[1452] in Discussion of MIT-community interests
Re: A new ballgame at MIT
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Brian T. Sniffen)
Tue Sep 16 11:21:22 2003
Date: Tue, 16 Sep 2003 11:03:04 -0400
From: "Brian T. Sniffen" <bts@ALUM.MIT.EDU>
To: MIT-Talk@MIT.EDU
In-Reply-To: <KHEOLPFBOLHMGOODAKKJOEFHDBAA.jbelcher@ceci.mit.edu> (John
Belcher's message of "Tue, 16 Sep 2003 09:33:34 -0000")
"John Belcher" <jbelcher@ceci.mit.edu> writes:
> In fact the number of course 15 majors is way down recently.
>
> Score one for market forces.
And the number of frosh declaring course 2 is way up. I have trouble
seeing that as a result primarily of market forces: they would have
pushed those Sloanies back to course 6.
> Sorry Marilee, once again your nefarious plans did not succeed! :-)
I think that may have been a mix of changing directions of market
forces -- a degree in "IT Management" and some course 6 friends no
longer looks like a quick way to make millions -- and changing
directions of Admission's effort. Around 1999, Admissions staff were
telling engineering students "We don't want people like you any more,"
and Marilee Jones was writing articles about well-rounded students.
Then a few years passed.
In the past year I've seen a greater emphasis on geekish engineering
among new undergrads: more people building gadgets and furniture, more
people psyched about lab classes and creating in their spare time. It
shows up wonderfully in the Tech: home-built rafts for watching
fireworks, towers and trebuchets for Rush. And now Marilee's writing
articles about geeks and engineers and nerd pride.
This is wonderful to see, but it does imply that the Admissions folks
have some degree of control over which way to nudge the average of the
student body. I'm a lot happier with where it's being pushed now than
a few years ago, and I suspect this direction is, in the long term,
much better for MIT.
-Brian
--
Brian T. Sniffen bts@alum.mit.edu
http://www.evenmere.org/~bts/
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