I got rejected from MIT

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What is the point? They post the lectures on the site for the public.

I saw that too, but I'm pretty sure learning from that and buying their book is way different from actually going there - if you are at all interested in their ambiance.

For one thing, you can't get a degree by downloading lectures off the internet. Plus, there's a lot more to college than just the lectures. You also have labs, research, projects, papers, exams, and plenty of other stuff. The lectures online are good if you are just vaguely interested in a subject but don't want to actually take a class in it, with all the work that would involve. But lectures alone do not constitute a good college education- you may as well argue that you don't need to go to school at all; you can just buy textbooks and read them.

lol yeah MIT would never take a community college transfer. I'm a senior at RIT, and I tolerate it because they're the best school in my field. If I was studying something where a school in Miami was also good for it, AND they was offering a full ride, hell yeah I'd be all over that.

As for MIT's application process, the interview is absolutely critical. I highly doubt almost anyone could get in without the interview. That being said, my MIT interview was one of the most painful things I have ever experiences (emotionally). I guess I just underestimated the rigor of their interview process. I was being interviewed for at least two hours, at the house of the interviewer.

Wow, 2-hour interview? Yikes. So how do you like RIT, and what are you studying there? I was considering them.

I like RIT enough. I'm studying IT with a concentration in "networking, security, and systems administration", a concentration in "information assurance" and minors in Psychology and Computational Mathematics. I was going to stay here for my Masters (MIS) but I've decided I just can't tolerate being in Rochester any longer.

It's a good school for someone who doesn't desire a stimulating social setting, that's for sure. I had to go on meds my freshman year living in the dorms, it was too much for me. If you have a documented condition you can get a single person dorm room, still gotta use communal bathrooms and such though.

If you're someone like me who really can't tolerate a whole lot of winter, it's probably the worst possible college you could consider going to. To put it in perspective, this past winter (which is basically over now.. there's no snow on the ground but temps at night have dipped below freezing) we got well over 100" of snow.

here
we can all go to MIT
http://www.youtube.com/user/MIT

these are actually really good
they are not just small clips, they are entire lectures

Well... Let's see. Without actually going to college, can someone obtain a "college" education?

Labs? Check. The university labs are not just for students.
Research? Check. The scientific method really isn't that complicated. It's funding that's the issue. Colleges generally don't do well on that anyway --there's always fighting for various grants.
Projects? Definitely. You can do any project you like.
Papers? Write them.
Exams? Take them.

You can get a "college-level" education without going. It is all there for the taking. Go out and grab it Of course, society seems to frown upon those who teach themselves. So if getting a high-level job/career is your forte, then you better get yourself to uni. If you are interested in learning for the sake of improving yourself rather than getting a decent job, then college might not be a big deal.

But hey, there have still been highly successful people who either didn't go to college at all or dropped out.



I love that quote. To each his own.

Mr e, you are oversimplifying. For the career I want to go into (medical research) an advanced degree is required. End of story. I'm not going to get research grants from the NIH if I tell them "Oh, I didn't go to college, but I know biology because I've read all about it at the public library." Things I am interested in, but do not want to make a career of, lend themselves to the type of self-learning that you advocate. Foreign and classical languages, philosophy, literature, etc. I could learn about on my own. Biology I need to get a formal education in, partly because the quality of learning will probably be better that way anyways and partly because I can't pursue my passion for research unless I get a degree.

I agree. I can state numerous examples of people who did not go to school and who were extremely successful. Of course I can find equal numbers of people who did go to school and were successful. The point that Mr_e is trying to make though, and matrix, was that if you are going there solely for the education and learning what you are curious about, then you don't need a school, and thousands of dollars in student expenses (if you don't have a scholarship), to justify going to an Ivy League school for your education.

All you need is a library; similar to the thought of the quote from "Good Will Hunting".






Mr_e's point is a bit quixotic. Orwell's is more practical. No one will hire some high IQ autodidact without some papers, i.e. a certificate proving such. The "smartest man in america" (Chris Langan) is some proof of that. His IQ is supposedly off the charts and yet he has had many jobs, all of which only need - maybe not even need - a high school education.

Ideally Mr_e is right. If you're curious about something then go to a library where the information is located and learn it. Otherwise to be believed in this world that you actually learned the info and you're competent, you need a degree. The world has too many frauds, so it's hard to believe that someone with no "formal" education can come off the streets and do a job better than someone who actually went to a school and got a certificate proving such.

To be fair, the access you initially stated a college student had that others couldn't have were all, in Mr e's opinion, accessible by individuals who weren't enrolled in college. Since you never initially stated that you needed a degree in order to get into research, or that you wanted to go into research in the first place. That being said, the primary thing a degree shows is that the individual who has it is willing to put in a significant amount of time in that area. Regardless of how intelligent someone is, if they aren't willing to invest a large amount of time into something, then they probably won't be very appealing to an organization as a researcher.

So... For the most part both you and Mr e are correct, and simply talking about different things. In fact, I'm fairly sure that both of you understand this by now, so I don't know why I'm posting this. I suppose I've already spent some time writing, so to just delete it would be a waste. Take it as you will.

Not really true. I am currently learning European History from UC Berkeley's free online lectures, and it is a great resource and an excellent opportunity for me, but I know it's not really as good as if I were actually in the class, because I don't have as ready access to all the course materials or to the professor. MIT has lectures available in only a few subjects (I've checked because I wanted to supplement my high school calculus). You really can't get university lectures just by wandering through youtube. Most universities aren't willing to open their labs to anyone who just walks in off the street, and to seriously study most fields, there is specialized knowledge that is not available in your typical public library. My local library has rather scant resources, and I certainly can not find much useful information on mathematics or the natural sciences on even basic levels.

I will agree that if the sole purpose is because something interests you and you want to learn about it, it does not justify all the cost of a university education. A casual curiosity can be satisfied while still leaving some gaps in your knowledge, and you don't need to prove to anyone else that you know it. That's why I'm studying Euro history in such a fashion; it's something about which I am curious, not something I intend to use as part of my career. When I want a job, I need much deeper understanding that can only come with the resources a university has to offer, and I also need their fancy little piece of paper at the end of it. I've gotten enough scholarship money that I won't be spending too much on my education, and it will position me to get jobs that will soon repay me for that investment.

You mean I don't have a college education from reading all the books (all five of them) about physical anthropology at the library? Two of them were written by a renowned professor.

That sucks, but at least it wasn't your first choice or anything. I've heard a lot of good things about RIT, and I remember a couple other colleges you mentioned as well.

The only thing I ever heard about MIT (besides being extremely difficult to get into) was a story from a coworker, who put his son through it for... four or six years, I can't remember which, at $100,000 a year, only for the son to turn around and (with the degree) become a comedian instead. He wasn't happy about it.

Having access to the professor and/or course materials aren't really a perquisite to learning about a given subject unless you want to learn exactly what the specific class teaches with no overflow/variation, or it's something that you can't learn via other texts/online lectures such as dance. That being said, while you can't learn precisely what the professor was teaching, the sum of what you can learn over a series of classes is more or less what you can learn yourself by reading texts and asking questions online, give or take.I don't see why you insist on going to a public library. Just go to the university library and spend some time researching. Depending on location, you can even register at a community college and use that to get a membership at a local university library so you can check out material. Hell, you can access a ton of pay-per-play journals on the cheap even as a high school senior. Just pay the fees for a year or whatnot, and download everything that interests you. Community college offers the same, or better IME, education at a small fraction of the cost, same labs and whatnot. Things may not be as loose any more, but even for something like EE, most of what you can do in lab can be done with equipment purchased through different channels for a small fraction of the cost.Libraries aren't your only source for information. I get most of my math texts offa online auction sites or from China and/or India, since even with shipping the paper back international editions tend to be a quarter of the price of the exact same thing in a different cover over here. Going to just a local library and complaining about limited availability is a bit silly IMO.Maybe, maybe not. I'm not sure anyone knows what the future holds. I got a free as in beer BSc, and intend to get a near free MSc, then go on to something else, but who knows what will happen.

Last edited by yesplease on 21 Apr 2008, 2:38 am, edited 1 time in total.

You could also find out what text books the MIT courses are using, or find out about books about specialized subjects that are written by "world renowned specialists", and buy those books to study them from. I know some of the great mathematicians, two of them that I know off the bat being Newton and specifically Abel, read from the masters as study material. Of course not everyone can read from the masters because of the many gaps "masters" leave sometimes in their material, most of which they would consider common knowledge.