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I often think back to why I came to MIT, especially when the semester gets tough. I remember I came to the admitted students weekend and toured one of the dorms

I often think back to why I came to MIT, especially when the semester gets tough. I remember I came to the admitted students weekend and toured one of the dorms. The walls were covered with murals and the floors with junk --- motors, robot parts, circuit boards. People had built their own lofts; someone had rigged their door to open automatically when it recognized them. Someone had hooked up a camera and a projector so that you could "draw" on one of the nearby buildings with a laser pointer. So of course, I came to MIT. I remember discovering pg's essays around sophomore year and starting to consider starting my own company, but my transformation really began when I set foot here at MIT, where creative and curious people build mind-blowing things every day. At first it's intimidating. These people all seem so smart! Who am I to build a roller coaster, paint a 20 foot mural, build a loft, hack a PS3, build a crazy device and start a company out of it? You hear about these things in the abstract and you're intimidated. But then you get home and see people building a roller coaster in your courtyard and you realize: Who am I not to do awesome things? Life is too short, damn it. It seems obvious to the entrepreneurially minded, but it's hard to describe the impact it had on me. I could've learned the same course material in many other places. But I cannot overstate how powerfully this cultural immersion changed my life.

jiggy2011 15y ago
Sounds like there is an incredibly strong hacker culture there. Is working on personal projects outside class considered the norm? It certainly wasn't when I was at uni, not with CS students anyway. After studying most CS students spent their time playing video games, watching movies, smoking pot or doing other activities. Making a door with face detection or similar would be very unusual.
- strawbucks 15y ago
  The culture varies across campus regarding those kinds of in-house projects. It is very common for people to have either an internship or research position outside of class, though.
- snikolov 15y ago
  In reality, everybody's very busy, but enough people find time to hack on things that it's very frequently an inspiration to hear/see what people are doing. Most people seem to be just surviving. But there a decent amount of people who hack on things frequently, and a small, but still sizable number of very prolific hackers. There are some people that comfortably take 8 or more classes a semester. Certainly some of those types of people choose to take a normal course load and have a lot of time to hack. But it seems like the more common situtation is that you end up neglecting your schoolwork and getting poor grades.
  - jiggy2011 15y ago
    Yes, I found when I was at university that it was very difficult to take on a personal project and still be motivated to do my school work. I would start hacking on something and not notice the time going by, so I would end up having to do assignments the day before. This was easy to begin with since the course starts easy but after a while becomes impossible. The only way I can see it being possible would either be to have super high intelligence and productivity or military level discipline. That's why I am amazed to hear of people who start whole companies whilst still getting top grades.
- rocha 15y ago
  Sounds like there is an incredibly strong hacker culture there. Some would say that the connotation of the word hacker used here originated in the 60s at MIT.

jiggy2011 15y ago

Sounds like there is an incredibly strong hacker culture there. Is working on personal projects outside class considered the norm? It certainly wasn't when I was at uni, not with CS students anyway. After studying most CS students spent their time playing video games, watching movies, smoking pot or doing other activities. Making a door with face detection or similar would be very unusual.

strawbucks 15y ago
The culture varies across campus regarding those kinds of in-house projects. It is very common for people to have either an internship or research position outside of class, though.
snikolov 15y ago
In reality, everybody's very busy, but enough people find time to hack on things that it's very frequently an inspiration to hear/see what people are doing. Most people seem to be just surviving. But there a decent amount of people who hack on things frequently, and a small, but still sizable number of very prolific hackers. There are some people that comfortably take 8 or more classes a semester. Certainly some of those types of people choose to take a normal course load and have a lot of time to hack. But it seems like the more common situtation is that you end up neglecting your schoolwork and getting poor grades.
- jiggy2011 15y ago
  Yes, I found when I was at university that it was very difficult to take on a personal project and still be motivated to do my school work. I would start hacking on something and not notice the time going by, so I would end up having to do assignments the day before. This was easy to begin with since the course starts easy but after a while becomes impossible. The only way I can see it being possible would either be to have super high intelligence and productivity or military level discipline. That's why I am amazed to hear of people who start whole companies whilst still getting top grades.
rocha 15y ago
Sounds like there is an incredibly strong hacker culture there. Some would say that the connotation of the word hacker used here originated in the 60s at MIT.