I hire people coming from this program. I can no longer rely on students understanding control systems, having read Leveson's therac paper, having worked with

I hire people coming from this program. I can no longer rely on students understanding control systems, having read Leveson's therac paper, having worked with a notebook-style REPL (I.e., something stressful to model exactly in your head, promoting confusion, leading to notes and comments and structure.) The near-total demise of Athena matters here too. I can and do hire people with all those skills! It’s still very possible to get them at MIT. It’s just not nearly the default, and since it’s way up in electives I’m at least as likely to find the best people carrying a degree that says 21W as VI-3. I don’t envy the VI admins. They have a problem akin to that of a suddenly virally successful startup. 400 people a year come in; about that many better succeed.