

To Attract the Next Google, New York City Seeks to Create an Engineering School - linhir
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/16/to-attract-the-next-google-the-city-seeks-a-new-college/

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Umalu
Instead of focusing on engineering schools, if NYC wants to attract engineers
it should focus on its elementary, middle and high schools. Engineers value
education. Engineers usually do not make enough to afford fancy NYC private
schools, and most engineers are not going to send their kids to NYC's public
schools. So even if NYC succeeds in attracting young engineers, it will lose
many of them as they start to raise families and leave looking for better
public schools for their kids.

~~~
supahfly_remix
NYC has some of the best public schools in the world. Bronx Science has had
more graduates who won Nobel prizes (6) than most countries:
[http://msgboard.snopes.com/cgi-
bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=print_...](http://msgboard.snopes.com/cgi-
bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=print_topic;f=23;t=000363) These public schools require
competitive entry and are open to anyone in NYC who qualifies.

Granted, NYC also has some of the worst public schools in the world, too.

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gte910h
Plan to get good tech school in NYC:

Subsidized rent: Many engineers are smart people who know the value of an
engineering education and not spending their 20's and 30's in debt. No where
else has that crappy of living conditions per dollar spent where there is a
good engineering school.

Low out of state tuition: My alma mater (Georgia Tech) gets tons and tons of
out of state students due to the low cost yet good results. Many of those
students then STAY there in Atlanta.

Tons of well paying internships/co-op jobs: NYC is addicted to free/low priced
interns. I'd say many NYC companies are giant dicks about this policy as well.
Make it illegal and harshly punished to offer those in the engineering
professions, or setup a huge list of partners pledging to never ever accept
unpaid work. In every other part of the country with good engineering schools,
you get paid between $12-30 bucks an hour while co-op working (basically an
internship you go back to every other semester). This _has_ to happen to keep
people in NYC when they get out. Co-op jobs are a great way to basically keep
engineers there in town as they almost always get an offer at that position
after graduation.

Get nerdy sheik cultural events going on in the city: NYC is too overly status
conscious in many ways to appeal to geeky folk. And while not all engineers
are geeks, many people assume they are. They act like they're some sort of
neckbearded smelly dude in the back of class who's good for nothing other than
fixing your computer. You gotta change that perception, and the perception of
the perception. Put incredibly dorky installation art in instead of
experiemental cultural art. Host events related to hacking things up. Make
maker faires, etc.

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bhousel
For what it's worth, here are the top engineering (graduate) schools ranked by
US News & World Report in 2010:

[http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-gradu...](http://grad-
schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-engineering-
schools/rankings)

It seems clear to me that just because an area has a top engineering school
nearby, that doesn't necessarily make it a startup hotbed...

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jamesbritt
As many of the comments on the NYT point out, NYC _has_ good engineering
schools. It makes me think there's more going on here if city officials are
looking to create a new one from whole cloth rather than trying to improve
what's already there.

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forgotAgain
_...New York lacks a top-rated engineering school._

How about Columbia University's Fu School of Engineering, the City College of
New York, The Cooper Union, or NYU Poly.

Geez, go back to banking you eejit.

~~~
yummyfajitas
I'm not sure you could call the engineering schools of Columbia, Poly or CUNY
"top rated". Cooper Union gets top students (being free), but hardly has top
faculty. (Columbia and NYU do have good CS depts, however.)

None of these schools have the Stanford/MIT-like community I believe the plan
is designed to create. Throwing money at existing schools is unlikely to
create such an environment - the bureaucratic inertia is too large.

[Edit: Didn't mean to imply that Columbia/NYU are in the same league as
Stanford/MIT for CS. Their main strengths are physics and math, respectively.
]

~~~
forgotAgain
_Throwing money at existing schools is unlikely to create such an environment
- the bureaucratic inertia is too large._

I disagree. It seems it's always easier for a banker turned political
appointee to gather some social credibility by proposing starting something
from scratch rather than improving what's already there.

I mean which is going to give you more social points at the next fund raiser
for the MMA: A) "I want to help these schools expand their campus's no matter
what the political opposition" or B) "I have a vision for making NYC the
country's next great tech capital".

The idea that a government planned activity is going to cultivate an
institution the likes of which happens one or twice a century is pretty
preposterous.

I also think you may be dismissing the schools I mentioned too easily. They
are all "top rated". I would consider several to be in the top ten engineering
schools in the country.

~~~
yummyfajitas
I didn't mean to suggest that I think this project has a significant chance of
success. I just assign a much lower success probability to throwing money at
one of the existing schools which have _already failed_.

By the way, the local politicians are already quite willing to take property
from other people (by force) in order to help a university expand:
[http://www.columbiaspectator.com/2010/12/13/us-supreme-
court...](http://www.columbiaspectator.com/2010/12/13/us-supreme-court-will-
not-hear-manhattanville-eminent-domain-case)

~~~
forgotAgain
_existing schools which have already failed._

I'm sorry but how exactly have those schools failed?

 _the local politicians are already quite willing to take property from other
people (by force) in order to help a university expand:_

Expansion plans that take a decade to get government approval doesn't imply
"quite willing to take property". Everybody involved plays the situation to
their own advantage.

~~~
yummyfajitas
_I'm sorry but how exactly have those schools failed?_

They have failed to become top engineering schools and create a Stanford/MIT-
like community.

 _Expansion plans that take a decade to get government approval doesn't imply
"quite willing to take property"._

It didn't take 10 years to get government approval, it took 10 years for the
government to _take property from people against their will_. What exactly are
you advocating for? Giving our corporate/university overlords the power to
steal your land 30 days or less?

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theoj
In the context of what NYC is trying to do, it might be interesting to read
PG's thoughts on how to create a Silicon Valley:
<http://www.paulgraham.com/siliconvalley.html>

The two main ingredients he identifies in his essay are rich people and nerds.
I guess NYC has plenty of rich people and Wall Street capital. What's lacking
is the youthful nerds and the universities that would attract them to come to
NYC.

An unexplored issue is how geographic constraints will affect the Silicon
Valley-ization of NYC. Everyone wants to be in Manhattan but that's an island
with limited space. When the other major industries in NYC (like finance) bid
up the resources (such as land and labor), can startups become equal or even
dominant in NYC?

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epoxyhockey
How about New York City stop worrying about trying to become a tech center
every day?

Even Boston grads seem to catch the next flight out West even though Boston
has a nice concentration of top schools. The bay area has VCs, schools,
concentration of talent and.. momentum.

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geekfactor
_> the city would seek a “top caliber academic institution” as a partner in
building a school for applied science and engineering._

They should definitely partner with RPI. Go Engineers!

~~~
imr
What is RPI?

~~~
krschultz
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, a good engineering school in upstate NY
(technically Troy, NY which is by Albany, so a good 3 hours from Manhattan)

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grav1tas
Two things I think of when I think NYC:

1\. Frakin' Expensive 2\. Not San Francisco

I feel like places like SV and SF can justify high prices because they already
have a lot of stuff going on there. If NYC doesn't, how does it make it worth
peoples' while by offsetting the financial barrier to entry? I don't
immediately see how another engineering school alleviates this, but hey, maybe
it will?

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temphn
If NYC wants to attract the next Google, they should start by repealing the
outmoded regulations and firing the bureaucrats (like Kathleen Willey) that
ban 23andMe (from the wife of Google) from doing business in the state.

~~~
pingswept
What do you mean by "from the wife of Google"?

~~~
corin_
One of the two founders is married to Sergey Brin, plus Google has invested in
the company

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NEPatriot
How about trying things like giving startups tax breaks and making the
incorporation process less painful?

~~~
drpgq
What's New York's laws like for non-competes? I've always thought that
California's laws on non-competes are better for startups.

