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Joseph Wang
OK. I went to MIT, and I'm excited to see all of this stuff happening. There is a ton of stuff that MIT has that *isn't* available through some sort of alternative, but there isn't anything that I see that *can't* be made available. One of your tasks if you want to accept, is to build an alternative to MIT.
Here is what is missing:
1) culture. A lot of what MIT provides is to learn a culture. For example, MIT deliberately sets up the grading so that every student will do badly in some class, because one of the things that MIT teaches is what it feels like to do badly and how to handle a situation when you are the dumbest person in the room.
I've tried to write as much as I can about MIT in order so that people understand the culture of MIT so that they can create their own MIT. That in itself should tell you something about how MIT works, because I don't see anyone from Harvard telling people that they can or should build another Harvard.
2) career services. There is an office in MIT that arranges interviews for students. They invite big companies to campus and they set up internships. This is something that the online vendors don't have yet.
3) library, gym, dorm
4) life lessons - a lot of what a 18-21 years old learns at MIT is just stuff about life. How do you fall in love, and who do you fall in love with, for example. Colleges provide a controlled environment where people can figure those things out. If you drink too much and miss a class, it's not going to ruin you for the rest of your life If you drink too much, and you show up late for work, this is realy, really bad.
5) research. Personally, I think that you could get rid of all of the classes at MIt and it wouldn't make a difference. The important thing at MIT is that you get the opportunity to be a research intern
6) you learn political stuff - Something that makes MIT different from most universities is that you are part of a community. The faculty and administration see you as a "extremely junior teacher" rather than just as a "student" or "customer." This means that if you want to you can get involved in the internal running of MIT. There are students on the major committees, and undergraduates are involved in running the university.
7) Expectations - Having someone that has a Nobel prize or who is a CEO look at you and you release that they think that you can get a Nobel prize or be a CEO can change you.
Now none of that is available online, but your job is to figure out how to get that stuff online. I can tell you as much as I know about how MIT works, so that you can build your own MIT, but a lot of the stuff that I tell you may be wrong, but trying to figure out what to do is part of your education.
Some of the ideas that I think you need to figure out are:
1) How do thing interact with physical universities?
2) How do I build an online network? How do alumni associations work?
One thing I think will be very important in your education is to be educated in history and philosophy and literature. In most universities, this is considered "useless stuff." But since you are having to *build* your own university, it might be useful to read some stuff about how people before you built institutions.
If you want to build MIT, it might help for you to google for "William Barton Rogers" and see what he was thinking about when he started Boston Tech. It's incredibly thrilling to read him write about his dreams and the difficulties that he had in making those dreams come true. One of the big problems that Rogers had, and why he had to move to Boston and couldn't do what he wanted to do in Virginia was slavery. Why build machines if slaves could do all of the work? The basic idea of MIT which is part of the culture is "if we have machines, then we wouldn't need slaves and that technology can set people free."
So in closing the big different in dealing with online courses from top universities, is that people from top universities are being spoon fed. Someone has already figured out what they should do. In the online world, you have to figure out what you need to do because no one has figured it out already.
Good luck. Keep in touch, and let me know if you need any information that could be useful.
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Continue reading...
OK. I went to MIT, and I'm excited to see all of this stuff happening. There is a ton of stuff that MIT has that *isn't* available through some sort of alternative, but there isn't anything that I see that *can't* be made available. One of your tasks if you want to accept, is to build an alternative to MIT.
Here is what is missing:
1) culture. A lot of what MIT provides is to learn a culture. For example, MIT deliberately sets up the grading so that every student will do badly in some class, because one of the things that MIT teaches is what it feels like to do badly and how to handle a situation when you are the dumbest person in the room.
I've tried to write as much as I can about MIT in order so that people understand the culture of MIT so that they can create their own MIT. That in itself should tell you something about how MIT works, because I don't see anyone from Harvard telling people that they can or should build another Harvard.
2) career services. There is an office in MIT that arranges interviews for students. They invite big companies to campus and they set up internships. This is something that the online vendors don't have yet.
3) library, gym, dorm
4) life lessons - a lot of what a 18-21 years old learns at MIT is just stuff about life. How do you fall in love, and who do you fall in love with, for example. Colleges provide a controlled environment where people can figure those things out. If you drink too much and miss a class, it's not going to ruin you for the rest of your life If you drink too much, and you show up late for work, this is realy, really bad.
5) research. Personally, I think that you could get rid of all of the classes at MIt and it wouldn't make a difference. The important thing at MIT is that you get the opportunity to be a research intern
6) you learn political stuff - Something that makes MIT different from most universities is that you are part of a community. The faculty and administration see you as a "extremely junior teacher" rather than just as a "student" or "customer." This means that if you want to you can get involved in the internal running of MIT. There are students on the major committees, and undergraduates are involved in running the university.
7) Expectations - Having someone that has a Nobel prize or who is a CEO look at you and you release that they think that you can get a Nobel prize or be a CEO can change you.
Now none of that is available online, but your job is to figure out how to get that stuff online. I can tell you as much as I know about how MIT works, so that you can build your own MIT, but a lot of the stuff that I tell you may be wrong, but trying to figure out what to do is part of your education.
Some of the ideas that I think you need to figure out are:
1) How do thing interact with physical universities?
2) How do I build an online network? How do alumni associations work?
One thing I think will be very important in your education is to be educated in history and philosophy and literature. In most universities, this is considered "useless stuff." But since you are having to *build* your own university, it might be useful to read some stuff about how people before you built institutions.
If you want to build MIT, it might help for you to google for "William Barton Rogers" and see what he was thinking about when he started Boston Tech. It's incredibly thrilling to read him write about his dreams and the difficulties that he had in making those dreams come true. One of the big problems that Rogers had, and why he had to move to Boston and couldn't do what he wanted to do in Virginia was slavery. Why build machines if slaves could do all of the work? The basic idea of MIT which is part of the culture is "if we have machines, then we wouldn't need slaves and that technology can set people free."
So in closing the big different in dealing with online courses from top universities, is that people from top universities are being spoon fed. Someone has already figured out what they should do. In the online world, you have to figure out what you need to do because no one has figured it out already.
Good luck. Keep in touch, and let me know if you need any information that could be useful.
See Questions On Quora
Continue reading...
