Whenever I read stuff about this I get a sense of immense jealousy. MIT certainly has its issues but man, I'd love to be at a place where people exhibit so much joy and interest in creation. I've met my share of cool people but it truly does feel like MIT has this unique environment of technical skill and creativity.
A lot of MIT "myth" for me, daj when I was trying to get in, was that they would do a lot of things internally and dogfood - for example, project athena, using that as basis for many other things, etc.
Recently I heard from some fresh MIT grads that a lot of that is now pushed to outsourcing and same cookie-cutter approach.
Yes, choosing the Christian tradition, MIT seems to have acted like Peter denying knowledge of Jesus. But, like Peter ("The Rock") it seems as if neither MIT nor Star is worse for the wear; in fact, her email is still listed as <I-won't-publish-this>@mit.edu in the alum directory! Not @alum.mit.edu, but @mit.edu. Thanks, I had forgotten about her, at the time I thought "good for her! doing nothing wrong". ALSO, fwiw, she lived in the two campus housing units that, shall we say, are meant for those not on the 'straight and narrow' path. Not an excuse; praise. I might have lived in one of them, too... ;-)
Yes and the Media Lab in particular was an amazing place (can’t speak for the current state) even if it gets a lot of shit for the bad decisions by a few administrators. Definitely met some of the coolest and most inventive people I have met there
