The Ways of MIT
I am still trying to understand MIT culture and have pretty much convinced myself that I and most of the other post-docs here (who were almost uniformly trained elsewhere) just don't quite fit in. The juniors and seniors (3rd and 4th year undergrads) I have met at MIT are by and large a very depressed group of people who in most cases have no clue what, in their hearts, they really want to do but know that they are "supposed" to do a lab rotation, "volunteer" work (I use the quotes very conservatively there), an industrial internship, etc. because that will make their resumes look good (for some reason of which they are mostly not yet aware). It reminds me of watching a bunch of hamsters on a wheel sometimes - lots of running to go nowhere in particular (or going towards med school, law school, etc.
just because it's the next thing on the agenda as opposed to something they are passionate about). Your academic pedigree and credentials are an incredibly big deal here - it's much less about what you can do or what you know, but rather where you got your degree, who you worked with, and how many papers you published (this makes me, a McMaster grad who worked for somebody who is primarily a pulp and paper scientist, extremely low on the MIT totem pole, even though I do have 11 papers published). This obsession with credentials was made all the more ironic last month when MIT's Dean of Admissions (the person with final say on who gets in to the university) was forced to resign after it was found out that she lied on her resume regarding her degrees in order to get the job. Overall, I can safely say that I could never work here long-term... I am just not obsessive-compulsive enough about padding my resume.
Another thing I have noticed in particular here is the critical importance of considering both IQ and EQ in terms of evaluating the intelligence of people. One member of our lab is an 18-year-old M.D./Ph.D. student (do the math - that's about four years ahead of normal scheduling) and a "retired concert pianist" who apparently has issued two commercial CD's - by any measure, an IQ boon. A couple of weeks ago, he wandered into our lab looking for
some nitrogen to do... something. Here is an approximation of our conversation:
just because it's the next thing on the agenda as opposed to something they are passionate about). Your academic pedigree and credentials are an incredibly big deal here - it's much less about what you can do or what you know, but rather where you got your degree, who you worked with, and how many papers you published (this makes me, a McMaster grad who worked for somebody who is primarily a pulp and paper scientist, extremely low on the MIT totem pole, even though I do have 11 papers published). This obsession with credentials was made all the more ironic last month when MIT's Dean of Admissions (the person with final say on who gets in to the university) was forced to resign after it was found out that she lied on her resume regarding her degrees in order to get the job. Overall, I can safely say that I could never work here long-term... I am just not obsessive-compulsive enough about padding my resume.
Another thing I have noticed in particular here is the critical importance of considering both IQ and EQ in terms of evaluating the intelligence of people. One member of our lab is an 18-year-old M.D./Ph.D. student (do the math - that's about four years ahead of normal scheduling) and a "retired concert pianist" who apparently has issued two commercial CD's - by any measure, an IQ boon. A couple of weeks ago, he wandered into our lab looking for
some nitrogen to do... something. Here is an approximation of our conversation:
HIM: <pointing at our gas cylinder> "Can I use your nitrogen?"
ME: "Um, I think it's empty" <I walk over to the cylinder and point at the pressure gauge, which reads zero pressure> "Yes, look, there's nothing left in there" <I walk back to my bench, he remains standing at the nitrogen>
HIM: "So, can I use it?"
ME: "It's empty"
HIM: "Yeah, can I use it?"
ME: "Well, there's no gas left, so you are welcome to use it but it may not be that helpful to you"
HIM: "Oh... OK" <remains at cylinder another 5-10 seconds, then walks away>
(my next line would have been "Yes, you may use it - knock yourself out")
Another example of the MIT mindset - we are collaborating with another MIT researcher who works at Lincoln Laboratories, essentially a contract branch plant of the U.S. Department of Defence (we try to fix health problems, they try to blow people up more efficiently... it's a nice, mutually synergistic relationship). The guy we are working with is actually a microwave scientist whose research focuses on microwave communications and defence systems (important for the story). So, we were out for dinner with him last week and the other post-doc working on the project with me asked this guy what he did in his free time. The answer "I write books". OK, we thought - what are you writing? A novel? Something historic perhaps seeing as he lives in Concord, starting point for the American Revolution? Oh, but no. His answer: "I write about microwaves". So, just to be clear, during the course of his job, he researchs and writes about microwaves... in his free time, he kicks back and... just writes about microwaves. Excellent. That's the kind of well-roundedness I enjoy in the people I hang out with.
Tomorrow: "Silly Discoveries!"
