The President’s visit to MIT on Friday is one of the most exciting events to have happened to MIT in years. As everybody celebrated and shared their story about how they caught a glimpse of the president (or in my friend Zenzile’s case, jumped over dozens of people to shake his hand ), I couldn’t help but wonder what this visit by the President of the United States meant.
On the surface, Obama came to talk about energy innovation and policy. So, one way to look at it is exactly as how I was quoted in the Daily Free Press, “the President’s visit was an exciting acknowledgement of MIT’s role in energy innovation.” (http://www.dailyfreepress.com/obama-calls-for-u-s-to-become-the-world-s-energy-leader-1.2035198) But I think it is more than that. Obama did not choose any school, not even his Alma Mater, that second most prestigious school in Cambridge – he picked MIT, the iconic institute of science, technology and innovation.
This message is consistent with Michelle Obama’s speech in the UK. She said how making good grades is cool. This country and this world had adopted a definition of “cool” that treats nerds or smart as weird. The “cool” is some sort of combination of a lack or despise of self-discipline and hard-work, the cool kids demonstrate a general indifference about the world and knowledge. What the Obamas are saying is that being smart, getting good grades, doing great in school is the new “cool” – reminding us that the world is improving because we have moved beyond a group of jock-ish cavemen into a species that respect and accumulate knowledge relentlessly, that we have evolved into a group of humans who cares and works for the ideals of the betterment of humanity.
So, the President’s message is clear, smart is the new cool, and nerdy is the new sexy. And a president who chooses to be at MIT rather than a president who talks about how you can be a head of state while getting all C’s in college symbolizes the re-activation of the collective brain of humanity and the path to a better earth.
I am only going to make predictions for economics. I think what makes sense is to predict which subfield would be awarded, and from there, we should be able to identify a short list.
Econometrics (Jerry Hausman (MIT), Halbert White (UCSD), Dale Jorgenson(Harvard))
Finance (Stephen Ross (MIT), Eugene Fama (Chicago))
Industrial Organization, Applications of Game theory and Theory of Contracts/Firms (Jean Tirole(Toulouse/MIT), Oliver Hart (Harvard))
Economic History (Paul David (Stanford), Joel Mokyr (Northwestern))
Wild Cards:
Alan Krueger (Princeton), Peter Diamond (MIT)
Who does MIT graduate students wants most as a speaker for an honorary lecture? Also, who would you like to see as a guest to interact with a small group of MIT graduate students (like 20 students)? Please post a reply.
1. Toro
My best dining experience in USA happened at this South End tapas joint. The bartender can make cool cocktails for couples. The chef Jamie is the closest thing Boston has to a food artist. Highly recommend!
2. Craigie on Main
Close to MIT, brilliant cocktails. It is an outstanding bistro. The bar menu has a burger which is delicious and reasonably priced too.
3. Mike’s Pastry
This pastry is one of the very few that manage to turn itself into a tourist attraction. Located in the middle of the North End, it is easily accessible. When you taste one of their their freshly baked cannolis while immersed in the beautiful smell of delicious pastries and the delightful scent of butter, you will thank me for recommending it.
4. Legal Seafood
Although not a gourmet restaurant but it is a Boston Landmark. Tasty seafood prepared to perfection. The clam chowder is rich and world-renowned.
5. Cafe Luna
The Cafe Luna wins for the ambience and the hospitality. This place reminds one of the coffee houses where many great thinkers of our time got inspired at. The weekend live music, a scoop of gelato and a cup of hot chocolate all combine to give this neighborhood joint its charm.
6. O Ya
This sushi restaurant was chosen for two consecutive years as the best place to dine in Boston by the Boston Magazine.
7. Hungry Mother
A contemporary American restaurant that serves great Southern/French(?) food. Boiled Virginia peanuts, grits with ham and cheese, fried green tomatoes … the collection is mouthwatering. Boston Magazine also ranked its hostess as the best host in Boston.
8. Clio
Chef Ken Oringer (who also owns Toro) had done a fantastic job. I am not much of a big fan of French food but this dining quality is almost unparalleled.
9. B&G Oysters
Best Seafood place at South End. (and maybe Boston)
10. Eastern Standard
Their Blueberry Thrill is one of my favorite cocktails. The food is amazing. The outdoor seating might be less pleasant right before or right after a Red Sox home game but the overall dining environment highly commendable.
1. Cafe Luna for brunch or dinner
- The owner Matt brings in young musicians every weekend and the hot chocolate is especially good.
2. Peabody Museum
- One of the most colorful and sophisticated museums in Cambridge.
3. Craigie at Main
- Consistently chosen as one of the top restaurants in the greater Boston Area. This year, the Boston Magazine picked it as second best overall dining experience.
4. Book shopping at the Harvard/MIT COOP at Harvard Square
- Founded in 1882, one of the country’s oldest college bookstores. Very nice and comfortable store with a coffee shop on the second floor. All purchases are eligible for an annual rebate for MIT students who are members.
5. Cambridge Carnival
- Lots of dancing, beautiful costumes and people, don’t miss it!
6. Watch a Movie at the Kendall Cinema
- Shows a lot of artsy movies but it is small and quite, perfect place for a date.
7. Clubbing at Middlesex
- There aren’t many good clubs in Cambridge and Middlesex is probably the best in Cambridge. For a close location with a decent night of dancing and hanging out, Middlesex would be the place to go. (tuesdays and Fridays are good)
8. Muddy Charles (Muddy Mondays)
- GSC pub, one of the best located pubs with lots of exciting people, budding entrepreneurs and researchers. Probably the smartest pub in the world.
9. MIT Museum
- John Durant did a great job updating this, definitely a treat for geeks.
10. Toscanini’s Ice-cream
- Popular joint for MIT students to get a snack and dessert.
Yes, MIT has such a huge variety of research areas and departments represented. International students represent 39.1% of the graduate student body. These make us one of the most diverse places in terms of research topics and nationality. And benefited from this diversity we have, the diverse research topics and work in MIT allowed for cross pollination of ideas across disciplines. Our international graduate students graduated and went on to become some of the world’s most successful leaders (think Kofi Annan and David Miliband). Institute-wide efforts on recruitment and retention of underrepresented minorities have increased multiple-folds in the past few years. So, from certain angles, MIT is doing well on the front of diversity. However, this is but part of the picture.
On some other measures, MIT’s grade for diversity is less impressive. Just some simple statistics would alert us – only approximately 5.5 percent of our graduate students (or 9.2 percent of our US students) are underrepresented minorities and only 30 percent are women. Moreover, these numbers have not changed significantly in the past five years. So is MIT a diverse place on these counts? No. We have so much space to improve. And by improve, I mean to improve on both making MIT more diverse and taking advantage of the diversity we have to bring value to the community. The second part is often neglected, we can’t stop at recruitment, we must find a way to harness the value of diversity to make it a worthwhile target to pursue. A piece of more encouraging news is that it is a clear strategic goal for the Dean of Graduate Education to increase diversity in MIT’s graduate population, the first part. It is up to us, the student leaders, to employ our creativity to find ways to harness the value of diversity as we plan our events and community building work.
As of August 5, the GSC resolution on the Diversity Task Force is passed unanimously with a white ballot at the August General Council. This reflects the Graduate Student Council’s determination and desire to take a major role to harness the value of diversity in the MIT community.
Now, the GSC needs your help. We are in the process of finding diversity task force members, and leadership for the task force. We welcome participation to this very important initiative.
We also need to locate and appoint chairs to lead this effort. These chair will play a very important role and will work closely with myself and the rest of the executive committee.
Please send an email to gsc-officers@mit.edu if you are interested to be a member and please indicate if you would be willing to take on the chair position.
With great ability comes great responsibility. MIT houses some of the world’s best talents. And as the world’s leading institution on knowledge production, it is upon us to do something for the world, to make it a better place. There are many outstanding groups in MIT that works on International Development issues.
To learn about how to “change the world” here, one could take a look at this group that I am affiliated with: the International Development Network.
Here is someone who I admire tremendously – MIT’s and the IDN’s very own Amy Smith:
“MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW) is a web-based publication of virtually all MIT course content. OCW is open and available to the world and is a permanent MIT activity.”
As someone who is serving on the Faculty Advisory Board of the OpenCourseWare, I have always been interested in finding out a way to make OCW more sustainable. While it is without a doubt a very great contribution to global education (I learned 75% of the my math from using OCW and self-learning), and it has also been instrumental in pushing MIT to the top spot of some world university rankings, it does not have a clear revenue generation mechanism. It is not a paid service nor does it incorporate any form of distance learning/certification.
With the tough economic situation ahead of us, the OCW is bound to face some challenges. Right now, the OCW raises it funds mainly through support by big foundations and MIT’s budget. If we need to preserve and protect the OCW, we must come up with some ingenious ways to raise money or make OCW profitable (while still upholding the spirit of open education and the non-commercial nature of OCW). Charitable givings is one way to go, but on the cost side, maybe we can try to motivate the huge pool of talents within the Institute to provide low cost of voluntary service to get high quality but low cost inputs. Also, more creative fundraising from alumni and from other external funding sources would be helpful.
I have no good solution for the long term financial security for the OCW, but I do hope that this post would provoke some ideas and suggestions.
), I couldn’t help but wonder what this visit by the President of the United States meant.
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