Stanford vs. Harvard

Colleges and Universities A-Z Stanford University
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<p>Then why are we praising Stanford of the past? The first on the list of distinguished companies to come out of Stanford grads from the post I was quoting (post #25) is HP - founded 1939. If we are taking a time machine back to the 1930s to demonstrate Stanford's greatness today, then we can use the same time machine to demonstrate Harvard's greatness too.</p>

<p>Good point about Oxford, except, as I said in my post, we are rating <em>American</em> universities.</p>

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<p>coureur the difference is that we're praising Stanford's recent past. True HP might be considered too old but many of the other examples cannot be dismissed so easily.</p>

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<p>If I take off HP from Stanford's list, I can easily replace it with 3COM, EBAY, MATHWORKS, NIKE, etc.</p>

<p>I have full respect for Harvard, which I think is Stanford's strongest rival overall. But when we talk about engineering, Harvard is not at the level of Stanford.Microsoft is not a very innovative company. It makes some easy money. Its current CEO Mr. Ballmer attended Stanford bussiness school and dropped out.</p>

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<p>Stanford also offers guaranteed research opportunities for at least one summer for their undergraduates. In addition, the coterm program allows undergraduates to opt to stay a fifth year and complete a masters in their choice of study. These two options are simple examples of the endless resources and advantages available for undergraduates at Stanford.</p>

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<p>^I'd just like to say that a lot of Stanford students coterm (I mean of the undergrads I know maybe roughly a third ar co-terming)</p>

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<p>superwizard: Here is the list of fall popular courses offered by Stanford. </p>

<p>X--taught by lecturers
*--taught by faculty</p>

<p>*cs106a: Programming Methodology (Roberts)(Research Area-Computer Science Education ?)
X cs106X: Programming Methodology and Abstractions (Zelenski)
X cs107: Programming Paradigms (Cain)
X cs249: Object-Oriented Prog: A Modeling & Simul Perspect (Linton)
*CS 221:Artificial Intelligence: Principles & Techniques (Ng, Assis Prof)
X cs103a: Discrete Mathematics for Computer Science (Plummer)
*cs154: Automata and Complexity (Dill, Prof.) </p>

<p>*cs140: Operating Systems and Systems Programming (Rosenblum, Asso. Prof)
*cs240: Advanced Operating Systems (Mazieres, Assis prof)</p>

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<p>no cs106B in the fall?
I took CS106A last summer as part of a summer program and don't want to take CS106X because it has a bit of review...</p>

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<p>^Nope no 106B in fall just winter.
bostonc I agree that the intro classes seem to be taught by lecturers. However after just a few classes almost all the classes become taught by faculty. It would be folly to judge a department just based on the first few quarters of the freshman year. I'm also sure that the lecturers are very competent teachers.</p>

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<p>I would also advise you to check out the engineering undergraduate handbook (<a href="http://ughb.stanford.edu/OSA/handbook/handbookfiles/handbooks/06-07/hb2006-07.pdf)%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://ughb.stanford.edu/OSA/handbook/handbookfiles/handbooks/06-07/hb2006-07.pdf)&lt;/a>. Also in terms or research I'm going to show you the list right now for *undergraduate<a href="you%20can't%20access%20it">/I</a> research available at the moment. Note I'm not sure if there's usually more during the start of the year or over the summer.</p>

<h2>List Projects</h2>

<p>AI Project Title Speech Recognition<br>
Field of Research AI </p>

<h2>Contact Professor Vaughan Pratt</h2>

<p>Project Title Knowledge acquisition and knowledge modeling<br>
Field of Research AI </p>

<h2>Contact Professor Mark A Musen </h2>

<p>Project Title Bayesian image and scene analysis<br>
Field of Research AI </p>

<h2>Contact Professor Sebastian Thrun (contact Mark Paskin) </h2>

<p>BioComputation Project Title Research in Bioinformatics<br>
Field of Research BioComputation </p>

<h2>Contact Professor Russ Biagio Altman </h2>

<p>Project Title Ontologies in biomedicine<br>
Field of Research BioComputation </p>

<h2>Contact Professor Mark A Musen </h2>

<p>Project Title Research in Computational Genomics<br>
Field of Research BioComputation </p>

<h2>Contact Professor Serafim Batzoglou </h2>

<p>Graphics Project Title Programming Graphics Cluster for Medical Imaging<br>
Field of Research Graphics </p>

<h2>Contact Professor Sandy Napel </h2>

<p>Networking Project Title SoundWIRE<br>
Field of Research Networking </p>

<h2>Contact Professor Chris Chafe </h2>

<p>other Project Title open source hardening project<br>
Field of Research other </p>

<h2>Contact Professor Dawson, R. Engler </h2>

<p>Project Title Security of web applications<br>
Field of Research other </p>

<h2>Contact Professor Monica S Lam </h2>

<p>Security Project Title Implementing aggregate signatures and group signatures<br>
Field of Research Security<br>
Contact Professor Dan Boneh</p>

<p>As you can see there are quite a few opportunites for cs undergrad majors to choose from when it comes to research.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
Then why are we praising Stanford of the past? The first on the list of distinguished companies to come out of Stanford grads from the post I was quoting (post #25) is HP - founded 1939. If we are taking a time machine back to the 1930s to demonstrate Stanford's greatness today, then we can use the same time machine to demonstrate Harvard's greatness too.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>The issue is, as others have said, is that we are attempting to assess which is the better school * today * and hence, the recent past is therefore far more relevant than the distant past. After all, conditions of the recent past may still hold true today, but conditions of hundreds of years ago hold very little weight in today's situation. </p>

<p>If we wanted to analyze this more rigorously, we would come up with some sort of weighted model where recent events take precedence over distant events. </p>

<p>
[quote]
I have full respect for Harvard, which I think is Stanford's strongest rival overall. But when we talk about engineering, Harvard is not at the level of Stanford.Microsoft is not a very innovative company. It makes some easy money. Its current CEO Mr. Ballmer attended Stanford bussiness school and dropped out.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Well, to be fair, lots of other Stanford companies, frankly, aren't very innovative either. Cisco, for example, hasn't really invented anything since the router, and it is rather debateable as to whether it even invented that. </p>

<p>
[quote]
If I take off HP from Stanford's list, I can easily replace it with 3COM, EBAY, MATHWORKS, NIKE, etc.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Uh, what does Ebay have to do with it? Ebay was founded by Pierre Omidyar, who graduated from Tufts. The only connection I see is that Stanford MBA Jeff Skoll was Ebay's first President (and 2nd employee), but that is a pretty thin reed, because after all, if you want to count him as part of Stanford, then you have to count all of the Harvard MBA's who ran (but did not found) successful companies. </p>

<p>I also don't see the connection with 3Com. If anything, 3Com has a tighter relationship with Harvard than with Stanford, as Bob Metcalfe got his PhD at Harvard.</p>

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<p>Internet router was invented by Bill Yeager at Stanford. Cisco successfully commercialized this technigue.</p>

<p>As for Ebay, I think a founding president and 2nd employee can be called a founder as well.</p>

<p>As for 3COM, Bob Metcalfe taught at Stanford as a part-time professor for 8 years. Dave Boggs, a Stanford graduate student, helped him in implementing the "ethernet". Metcalfe earned a ph.d. degree from Harvard. But he failed in his ph.d oral exam at Harvard the first time, because Harvard thought his thesis was not theoretical enough. As Bob put it, he hates Harvard, and Harvard hates him.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
It would be folly to judge a department just based on the first few quarters of the freshman year. I'm also sure that the lecturers are very competent teachers.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Exactly. Not to mention other departments like environmental engineering pretty much have all courses taught by professors. </p>

<p>bostonc, you shouldn't judge the whole undergrad education based on only two Stanford CS grads you hired either. </p>

<p>I'd guess the MIT students are the most techically competent BEFORE they got into MIT. You just happen to look for people with the best techical skills and then you conclude MIT has the best "undergrad education". Well, I don't know if MIT should get all the credits first of all, since like I said, the kids are probably the most technically competent to begin with. But even if MIT is the best school for technical fields, ug education is more than just technical training anyway. As some point out, Stanford students tend to have good entreprenuerial skills. Stanford grads also have better prof schools placement stats (maybe simply because Stanford has more grade inflation). Stanford students also have won many more prestigious fellowships like Rhodes, Marshall...but then maybe students at technical-oriented schools like MIT are in disadvantage to begin with. But in any case, limited data hardly "conclude" anything.</p>

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<p>Ummm, what exactly is the difference between a lecturer and a professor? Sorry, if that was an incredibly dumb question but
:)</p>

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<p>according to wikipedia:
Some American universities have Lecturers whose responsibility is only undergraduate education, especially for introductory/survey courses that attract large groups of students. In contrast, U.S. professors have permanent or tenure-track positions which include responsibility for research. The most common US terminology for these non-tenur track academic positions is "Instructor," or "Adjunct Professor".</p>

<p>instructor (usually a newly-minted Ph. D.; no tenure)</p>

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<p>
[quote]
Internet router was invented by Bill Yeager at Stanford.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Uh, no. Internet 'routers' had already been around for years, created by BBN. After all, the first iteration of the Internet (the Arpanet) had been around since the late 60's. How was the Arpanet even able to function if routers had yet to be created? </p>

<p>What Yeager did was invent the first * multiprotocol routing software *. But that's a far cry from saying that he invented the Internet router. </p>

<p>We should also be clear about what Yeager's relationship with Stanford was. He was a staffer at Stanford. He neither was a matriculated student at Stanford, nor served as a prof there. If we are going to count staffers at Stanford, then we might as well start counting people who've worked at Harvard too. </p>

<p>
[quote]
As for Ebay, I think a founding president and 2nd employee can be called a founder as well.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Uh, no, he was never a 'founding president'. And there is a clear distinction between founders and employees. If he was an founder, he wouldn't be an employee. </p>

<p>
[quote]
As for 3COM, Bob Metcalfe taught at Stanford as a part-time professor for 8 years. Dave Boggs, a Stanford graduate student, helped him in implementing the "ethernet". Metcalfe earned a ph.d. degree from Harvard. But he failed in his ph.d oral exam at Harvard the first time, because Harvard thought his thesis was not theoretical enough. As Bob put it, he hates Harvard, and Harvard hates him.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>First off, who cares whether he hates Harvard? We're not talking about who loves a school and who hates it. We're just talking about where they come from. As it stands, 3com, through Bob Metcalfe, has a stronger connection to Harvard than to Stanford, hence 3Com, overall, actually weakens your argument as to which school has created more successful tech companies.</p>

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<p>really, i think the important part is that one needs to GET INTO both school first and then do the comparison. Since such possibility is below 0, there's no need to compare at this pt.</p>

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<p>see <a href="http://www.networkworld.com/supp/2006/anniversary/032706-routerman.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.networkworld.com/supp/2006/anniversary/032706-routerman.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Yeager was an engineer at Stanford for more than 10 years. When he invented the multiprotocal internet router (the software used for internet) , he was right at Stanford. Who cares if he graduated from there or was a professor there?</p>

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<p>As for Bob Metcalfe, you think he has a tighter connection with Harvard because he got his Ph.d from Harvard. Fine. But I think it is debatable.</p>

<p>Obviously, he doesn't want to give any credit of ethernet to Harvard. Harvard didn't like his ethernet idea either thus failed him in his oral exam. I would argue that he had a stronger connection with Stanford. First, he taught at Stanford for 8 years, created a new course "distributed computing" there. Stanford students benifited from his teaching. Second, he recruited a Stanford graduate student Dave Boggs to help him create the ethernet. In fact, the first ethernet paper was authored by both Metcalfe and Boggs. Boggs was listed as the 2nd contributer for ethernet patent as well. Metcalfe called Boggs a coinventor of ethernet. Third, Metcalfe borrowed some ideas from Vinton Cerf's TCP protocal, which he picked up when attending professor Cerf's Seminar at Stanford.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
Yeager was an engineer at Stanford for more than 10 years. When he invented the multiprotocal internet router

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Trust me. I am well aware of what Yeager invented. His major innovation was the * multiprotocol * part. But the truth is, that's not what is required to make an Internet router work. After all, an Internet router, by definition, only needs to run the Internet Protocol (IP) - hence, only a *mono-protocol * router is necessaryAnd that is precisely what BBN invented, in order to run the first iteration of the Internet (the Arpanet). You don't need a multiprotocol router to run the Internet.</p>

<p>What you do need a multiprotocol router for is to be able to consolidate and converge multiple different technologies onto a single physical infrastructure. It was THAT capability that Yeager provided. Hence, a single network could run the Internet (IP), in addition to a Novell network (IPX), a DEC network (Decnet), an Apple network (Appletalk), and so forth. That is an important advance, but it is hardly in the same category as the false notion that he 'invented' the Internet router. He did not invent the Internet router, nor does he ever claim to have done so. </p>

<p><a href="the%20software%20used%20for%20internet">quote</a> , he was right at Stanford. Who cares if he graduated from there or was a professor there?

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</p>

<p>Uh, he was neither a professor there, nor did he ever graduate there. So this is a false choice. Like I said, he was merely a staffer there. If you want to count that, fine, then Harvard should be able to count all of its staffers, including post-doc researchers and so forth. </p>

<p>
[quote]
As for Bob Metcalfe, you think he has a tighter connection with Harvard because he got his Ph.d from Harvard. Fine. But I think it is debatable.</p>

<p>Obviously, he doesn't want to give any credit of ethernet to Harvard. Harvard didn't like his ethernet idea either thus failed him in his oral exam. I would argue that he had a stronger connection with Stanford. First, he taught at Stanford for 8 years, created a new course "distributed computing" there. Stanford students benifited from his teaching. Second, he recruited a Stanford graduate student Dave Boggs to help him create the ethernet. In fact, the first ethernet paper was authored by both Metcalfe and Boggs. Boggs was listed as the 2nd contributer for ethernet patent as well. Metcalfe called Boggs a coinventor of ethernet. Third, Metcalfe borrowed some ideas from Vinton Cerf's TCP protocal, which he picked up when attending professor Cerf's Seminar at Stanford.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Fine. Then we have to use the same sort of guidelines to judge Harvard as well. </p>

<p>For example, I think we can all agree that a key contributor to the growth of Silicon Valley (and Stanford) was the development of venture capital. The founding of the modern venture capital industry is widely credited to Georges Doriot, who earned his MBA and also taught at Harvard Business School. The first venture-backed startup company was Fairchild Semiconductor, which was funded by Venrock. Who led Venrock? Oh yeah, Laurence Rockefeller (yes, of the Rockefellers), who studied at Harvard Law (although, granted, he didn't graduate). With no Fairchild, there would be none of the "Fairchildren" - no Intel, no AMD, no LSI Logic, and none of the spinoffs that came from those companies. Heck, speaking of Intel, Intel's key venture backing was from noted venture capitalist Arthur Rock, who is a Harvard graduate. The most successful venture capital firm is arguably Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers. (KPCB). Of those 4 founders, 2 of them are Harvard graduates (Perkins and Caufield are Harvard MBA's), and only 1 is a Stanford graduate (Byers is a Stanford MBA) </p>

<p><a href="http://www.hbs.edu/leadership/database/leaders/224/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.hbs.edu/leadership/database/leaders/224/&lt;/a>
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venture_capital%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venture_capital&lt;/a>
<a href="http://www.kpcb.com/team/index.php?Frank%20Caufield%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.kpcb.com/team/index.php?Frank%20Caufield&lt;/a>
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Perkins#Career%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Perkins#Career&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>The point is, the modern venture capital industry may not have even been created without Harvard graduates. No venture capital, probably no Silicon Valley, and therefore none of these tech innovations that Stanford had a hand in, because they would never have been funded in the first place, and we wouldn't even be here talking about this. Instead, it is likely that we would all be using computers made in Japan, and while Silicon Valley would still have some tech industry, it wouldn't be nearly the economic dynamo that it is today.</p>

<p>Look, nobody is trying to denigrate Stanford. Stanford is a great school. But I see no need to go around trying to insult other schools. Let's just say that both Stanford and Harvard are great schools and let that suffice.</p>

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<p>Sakky,</p>

<p>Did I go around insulting Harvard or MIT? I don't think so. Harvard, Stanford, and MIT are all great universities, perhaps the top 3 universities in the world. I would be proud if I had gone to any one of them. Although I did get a chance to go to one of them, I couldn't afford to go. So attending a university like Harvard, Stanford, and MIT is only my dream, a dream that I didn't realize myself, and hopefully will be realized by my little kids in the future.</p>

<p>Harvard is widely regarded as the #1 university in the world. In view of its strength across all its individual departments, I believe Harvard is deserved. I also think Stanford is just as good as Harvard. Relatively speaking, Harvard is a little better in some humanity fields, and its medical school. Stanford is a little better in applied science and its engineering school.</p>

<p>MIT enjoys the reputation as the #1 university in engineering. Again, I think Stanford is just as good in engineering. I do think in the last 20 years, Stanford has surpassed MIT in technology inventions, especially in CS and EE. Compared to Stanford, MIT's advantage in engineering is in its larger size and longer history, nothing else. </p>

<p>I don't know that BBN invented a 'single-protocal' internet router. Mind telling us who invented this and give us a link? BBN might have claimed inventing other stuff, not many people buy their story though.</p>

<p>I don't know much about the history of venture capital industry. Just one question for you: in history, Harvard people were able to provide money, MIT were able to invent lots of things, how come Silicon Valley is still better than Boston in technology?</p>