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I'm baffled that MIT's PR is so cringeworthy. They had a priceless, universally recognized and irreplaceable brand and they are just trashing it with a sustain

I'm baffled that MIT's PR is so cringeworthy. They had a priceless, universally recognized and irreplaceable brand and they are just trashing it with a sustained campaign of cheap clickbait seemingly aimed at a technologically ignorant audience. WTF? WHY? The Fools!

frognumber 4y ago
University reputations have a few decades lag. MIT did it's greatest work in the 20th century. It's since brought in people attracted to fame, power, fortune, and, again, fame. I don't think it will dig itself out again.
- jakzurr 4y ago
  > University reputations have a few decades lag. MIT did it's greatest work in the 20th century. It's since brought in people attracted to fame, power, fortune, and, again, fame. > I don't think it will dig itself out again. Don't know why, but makes me think of Google.
- pen2l 4y ago
  Harvard and MIT have a lot of clout, and it's partly because of how incredibly massive they are. The Harvard network has more professors than some universities have pupils, (above two-thousand). Consequently just the amount of output due to a large number of people working there gets it placed high up in rating indices and such. It's tough to say if it can keep up with its reputation. In some ways this phenomenon is comparable to gentrification: the beauty and soul of a place sometimes dies when the people who made that place what it is are displaced, like how Somerville and Berlin changed/are changing. It makes no sense for someone to remain committed in an academic career track when they're paying the kind of rent they do when around MIT/Harvard area with the income they make, so I agree with you that it's no longer attracting the kind of people that made MIT what it once was. There are some institutions, that not many know about yet, that I'm confident in a couple of decades everyone will know about like U of Copenhagen and KIT & U of Stuttgart in Germany, and I think some in the midwest (Purdue, UMich, etc.) will one day have their day to shine too.
  - april_22 4y ago
    TU Munich is also getting really strong, they've been winning Elon Musk's Hyperloop for the past years I think
    - pclmulqdq 4y ago
      I wouldn't advertise on winning the hype-loop competitions too much... Have you seen the videos?
    - nosianu 4y ago
      Just an aside on the topic of German research. In Germany a lot of research is not done at the universities but at various institutes such as Max-Planck, Fraunhofer, Helmholtz, Leibniz and a lot more. General overview, research institutes being one item: https://www.research-in-germany.org/en/research-landscape.html https://www.research-in-germany.org/en/research-landscape.ht... Ca. 400 universities - but ca. 1,000 publicly funded research institutions (https://www.research-in-germany.org/en/research-landscape/research-institutes.html https://www.research-in-germany.org/en/research-landscape/re...). So, the ranking of the universities overall may not be completely comparable.
  - divbzero 4y ago
    MIT was established 161 years ago and Harvard was established 386 years ago, both young relative to Cambridge established 813 years ago and Oxford established 926 years ago. The clout of universities will ebb and flow, but I wouldn’t bet on 100+ year institutions losing their ability to attract talent anytime soon.
    - frognumber 4y ago
      MIT lost its ability to attract talent about two decades ago. Talent wants to work their. The endowment is obscene, and they won't lose their ability to afford talent. What they cant do is screen talent. For faculty positions, the competition is extreme; around 1000:1. That lends itself to people who cheat the system. In this case, it means, at the very least, overselling results, baking data, and giving TED-style talks. In many cases, it results in much worse. The extreme competition also drives off many people who just want to nerd. MIT isn't going away anytime soon, but that's why I think the problems may be hard to fix. The culture is broken.
tytso 4y ago
I very much doubt whether the MIT Press Office cares about what Hacker News thinks of their brand. What they do care about is what Sarah J. Student's parents think when they are trying to encourage their progency to attend Harvard vs Yale vs Stanford. And positive press is good towards achieving that mission, even if it is a bit click-baity. And since all universities are playing this game to one degree or another, it's asking quite a lot for one univesity to unilaterally agree to disarm. The other "brand" that universities care about is the their reputation by their professor's peers when it comes to hiring the best talent for their departments, and with the granting agencies who are deciding which research proposals they should fund. And here, what matters is the peer-reviewed publications at various academic journals and conferences. Whether a university's press office puts out a press release, which then gets mangled by various newspapers, doesn't really have negative or positive effect when it comes to how a university's research work is measured by the People Who Really Matter --- namely, other professors and the people who dispense the cash. Hacker News falls into neither of these two categories.

frognumber 4y ago

University reputations have a few decades lag. MIT did it's greatest work in the 20th century. It's since brought in people attracted to fame, power, fortune, and, again, fame. I don't think it will dig itself out again.

jakzurr 4y ago
> University reputations have a few decades lag. MIT did it's greatest work in the 20th century. It's since brought in people attracted to fame, power, fortune, and, again, fame. > I don't think it will dig itself out again. Don't know why, but makes me think of Google.
pen2l 4y ago
Harvard and MIT have a lot of clout, and it's partly because of how incredibly massive they are. The Harvard network has more professors than some universities have pupils, (above two-thousand). Consequently just the amount of output due to a large number of people working there gets it placed high up in rating indices and such. It's tough to say if it can keep up with its reputation. In some ways this phenomenon is comparable to gentrification: the beauty and soul of a place sometimes dies when the people who made that place what it is are displaced, like how Somerville and Berlin changed/are changing. It makes no sense for someone to remain committed in an academic career track when they're paying the kind of rent they do when around MIT/Harvard area with the income they make, so I agree with you that it's no longer attracting the kind of people that made MIT what it once was. There are some institutions, that not many know about yet, that I'm confident in a couple of decades everyone will know about like U of Copenhagen and KIT & U of Stuttgart in Germany, and I think some in the midwest (Purdue, UMich, etc.) will one day have their day to shine too.
- april_22 4y ago
  TU Munich is also getting really strong, they've been winning Elon Musk's Hyperloop for the past years I think
  - pclmulqdq 4y ago
    I wouldn't advertise on winning the hype-loop competitions too much... Have you seen the videos?
  - nosianu 4y ago
    Just an aside on the topic of German research. In Germany a lot of research is not done at the universities but at various institutes such as Max-Planck, Fraunhofer, Helmholtz, Leibniz and a lot more. General overview, research institutes being one item: https://www.research-in-germany.org/en/research-landscape.html https://www.research-in-germany.org/en/research-landscape.ht... Ca. 400 universities - but ca. 1,000 publicly funded research institutions (https://www.research-in-germany.org/en/research-landscape/research-institutes.html https://www.research-in-germany.org/en/research-landscape/re...). So, the ranking of the universities overall may not be completely comparable.
- divbzero 4y ago
  MIT was established 161 years ago and Harvard was established 386 years ago, both young relative to Cambridge established 813 years ago and Oxford established 926 years ago. The clout of universities will ebb and flow, but I wouldn’t bet on 100+ year institutions losing their ability to attract talent anytime soon.
  - frognumber 4y ago
    MIT lost its ability to attract talent about two decades ago. Talent wants to work their. The endowment is obscene, and they won't lose their ability to afford talent. What they cant do is screen talent. For faculty positions, the competition is extreme; around 1000:1. That lends itself to people who cheat the system. In this case, it means, at the very least, overselling results, baking data, and giving TED-style talks. In many cases, it results in much worse. The extreme competition also drives off many people who just want to nerd. MIT isn't going away anytime soon, but that's why I think the problems may be hard to fix. The culture is broken.

tytso 4y ago

I very much doubt whether the MIT Press Office cares about what Hacker News thinks of their brand. What they do care about is what Sarah J. Student's parents think when they are trying to encourage their progency to attend Harvard vs Yale vs Stanford. And positive press is good towards achieving that mission, even if it is a bit click-baity. And since all universities are playing this game to one degree or another, it's asking quite a lot for one univesity to unilaterally agree to disarm. The other "brand" that universities care about is the their reputation by their professor's peers when it comes to hiring the best talent for their departments, and with the granting agencies who are deciding which research proposals they should fund. And here, what matters is the peer-reviewed publications at various academic journals and conferences. Whether a university's press office puts out a press release, which then gets mangled by various newspapers, doesn't really have negative or positive effect when it comes to how a university's research work is measured by the People Who Really Matter --- namely, other professors and the people who dispense the cash. Hacker News falls into neither of these two categories.