Stanford vs Berkeley vs CalTech vs MIT for Engineering

College Majors Engineering Majors
101

<p>Sakky,</p>

<p>I am surprized you dare to say Google is not innovative. The idea of page rank is certainly very innovative. Google replaced Altavista because it is more powerful and can get better search results. Before Google, Altavista was a dominate search engine. Again, Altavista was invented by a person with ties to Stanford, Paul Flaherty, who earned a master and ph.d degree from there. When talking about search engine, it is all the way Stanford. MIT's contribution in search engine is very limited.</p>

<p>See the following attached article about Paul Flaherty. </p>

<p>=========================================================</p>

<p>Paul Flaherty </p>

<p>Paul Andrew Flaherty December 31, 2005Paul Andrew Flaherty (1964 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin ? March 16, 2006 in Belmont, California) was an American computer scientist. He was a renowned specialist for internet protocols and a co-inventor of the AltaVista search engine.</p>

<p>Flaherty received his Bachelor's Degree in Electrical Engineering and Mathematics from Marquette University, and his Master's Degree and PhD from Stanford University.</p>

<p>He joined Digital Equipment Corporation in 1994 and, as the Associated Press wrote:</p>

<p>Flaherty came up with the idea of indexing Web pages that made the AltaVista search engine one of the most popular Internet search tools in the mid-1990s. Flaherty was working as a research engineer at Digital Equipment Corporation in Palo Alto when he teamed up with two other staff researchers in 1995 to develop AltaVista's technology. The Web site was made public in December 1995 and within weeks was processing several million searches a day. It was spun off from Digital Equipment as a private company in 1999. [1]</p>

<p>He held an amateur radio Extra class license with the call sign N9FZX. Was President, W6YX, Stanford Amateur Radio Club, 1986-1990.</p>

<p>Station Engineer, W6YX, Stanford Amateur Radio Club, 1990-1994.
Started the VHF+ mailing list in 1989.
Married to his Stanford University sweetheart N6YBV. (this number refers to her amateur radio call sign )
An avid railfan photographer and past Assistant General Manager of the Niles Canyon Railway.
Member of the Sunnyvale Rod and Gun Club where he enjoyed target shooting and trap shooting.
While a grad student drove a 1979 Z28 Camaro with T-tops. </p>

<p>At age 42, Flaherty died of a heart attack in Belmont, California.</p>

<p>External links
In Memoriam ? Paul A. Flaherty, PhD (by his last employer)
History of AltaVista</p>

102

<p>Matlab was invented by Cleve Moler (Caltech graduate and Stanford ph.d) and Jack Little (MIT graduate and Stanford master). Cleve Moler also taught at Stanford. So by any counts, Stanford claim more credits than MIT on MATLAB.</p>

<p>By the way, you also 'conveniently failed to' mention Stanford ph.d Paul Flaherty as a co-inventor when talking about AltaVista.</p>

<p>Transistor was not invented on Stanford's campus, not on MIT's campus either. It was invented at Bell lab. Yes, Shockley joined Stanford long after his invention of transistor. But Tim Berners, the father of WWW, joined MIT long after his invention of WWW. MIT didn't contribute anything on WWW but recruit a famous engineer into its campus. </p>

<p>As for internet, Vinton Cerf and Bob Kahn's contribution are critical. They were widely referred to as ths fathers of internet, especially Vinton Cerf.</p>

103

<p>Victor Scheiman's invention of his robot arm.</p>

<p>The arm was invented by Victor Scheinman on Stanford's campus when he was a ph.d student. It was called 'Stanford arm', not 'MIT arm'. Yes, he is also a MIT graduate. But by any counts, he has more ties to Stanford. He got his ph.d from there, and taught there. Even now, he is still a consulting professor there.</p>

104

<p>
[quote]
I am surprized you dare to say Google is not innovative.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Well, sometimes the truth hurts. </p>

<p>
[quote]
The idea of page rank is certainly very innovative.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>How so? Brin and Page have freely acknowledged that the concept of pagerank stemmed from the notion of academic recursive citations of journals that has been in use for decades to determine which academic paper is more influential than others. The 'innovation' is that Brin and Page extended this idea to search engines. Hey, don't get me wrong. That is indeed one form of innovation (because innovation can include using familiar concepts in unfamiliar arenas). But at the same time, let's not make Brin and Page out to be any more innovative than they really are. </p>

<p>
[quote]
Google replaced Altavista because it is more powerful and can get better search results. Before Google, Altavista was a dominate search engine. Again, Altavista was invented by a person with ties to Stanford, Paul Flaherty, who earned a master and ph.d degree from there.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I'm simply using Alta Vista to knock down your contention that Google was so 'innovative'. Alta Vista was the dominant search engine when Google was born. </p>

<p>
[quote]
When talking about search engine, it is all the way Stanford. MIT's contribution in search engine is very limited.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I don't know about that. "All the way Stanford"? "MIT's contribution in (sic) search engine is very limited"? The first Web search engine (hence, not counting old non-Web Internet search engines like Gopher or Archie) is generally understood to be Wandex, created by MIT graduate Matthew Gray.
One of the top commercial search engines of the early days was Infoseek, founded by MIT graduate Steve Kirsch (also the guy who invented the optical mouse). Another large search provider of the early days (and currently the engine behind Yahoo search) was Inktomi, founded by MIT graduate Eric Brewer. Perhaps you'd like to read about them.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/%7Ebrewer/bio.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~brewer/bio.html&lt;/a>
<a href="http://skirsch.com/stk.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://skirsch.com/stk.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Anyway, I'd like to have a better explanation of you as to how search engines are supposedly "all the way Stanford", or that MIT's contribution to search engines is very limited, yet somehow conveniently ignore Wandex, Inktomi, and Infoseek. How is that again? </p>

<p>
[quote]
Matlab was invented by Cleve Moler (Caltech graduate and Stanford ph.d) and Jack Little (MIT graduate and Stanford master). Cleve Moler also taught at Stanford. So by any counts, Stanford claim more credits than MIT on MATLAB.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>
[quote]
Victor Scheiman's invention of his robot arm.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I'm simply requesting that you acknowledge that these people/companies/technologies have MIT ties. </p>

<p>
[quote]
But Tim Berners, the father of WWW, joined MIT long after his invention of WWW. MIT didn't contribute anything on WWW but recruit a famous engineer into its campus.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Uh, I never gave 'credit' to MIT for Berners-Lee's creation of WWW. But I DO give credit for his location of the W3C at the MIT CSAIL. It was because he was at MIT was the reason that the W3C has its US headquarters at MIT. Notice how Stanford doesn't have the W3C headquarters. </p>

<p>
[quote]
As for internet, Vinton Cerf and Bob Kahn's contribution are critical. They were widely referred to as ths fathers of internet, especially Vinton Cerf.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Nobody is denying that Cerf's and Kahn's contributions aren't crucial. But so are the contributions of others, especially Kleinrock's and Roberts's. In fact, there are generally understood to be * four * founding fathers of the Internet - Cerf, Kahn, Kleinrock, and Roberts. 2 of them are from MIT. 1 is from Stanford (Kahn is from neither). So really, if you want to be picky, you could say that MIT has a stronger claim on the invention of the Internet than Stanford does. </p>

<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Roberts%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Roberts&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>I'm also waiting for you to justify whether you really think the microprocessor was a more important invention than the integrated circuit.</p>

105

<p>MIT is the premier math/science/engineering institution in the world for both research and education. Period.</p>

106

<p>WHO CARES ABOUT ALL THIS? it doesnt really help in any way.......Both schools are great for engineering and if one got into both, it would be wise to figure out which he/she likes more as a school....</p>

107

<p>Of course, you will not be fined even if you claim MIT is the best university in the universe. </p>

<p>Any evidence?</p>

108

<p>Of course MIT isn't the best UNIVERSITY in the universe!!!</p>

109

<p>Sakky,</p>

<p>Among the four 'founding fathers', Cerf and Kahn are more famous. Cerf is the most famous figure, and most widely called 'the father of internet'. Cerf and Kahn were recognized by Turing prize, national medal of technology, medal of freedom, and etc. I am not denying the great contribution from Kleinrock and Roberts. I am just pointing out their contribution is less recognized throughout the world. </p>

<p>Kleinrock didn't invent the concept of packet switching. Paul Barren and Donald Davies might have had this idea before him. Kleinrock published the first article of packet swithing though. If you call Kleinrock a founding father of the internet, Paul Barren and Donald Davies certainly deserve this title as well. By the way, these two people have no connection to MIT.</p>

<p>Stanford's contributions to internet are certainly richer than MIT. Just list what I know:
Internet TCP/IP protocol, stanford graduate and former prof Cerf
First internet website in the world (SLAC)
YAHOO (Stanford ph.d students Filo and Yang)
GOOGLE search engine (Stanford ph.d students Page and Brin)
netscape (Stanford prof Jim Clark)
Alta Vista search engine (Stanford ph.d Paul Flaherty)
multiprotocal internet router (Stanford engineer Bill Yeager)
DSL broadband internet connection (Stanford Ph.d. and prof John Cioffi)
Claiming MIT made more contributions than Stanford is laughable.</p>

<p>To answer your question about search engine why it is all the way Stanford, I don't know how many people have ever heard of those search engines you mentioned with 'ties' to MIT. There might be a plenty more such and such search engines existing in the past. All these products got crushed by Alta Vista and GOOGLE. Both Alta Vista and GOOGLE were invented by Stanford graduates. So it is all the way Stanford.</p>

110

<p>Because if you go to Stanford you will invent google.........again.</p>

111

<p>
[quote]
Among the four 'founding fathers', Cerf and Kahn are more famous. Cerf is the most famous figure, and most widely called 'the father of internet'. Cerf and Kahn were recognized by Turing prize, national medal of technology, medal of freedom, and etc. I am not denying the great contribution from Kleinrock and Roberts. I am just pointing out their contribution is less recognized throughout the world.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Kahn has no connection to Stanford (or to MIT). As far as Cerf goes, even if you want to say that his contribution was greater than that of Kleinrock's or Robert's alone, I think nobody, including Cerf himself, would assert that his contribution was larger than both of those other guys combined. </p>

<p>Hence, either way you cut it, Kleinrock+ Robert > Cerf, which means that MIT contributed a greater portion to the Internet than did Cerf. </p>

<p>
[quote]
Stanford's contributions to internet are certainly richer than MIT. Just list what I know:
Internet TCP/IP protocol, stanford graduate and former prof Cerf
First internet website in the world (SLAC)
YAHOO (Stanford ph.d students Filo and Yang)
GOOGLE search engine (Stanford ph.d students Page and Brin)
netscape (Stanford prof Jim Clark)
Alta Vista search engine (Stanford ph.d Paul Flaherty)
multiprotocal internet router (Stanford engineer Bill Yeager)
DSL broadband internet connection (Stanford Ph.d. and prof John Cioffi)
Claiming MIT made more contributions than Stanford is laughable.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>And like I said, none of that would be even possible without the development of the Arpanet, which is more of an MIT invention than a Stanford invention.</p>

<p>Furthermore, isn't the Internet nothing more than a specific application of Licklider's Galaxy Network? Didn't (D)Arpa itself get formed at the urging of Vannevar Bush? I could go on and on about how MIT actually created the foundation for the US government's backing of the (D)Arpanet as a government research project. </p>

<p>
[quote]
To answer your question about search engine why it is all the way Stanford, I don't know how many people have ever heard of those search engines you mentioned with 'ties' to MIT. There might be a plenty more such and such search engines existing in the past. All these products got crushed by Alta Vista and GOOGLE. Both Alta Vista and GOOGLE were invented by Stanford graduates. So it is all the way Stanford.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>So your test is that 'more people heard' of the inventions that Stanford has made? By that same argument, Britney Spears is one of the greatest recording artists in world history, just because a lot of people have heard of her. I doubt that 'pop culture significance' has much to do with importance. </p>

<p>Look, the bottom line is this. I am not saying that Stanford is a bad school. I am saying that we should respect the contributions of MIT as a strong engineering school. I don't think either one should be disrespected.</p>

112

<p>Sakky,</p>

<p>It's nice to discuss with you, although you tend to have a little bias in favoring MIT. </p>

<p>I don't have more time on this issue. But I think neither of us can convince the other. And both have plenty of 'evidence' to show. The discussion could be endless if we want. Let's say Stanford=MIT in engineering to end this discussion. I hope you are happy on this result.</p>

113

<p>i think MIT is the best technology school in the universe</p>

114

<p>The best in the east. To be the best in USA, need to ask if Stanford and Berkeley agree.</p>

<p>See if MIT can win the 2007 DARPA grand challenge in the noted driverless car race. If MIT keeps losing badly like in year 2005, it may cause more doubt on its fame as the US-NEWS #1 engineering school.</p>

115

<p>^^ I thought you were done. ;)</p>

116

<p>Me: "How come MIT's DARPA grand challenge team sucks?"
Fiance (who works in the lab that makes up most of the team): "Because it's only their second year doing it. This is actually the first year they have real funding for it."</p>

<p>Apparently MIT has more important things to do than participate in a contest. ;)</p>

117

<p>
[quote]
Look, the bottom line is this. I am not saying that Stanford is a bad school. I am saying that we should respect the contributions of MIT as a strong engineering school. I don't think either one should be disrespected.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>At the very least, Paul Graham and Y-Combinator seem to view both equally as well -- half the VC time is spent in Cambridge while the other half in the Bay Area.</p>

118

<p>go to Stanford for ECE. All these schools are fantastic. However, Stanford (along with UCB) has a location advantage.</p>

<p>Stanford is down the street from Intel, Google, HP, etc. (not literally but you know what i mean). </p>

<p>Surely Stanford's alumni network at these places is bigger than MIT, even if MIT will teach you to design a better circuit. </p>

<p>Of course you can get jobs at those places from MIT, but its not a car ride away for internships/networking/interviews..could be harder. </p>

<p>This of course assumes you actually want to be an EE and you aren't using your BS as a stepping stone to Mckinsey or Goldman :P.</p>

<p>also, boston sucks. (lifelong native). its alright, but it can't compare to san fran and california in general. stanford is beautiful. MIT is ugly. list goes on.</p>

119

<p>
[quote]
also, boston sucks. (lifelong native). its alright, but it can't compare to san fran and california in general. stanford is beautiful. MIT is ugly. list goes on.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I'll grant you that I prefer San Francisco to Boston.</p>

<p>But if we're talking about Stanford, we're not really talking about San Francisco. We're talking about Silicon Valley. And while it is true that Silicon Valley has lots of economic opportunities, let's be honest. It's not exactly the most exciting place in the world. Far from it, in fact. </p>

<p>Here's what Paul Graham had to say about it:</p>

<p>"For all its power, Silicon Valley has a great weakness: the paradise Shockley found in 1956 is now one giant parking lot. San Francisco and Berkeley are great, but they're forty miles away. Silicon Valley proper is soul-crushing suburban sprawl. It has fabulous weather, which makes it significantly better than the soul-crushing sprawl of most other American cities. But a competitor that managed to avoid sprawl would have real leverage. All a city needs is to be the kind of place the next traitorous eight look at and say "I want to stay here," and that would be enough to get the chain reaction started."</p>

<p><a href="http://www.paulgraham.com/siliconvalley.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.paulgraham.com/siliconvalley.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>The bottom line is that Cambridge, Mass is far far more interesting than Palo Alto. I think even most Stanford people would concede that Palo Alto is not exactly the most interesting town in the world. </p>

<p>
[quote]
Sakky,</p>

<p>It's nice to discuss with you, although you tend to have a little bias in favoring MIT.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Ha! You know what the pot said to the kettle.</p>

120

<p>In the end, go to the university with the most prestigious name (Harvard). Or role some dice, or write a random number generator. I personally would try to visit all of the campuses. Keep in mind of financial aid. And remember, its not about the college, its about what you do there.</p>