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Unread 10-09-2010, 22:29
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Re: I'm an MIT Admissions Officer. Ask me Questions!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Zholl View Post
do you think you could elaborate on that a little bit? obviously I haven't entered the professional workforce yet, and given my dad's work history I don't think he's a great example of what you're trying to say here

also, as far as the whole "matching" thing, I'm curious as to the "feel" of the community there. specifically, I'm interested as to how crowded it feels around campus. I'm more used to large town to small city communities, and having spent time in the likes of San Francisco, Atlanta, and even Denver, I definitely prefer a smaller sized community anyway, but I'm not familiar with the Cambridge, MA area
Warning: Long post

Well, I can't comment on MIT. I graduated from SUNY Stony Brook, and that was more than half a lifetime ago. Things change in 30 years. I did spend about an hour at MIT once, just walking around. It looks like a college campus, and across the river is downtown Boston. If I recall, it was not easy to park.

On the "matching" thing, I can only relate some personal stories:

Story 1:
When I first went to college for EE, I ended up at Wilkes College in Wilkes-Barre, PA (now a university). I was very impressed by their very modern labs and facilities, rebuilt only 4 years before after a devastating flood. There were about 50 kids in the entire freshman engineering class.

A side note on the flood: Wilkes-Barre went from a vital community of 100,000 residents to less than 35,000 because of the flood. Definitely small urban, but kinda desolate in spots.

Near the end of my second year, I came to realize that the school was too small: You knew everyone too well, and couldn't 'get away'; many of the professors were second-rate; there were so few of them the chances of having the same awful prof in several important classes was high. The conclusion was that "facilities are meaningless, focus on how good the teachers are". (Some of the teachers were outstanding though; I'll never know why someone as good as Dr Bohning chose to teach chemistry at Wilkes, but suffice it to say I got an A)

So, onward to SUNY Stony Brook, a huge suburban campus with 25,000 undergrads, perhaps 1500 engineers in my class. Stony Brook was big enough to attract Nobel Laureates, have it's own Linear Accelerator, and some of the teaching talent was outstanding (Dr. John Truxal comes to mind). Older but decent facilities, better profs. Was great for me, and I saw much better grades and was having a good time, too.

Story 2: My daughter decided to go to an urban Pennsylvania university (and got a decent scholarship), but learned that urban environments are scary for small females at night. Transfer after a year to a suburban school.

Story 3: After 15 years in After-sales Engineering (basically service and tech support) for an import car company, I decided to switch to spare parts documentation, where I made a huge impact over several years. All was well, but during that time, I did a lot of introspection, and learned some things about myself. Most important was that I really enjoyed writing, especially explaining technical topics to non-technical people. I did it for fun, after work - on forums like CD, and for some Ham Radio magazines.

So, long story short, I pursued a job in the company writing technical training, a job known as an Instructional Designer. Now I get paid to do what I really love doing, and because I love it so much, my passion and drive for excellence really shows - they like my work. And the students seem to like what I write, too, so we have a Win-Win-Win.

Does that help clarify?
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