drastically changed its real admissions policy for a couple of years until the hard subjects (e.g. physics) faculty forced a correction of that. The admitted classes were overall having too much trouble with the core curriculum, but even if they were less capable on average they were still dedicated to the traditional MIT mission. Self-selection by applicants is so strong (MIT survived for a dozen year without a professional as the Director), whatever gloss the Office is now putting on the Institute, it's able to change things only so much. E.g. MIT remains the a place where you don't graduate without taking (or placing out of) a year of the calculus and classical physics (taught at MIT speed), for all majors.