<p>Hi Sakky,
Can I ask you for "full disclosure" if you are willing....I mean, you lean towards so many cautionary postings about MIT, which is fine, but I wonder about your own situation and personal experience (well not really, only as it is relevant here)..I am sorry if you have explained before and I missed it. On my end, I have a son who is WL and we are flying around the world next week to make sure he is really truly wanting to stay on the WL(and to decide among his other choices)...to the degree that he can, we want for him to have a sense of the real MIT so that there are "no regrets". My H and I are both alums and we know MIT is not for everyone....even the MIT WL is not for everyone...</p>
<p>Contact me offline.</p>
<p>The reason why MIT students transfer is obvious: it's too hard for them. They don't want to work that hard.</p>
<p>There is no legitimate reason to transfer out of Harvard. The hard part is only getting in.</p>
<p>Yet that again only proves my point is that, for whatever reason, MIT students seem to be less happy than Harvard students. Otherwise, MIT students would be graduating at the same rate as Harvard students are. Whether it's because those unsuccessful MIT students flunk out, or transfer out, or whatever, the point is, whatever it is, it's an indication of unhappiness.</p>
<p>I disagree. Lower graduation rates do not necessarily reflect less happiness. They reflect the difficulty of the curriculum relative to the difficulty of admissions.</p>
<p>Not everyone likes things to be easy. Many people like to be challenged.</p>
<p>sakky is pretty much a troll. to win his approval a school should guarantee graduation upon entry, though he admits this view only gradually. forget all that about there being any meaning to "passing" and "failing", or any risk of not doing well. of course the smartest people don't want a challenge.</p>
<p><em>scoff</em></p>
<p>...............|||/<br>
..............(o o)<br>
,----ooO--(<em>)-------.
|........ Please .........|
|....don't feed the....|
|.......TROLLs !........|
'--------------Ooo--'
........... |</em><em>|</em>_|<br>
............. || ||<br>
......... ooO Ooo</p>
<p>[applause]
How long did you spend doing that?</p>
<p>i just made it slightly better:</p>
<p>..............|||/
..............<a href="o%20o">/color</a>
,----ooO--(<em>)-------.
|[color=#e3e3e3]........ Please .........|
|....don't feed the....|
|.......TROLLs !........|
'--------------Ooo--'
........... |</em><em>|</em>_|
............. || ||
......... ooO Ooo</p>
<p>;)</p>
<p>Not very long, I had the original ASCII and just modded it to suit the boards. I forgot that on this board you can change the colour of the text though. (I'm used to message boards that are straight out text, no graphics at all)</p>
<p>no, he/she's not a troll -- he/she's just a Harvard addict and will never be convinced that anything about another school is better than Harvard.</p>
<p>My response to you is :
"Man is happiest when he is left to his pleasant delusions."
--Goethe</p>
<p>And Ben Golub, what exactly have you added to this discussion, besides personal insults to me? Seems to me that you have not contributed a single useful comment about any of the issues raised in this thread. So, tell me, who's being the troll here? <em>SCOFF</em>. </p>
<p>Now to SDFried, did I ever say that Harvard is the best school around? Please point to the specific quote where I said that. Can't do it? Allright then - don't put words in my mouth. </p>
<p>I simply question the OP's original post that Harvard students are supposedly so unhappy, and that's supposedly a reason to pick MIT over Harvard. My rejoinder is, if Harvard students are happier than MIT students, than why do Harvard students graduate at a higher rate than MIT students? Nobody has yet to rebut that. You say that it's because MIT is more difficult, hence the lower graduation rate - but that's just another indication of unhappiness. Go ask a student who flunked out of MIT whether he was happy about choosing MIT. What do you think he's going to say? </p>
<p>So apparently, it's OK for people to point out that some Harvard students are unhappy because of some poll run by some newspaper, but when I point out that some MIT students are also unhappy (especially those who flunk out or transfer out), I get a whole bunch of flack and insults. So I would ask you - is this supposed to be a real and serious discussion, or is this just all about MIT cheerleading?</p>
<p>Misguided sakky: you labor under the delusion that there is only one class of people out there, and the same advice is right for all of them.</p>
<p>Some people, who place a very high value on graduating in a certain amount of time and a lower value on rigor, would be <em>happier</em> at Harvard.</p>
<p>I assure you that other people value a VERY rigorous education, in a VERY rigorous environment, with no art majors (I am one of those people). We are willing to pay extra for that. The currency we pay in is extra risk of failure. We think this is a good deal. We are <em>happier</em> at MIT or Caltech than we would be at Princeton or Harvard. (I know, at least with respect to Princeton; I took many courses there for a year while still a high school senior.)</p>
<p>So Harvard is right for people who are very focused, mostly on the tangible reward of the education. MIT and Caltech are right for people who are willing to pay a bit extra for the privilege of being treated like intellectual adults without too much padding or safety nets. Different strokes for different folks.</p>
<p>Why are you trying (in a laughably unsuccessful way) to prove to us that the same environment is right for everyone?</p>
<p>ok just to steer out of the way, by adding that ascii art, i'm NOT joining in this discussion.</p>
<p>Ben Golub, ah, finally a sensical comment from you for this thread. I was wondering if you were ever going to contribute anything useful to this thread.</p>
<p>Now, to your points, I have always agreed that some people want a highly rigorous education, and that's fine for them. The problem comes when people are getting hurt by it. It's very easy for you to say that the extra rigor is good for you, because you obviously thrive on it. That's good for you. Why don't we ask those people at MIT and Caltech who are doing poorly whether they think the rigor is worth it. In fact, why don't we ask some people who flunked out of MIT or Caltech whether they think they got a good deal? Why don't we ask them how happy they are. </p>
<p>It's funny how you keep talking about the merits of the rigor of an education, but you don't see (or you deliberately choose not to see) the people who are getting hurt. However, I suppose that you don't really care that those people are getting hurt, right. You are getting what you want out of an education, and if other people are getting hurt, so what, right?</p>
<p>To summarize sakky:</p>
<p>Grade inflation++</p>
<p>Yes exactly. I did not want to join, but after this -
[quote]
Why don't we ask those people at MIT and Caltech who are doing poorly whether they think the rigor is worth it.
[/quote]
I must say: someone has to be at the bottom ranks unless everyone's assigned the same GPA. As for those "flunkin out", well there are people who also transfer from Harvard to MIT. It evens out, and in any case, the number of ppl who cannot handle the rigor is very less. On the other thread, i posted that forced rigor is not good, but going by sakky's and Golub's posts, I can say that the rigor at MIT or Caltech is absolutely justified.</p>
<p>And sensical is no word. It's sensible.</p>
<p>sakky --</p>
<p>You make me out to be far more heartless than I am. First, I personally know one person and know of several others who have failed (miserably <em>failed</em>) out of Caltech and transfered to Duke. Duke isn't so terrible! I must say I don't feel all that bad for them. So your assumption that Caltech leaves these people screwed and dead is just ridiculous. I do empathize those whose lives are severely disrupted by not doing well here, and I wish it didn't have to be that way.</p>
<p>But it <em>does</em> have to be that way, unless we want to give up the mission of Caltech (I'll just use that example because it's were I go; lots of what I say, especially toward the end, applies very well to MIT, too). You have said before, "screen out those who will fail with stricter admissions" to fix the problem. I told you (truly): that's impossible; no institution as hard as Caltech can use high school data to screen out nearly all the students who might fail. When you brought up MIT as an alleged counterexample, I pointed out the requirements are not as hard (no required quantum mechanics, e.g.). You have, since then, been arguing "get rid of the QM requirements for econ majors, it doesn't make sense, etc."</p>
<p>But THAT's exactly the point where you start telling us to change the education. The very idea of Caltech is that everyone here understands quantum mechanics. It's our quirky little idea, and it's what gives the Caltech name a special unique something (not necessarily better) that nobody else has. In telling us to loosen the requirements for some people, you've acknowledged that we can't reduce the hurt on the bottom 10% without changing the nature of our school.</p>
<p>*And the main thing that you don't see is that those changes would hurt other people; probably the entire top 50%. There wouldn't be a school anymore where even economics professors can make casual references to the wave equation and be sure that everyone will understand. I would be a very sad person if there weren't such a place. Yes, I could take the same hard courses, but it wouldn't be the same -- there wouldn't be the same ambience, the same spirit of the *place. And why don't you care about me, heartless sakky, or the thousands like me at MIT and Caltech? Why don't you care about how much worse our lives would be?</p>
<p>I'm just glad that people with unthoughtful views like yours don't actually have any influence, at least at my school.**</p>
<p>So yes, some worthwhile ventures end up hurting some people. The NBA makes lots of people's lives somewhat worse than they would have been otherwise -- development league players who never make it big and waste the best years of their lives striving for something they'll never achieve. Should we abolish the NBA or reduce the requirements for playing pro ball? But that would destroy pro ball and not give the truly great a chance to shine. Either way, someone gets hurt. That's not a reason to hurt the best people.</p>
<p>If you seriously espouse the views you put forth, misguided sakky, you are an enemy of greatness. Shame on you.</p>
<p>And how exactly am I heartless and hurting people? I am not stopping anybody at Caltech from taking whatever hard courses they want to take. If you want to take hard courses, feel free. But to require if ot people for which those courses have nothing to do with their major. </p>
<p>What I am saying is that perhaps if you don't want to take difficult courses that have nothing to do with your major, perhaps you shouldn't have to. If it's rigor that you're so concerned about, then the Caltech economics department should create a highly rigorous (but still related to economics) gateway course. You and I both know that QM has only a tangential relationship to economics. </p>
<p>I would also say that that's where your NBA analogy breaks down. To make it in the NBA, you have to play good basketball. Nothing more, nothing less. The NBA doesn't have a requirement where you have to also be great at hitting a baseball. Hitting a baseball has nothing to do with whether you're going to be a good basketball player or not. Look at Michael Jordan - a mediocre baseball player, yet the best basketball player ever. Yet here's a place like Caltech, requiring QM of an economics student. What's up with that? In the NBA, the only requirement is that you know how to play basketball - not these other requirements that have nothing to do with basketball. </p>
<p>And to Ben Golub, you have constantly insulted me over and over again. Do it again, and the gloves will come off. I have absolutely no problem in reporting you to the moderators and getting you banned. It's one thing to disagree with me. But to constantly resort to personal attacks? Shame on you for constantly resorting to personal attacks.</p>
<p>Does anyone know the actual "failure rate" at MIT? What does it take to actually fail there? How does the institute assist students with acadmic problems?</p>