6 ms·

Bill Gates: Why MIT matters

87 points by robg 15y ago

bugsy 15y ago
Bill is right that MIT is a great school. His statement "almost half (48 percent) of MIT’s undergraduates are minorities" is a bit misleading. According to MIT: "The class of 2014 is 36% Caucasian, 30% Asian, 14% Hispanic, 9% African-American, a few percentage points for assorted "other". All in all, it's about 75% "over-represented" and 25% "under-represented."
- hugh3 15y ago
  Sounds to me like it's 100% minorities.
  - sp332 15y ago
    My great-grandfather fled Mussolini and came to the USA. Does that make me a minority, or does it still count as a majority because my skin is white? :)
rgbrgb 15y ago
Was there some dispute I didn't hear about? I'm pretty sure everyone knows that MIT is pretty great. Did Gates just copy-paste info from the recruitment packet? I suspect that if this was not written by Bill Gates, it would have never made it to the front page of HN.
- hugh3 15y ago
  It reminds me of a Point/Counterpoint from The Onion: "Why MIT Matters", by Bill Gates vs "MIT Sucks and Everyone Who Goes There Is A Huge Fag, lol" by A First-Year Engineering Undergrad at Caltech
  - robg 15y ago
    Sad that we can't take time - even just a moment - to appreciate nice things. Is the default really to assume a conflict? It's like the internet really is a fifteen year old - highly opinionated and easily slighted. I've been affiliated with MIT for three years. I hope to never leave. I wish I appreciated education as a kid and I might have arrived much sooner.
    - forensic 15y ago
      The internet used to be cool. It was full of smart people saying smart things. Now it's mainly a communication tool for 13 year olds and desperate housewives.
      - robg 15y ago
        I wouldn't go that far. I'm just surprised when the internet culture dictates the zombie response. If someone sat next to me on an airplane, heard me mention MIT, then waxed eloquent for an hour, I'd be nodding along with a big grin. Contrast that with me asking if MIT was involved in a conflict or if the speaker wanted a donation. It would make no sense. So why do we allow and enable that attitude online, especially here at HN? It's not just mean, it's vapid.
        forensic 15y ago
        I think an airplane, and face-to-face life in general, is actually a much more exclusive and filtered place than you realize. On the internet you are interacting with people who you would never run into face-to-face. They don't have a position in the world where they ride on airplanes. They dress in such a way that you would not even consider them for a conversation. Their body language communicates hostility and fear. They generally won't even live in the same city, or even the same country. How often do you visit Montgomery, Alabama? How often do you visit Turkey and strike up conversations with the local neurotics? The internet is where these people go to dump their neural refuse. People who are seen as pathetic hobgoblins when face-to-face use the internet megaphone to spew bile everywhere.
- ZackOfAllTrades 15y ago
  It's MIT's 150th celebration now. It's why they have been so loud as of late. Probably a good way to get the donations to come in.
- MitRules 15y ago
  people would up-vote a bowel movement if "MIT" was in the title.
  - jules 15y ago
    If there is an article about bowel movements with "MIT" in the title, chances are that it's interesting.
  - robg 15y ago
    You created an account just to post that deep thought? Why troll?
    - MitRules 15y ago
      Really wasn't meant to be a troll honestly, just an observation of the sometimes undue attention MIT gets. This happens on slashdot and every other forum. There are plenty of great schools doing great things, yet media has cast MIT as `the` place for all things tech. When there's a character in a movie who's a cool techie, they went to MIT. If you're a fictional character joining the CIA, you went to MIT. I can see how my comment unduly denigrates the judgement of the community in general, I'm sorry for that. Invariably however, maybe due to the name recognition at the aggregate, MIT stories always rise the top. It was a pretty stupid way of putting it originally, sorry.
- ThomPete 15y ago
  I might be wrong, but haven't there been some talk about MIT not getting the funding they used to? I.e. maybe it's not aimed at the already converted?
  - hga 15y ago
    It's much more than "talk": the end of the Cold War (plus perhaps other things and I would expect the dot.com crash didn't help) resulted in MIT receiving a lot less money and way prior to the Great Recession it's been in what seems to be a nearly eternal retrenchment mode, with frequent administrative downsizing and layoffs (something that was previously unheard of, at least in the post-WWII period). I can remember when they changed the cleaning of most bathrooms from every day to "frequent cleaning" (they said every other day at the time). Then "At night, the ice weasels come", or the Great Recession wacked a good part of their endowment like most ever other institution like MIT. They didn't get caught out like Harvard but it's caused a lot of problems, e.g. last time I checked freezing the conversion of the old graduate student dorm into a refurbished undergraduate dorm.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- nandemo 15y ago
  Well, apparently many HNers believe that where you go to school "doesn't matter", or even that getting a degree doesn't matter anymore ("it's just a credential"). So I'm not sure that everyone knows that MIT is great.
pnathan 15y ago
I wish I had had the cojones to apply to MIT when I was looking at undergraduate schools. I was afraid I was too fail, and I was terrified of the debt I'd accrue. Today, I think I could have made a competitive attempt to get in. If you're a nerdy high schooler: Don't let that be you.
- nvarsj 15y ago
  Not that state schools are much cheaper these days, but do you really think it's good advice to suggest accumulating 200K+ in debt to get an undergrad degree?
  - quanticle 15y ago
    If its an MIT degree, it might very well be worth it. For better or worse, its easier to get a job if the company you're applying to has a lot of alumni from the same university. Given the high placement of MIT alumni in Silicon Valley, getting the MIT brand on your resume might very well be worth the debt you accrue.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  - ipince 15y ago
    People need to understand that MIT and most other top tier schools have insanely amazing need-based financial aid programs. If you really can't afford it, don't worry, you won't have to. Yes, you'll accumulate some debt, but it's more like 16,000 instead of 200,000 (at least in my case). Plus, again in my case, it's interest-free for as long as you're in school and 9 months after you leave. So yes, I strongly advice any high school student from any economic background to apply. Edit: changed "keeled" to "need" in first sentence; damn phone auto-complete!
    - Wilduck 15y ago
      This is also true for middle income students. I qualified for $1,000 of aid at my local state school, and enough aid at a high caliber liberal arts school to make the difference on the order of hundreds, not thousands of dollars. I went with the liberal arts school, and haven't been disappointed. I'll have debt, but I've have a job lined up to pay it off.
JasonMoyMN79 15y ago
MIT sucks, seriously. Stanford is better. Better in engineering than MIT, better in non-tech areas than MIT, better weather than MIT, better girls than MIT, better things to do outside of school than MIT. Can't beat it.
jonbischke 15y ago
Not that anyone would ever accuse Bill Gates of copying anybody else but this seems pretty similar to what Chris Dixon blogged about a couple of months ago: http://cdixon.posterous.com/mit-is-a-national-treasure http://cdixon.posterous.com/mit-is-a-national-treasure

87 points by robg 15y ago

bugsy 15y ago

Bill is right that MIT is a great school. His statement "almost half (48 percent) of MIT’s undergraduates are minorities" is a bit misleading. According to MIT: "The class of 2014 is 36% Caucasian, 30% Asian, 14% Hispanic, 9% African-American, a few percentage points for assorted "other". All in all, it's about 75% "over-represented" and 25% "under-represented."

hugh3 15y ago
Sounds to me like it's 100% minorities.
- sp332 15y ago
  My great-grandfather fled Mussolini and came to the USA. Does that make me a minority, or does it still count as a majority because my skin is white? :)

rgbrgb 15y ago

Was there some dispute I didn't hear about? I'm pretty sure everyone knows that MIT is pretty great. Did Gates just copy-paste info from the recruitment packet? I suspect that if this was not written by Bill Gates, it would have never made it to the front page of HN.

hugh3 15y ago
It reminds me of a Point/Counterpoint from The Onion: "Why MIT Matters", by Bill Gates vs "MIT Sucks and Everyone Who Goes There Is A Huge Fag, lol" by A First-Year Engineering Undergrad at Caltech
- robg 15y ago
  Sad that we can't take time - even just a moment - to appreciate nice things. Is the default really to assume a conflict? It's like the internet really is a fifteen year old - highly opinionated and easily slighted. I've been affiliated with MIT for three years. I hope to never leave. I wish I appreciated education as a kid and I might have arrived much sooner.
  - forensic 15y ago
    The internet used to be cool. It was full of smart people saying smart things. Now it's mainly a communication tool for 13 year olds and desperate housewives.
    - robg 15y ago
      I wouldn't go that far. I'm just surprised when the internet culture dictates the zombie response. If someone sat next to me on an airplane, heard me mention MIT, then waxed eloquent for an hour, I'd be nodding along with a big grin. Contrast that with me asking if MIT was involved in a conflict or if the speaker wanted a donation. It would make no sense. So why do we allow and enable that attitude online, especially here at HN? It's not just mean, it's vapid.
      - forensic 15y ago
        I think an airplane, and face-to-face life in general, is actually a much more exclusive and filtered place than you realize. On the internet you are interacting with people who you would never run into face-to-face. They don't have a position in the world where they ride on airplanes. They dress in such a way that you would not even consider them for a conversation. Their body language communicates hostility and fear. They generally won't even live in the same city, or even the same country. How often do you visit Montgomery, Alabama? How often do you visit Turkey and strike up conversations with the local neurotics? The internet is where these people go to dump their neural refuse. People who are seen as pathetic hobgoblins when face-to-face use the internet megaphone to spew bile everywhere.
ZackOfAllTrades 15y ago
It's MIT's 150th celebration now. It's why they have been so loud as of late. Probably a good way to get the donations to come in.
MitRules 15y ago
people would up-vote a bowel movement if "MIT" was in the title.
- jules 15y ago
  If there is an article about bowel movements with "MIT" in the title, chances are that it's interesting.
- robg 15y ago
  You created an account just to post that deep thought? Why troll?
  - MitRules 15y ago
    Really wasn't meant to be a troll honestly, just an observation of the sometimes undue attention MIT gets. This happens on slashdot and every other forum. There are plenty of great schools doing great things, yet media has cast MIT as `the` place for all things tech. When there's a character in a movie who's a cool techie, they went to MIT. If you're a fictional character joining the CIA, you went to MIT. I can see how my comment unduly denigrates the judgement of the community in general, I'm sorry for that. Invariably however, maybe due to the name recognition at the aggregate, MIT stories always rise the top. It was a pretty stupid way of putting it originally, sorry.
ThomPete 15y ago
I might be wrong, but haven't there been some talk about MIT not getting the funding they used to? I.e. maybe it's not aimed at the already converted?
- hga 15y ago
  It's much more than "talk": the end of the Cold War (plus perhaps other things and I would expect the dot.com crash didn't help) resulted in MIT receiving a lot less money and way prior to the Great Recession it's been in what seems to be a nearly eternal retrenchment mode, with frequent administrative downsizing and layoffs (something that was previously unheard of, at least in the post-WWII period). I can remember when they changed the cleaning of most bathrooms from every day to "frequent cleaning" (they said every other day at the time). Then "At night, the ice weasels come", or the Great Recession wacked a good part of their endowment like most ever other institution like MIT. They didn't get caught out like Harvard but it's caused a lot of problems, e.g. last time I checked freezing the conversion of the old graduate student dorm into a refurbished undergraduate dorm.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
nandemo 15y ago
Well, apparently many HNers believe that where you go to school "doesn't matter", or even that getting a degree doesn't matter anymore ("it's just a credential"). So I'm not sure that everyone knows that MIT is great.

pnathan 15y ago

I wish I had had the cojones to apply to MIT when I was looking at undergraduate schools. I was afraid I was too fail, and I was terrified of the debt I'd accrue. Today, I think I could have made a competitive attempt to get in. If you're a nerdy high schooler: Don't let that be you.

nvarsj 15y ago
Not that state schools are much cheaper these days, but do you really think it's good advice to suggest accumulating 200K+ in debt to get an undergrad degree?
- quanticle 15y ago
  If its an MIT degree, it might very well be worth it. For better or worse, its easier to get a job if the company you're applying to has a lot of alumni from the same university. Given the high placement of MIT alumni in Silicon Valley, getting the MIT brand on your resume might very well be worth the debt you accrue.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- ipince 15y ago
  People need to understand that MIT and most other top tier schools have insanely amazing need-based financial aid programs. If you really can't afford it, don't worry, you won't have to. Yes, you'll accumulate some debt, but it's more like 16,000 instead of 200,000 (at least in my case). Plus, again in my case, it's interest-free for as long as you're in school and 9 months after you leave. So yes, I strongly advice any high school student from any economic background to apply. Edit: changed "keeled" to "need" in first sentence; damn phone auto-complete!
  - Wilduck 15y ago
    This is also true for middle income students. I qualified for $1,000 of aid at my local state school, and enough aid at a high caliber liberal arts school to make the difference on the order of hundreds, not thousands of dollars. I went with the liberal arts school, and haven't been disappointed. I'll have debt, but I've have a job lined up to pay it off.

JasonMoyMN79 15y ago

MIT sucks, seriously. Stanford is better. Better in engineering than MIT, better in non-tech areas than MIT, better weather than MIT, better girls than MIT, better things to do outside of school than MIT. Can't beat it.

jonbischke 15y ago

Not that anyone would ever accuse Bill Gates of copying anybody else but this seems pretty similar to what Chris Dixon blogged about a couple of months ago: http://cdixon.posterous.com/mit-is-a-national-treasure http://cdixon.posterous.com/mit-is-a-national-treasure