After Harvard we went straight to MIT for their tour. The university is amazing, and it really appealed to my inner nerd. The tradition of MIT hacks is hilarious, some of my favourites are:
- The harvard statue has been the target of many hacks but my favourite was when they turned it into Master Chief for the release of Halo 3.
- The Great Droid, where the great dome was turned into R2D2. The great dome has been the subject of so many hacks over the years, including being encircled by The One Ring, having cars dragged up the side of the building and plonked on top, and a phone box placed on top that started ringing when the cops got up there to bring it down.
- The new president can't find his office, and finally realised students had put a gigantic bulletin board complete with student notices over the opening.
- Building 9 was turned into building 9 and three quarters in honour of Harry Potter.
I was impressed by the ethos of getting undergraduates very involved in the research side of the university during their undergrad degree by giving them either credit or money for their research time. The guy giving our tour was doing computer science and said that classes taught and tested fundamentals, but all more advanced concepts and subjects were all problem-based learning (i.e. no exams), and most real learning was done by working on research projects run by the professors.
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