Admitsphere
If I Went to MIT[1] I would…
Contribute (at the bottom) and comment![2]
Any moment I spend at college not totally inspired I start to think about the thousands of kids who would love to have my spot. What if we as students could tap into the ideas they, and wise older people looking back wishing they could be in college now, have? Current students would get awesome inspiration/creativity piped in 24/7, and those on the outside could have dreams they really care about achieved even if they can’t be here themselves. -
At the same time those applying to college, by making clear their dreams, will gain a sense of what they actually want to do, from which can flow meaningful college essay content. Maybe they could even help current college students achieve those dreams, in the process doing something fun, productive, and worthwhile.
Economics is the art of satisfying “unlimited demands with limited resources.” But if we list out our dreams, I think we might find that in a fundamental sense at least, they aren’t necessarily all that difficult to achieve, and that the harder problem is actually finding dreams that are inspiring and worthwhile to the first place. Here’s to creating systems that enable the brushfire-fluid of inspiration to flow through the veins of the Internet! Your ideas -- responses -- will be the sparks that ignite the blaze! Contribute(at the bottom) and comment! Phrased a different way, what would you do if you were me? ~jcole (mit) and nealwu (harvard)
This doc is the beginning of an app that will suggest what you should do...it is a database of dreams and ideas, threads of inspiration, human intentions.
Which is, incidentally, the key ingredient AIs are lacking -- as human motivation is rooted in human experience.
+3
“Tell us what activities you are presently or hope to become involved with at MIT.”
Breakdancing, cross-country ski, martial arts, rock climbing, surfing, snowboarding, hiking, yoga, debate, acting, SIPB, high-tech entrepreneurship/Web development business, juggling/yoyoing, Rubik's cubing, blogging, gaming, MIT hacking, playing RPG's, reading science fiction and fantasy and classic literature, cooking my way to the gustatory frontier of the universe, having late-night philosophical discussions, lucid dreaming, meeting incredible people at and around MIT, eating lunch each weekend with friends going to college elsewhere in Boston, living with my best friend of 12 years as a roommate, coding late on Saturday nights with my high school programming buddy and others I'm sure to meet, forging within the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my species (sorry James Joyce), and most importantly, sleeping enough on top of this. Lucid dreaming hopefully will help with this latter goal. For the rest, I'll have to rely on Pareto's law (the idea that statistically speaking, 20% of your resources produced 80% of the yield in real economic systems).
*surfing is without a doubt my favorite activity on the list, though ironically, the only one that's actually impractical to do in Boston. (UPDATE: founded the MIT surf club). There's nothing like it -- Dropping into a 7 foot barreling wave is like riding a standup, liquid roller coaster that I control (or if I fall it's like being a cockroach in a trash compactor).
*whether or not I become an admissions blogger :)
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+5
- Get Into Programming: robowiki.net/ + TPP Robocode Tutorials- Awesome game that teaches programming and math from ground up through creation of AI for battling virtual tanks. Will make you fall in love with programming. Detailed Introductory Robocode/Java/Trig tutorials and sample robots)
- How to Get Into Web Development ,, PHP Handout (dated)
- Get Into Rubik’s Cubing http://jacobsstuff.com/files/PHP_Handout_1.pdf
- Get Into Meditation and Tai Chi
- Get Into Thoughtstreaming/Keeping Lists (just a spark of inspiration)
- Get Into Literature and Writing (just a spark of inspiration)
- Get Into Yoyo-ing (just a spark of inspiration)
- To build: CuriosityThread, a site that shows the chain of questions/interests a person asked/followed to gain the knowledge they have. Perhaps to partially populate this site, Wikipedia could track threads of browsing, and scrolling. Subsequently, tutorials (even a textbook!) customized to the curiosity profiles of different people could be made of it? (Relatedly, creating a web database of the series of questions bright students ask could be extremely powerful. I would love, for instance, to have documentation of the series of questions one of my friends asked over the course of his life to ultimately gain the knowledge to get gold at the International Chemistry Olympiad. Maybe you could get data from everybody and look specifically at how the ultra successful differ?)
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+2
Implement ideas on http://hackathonprojects.tk/. Regardless of my decision, college is like one giant sleepover/party/robotics team meeting/lit mag meeting/programming club meeting/science museum visit/art museum visit that is going to be incredible as long as I continue to frame it right and act as I have in high school. Torrey Pines is absolutely incredible, and I will carry forward the attitudes, connections, and insights I developed there no matter what. I want to go to the place that has the resources, professors, opportunities, and other students who are most able to do things I couldn't but wanted to do while I was in high school. Remember all those projects you wanted to do in high school but couldn't find anyone else to talk to about them/mentor you on them? Well now you have all the equipment, support (including funding!), and enthusiasm you need (If not always the time) to dream and act big.
+1
Tai Chi/teach friends tai chi by running floor tai chi classes. Perhaps run tai chi classes to occupy Boston protesters.
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-learning tai chi led to a profound revolution in thought for me -- check out book The Art of Learning -- Burnt-out chess prodigy becomes Tai chi master.
+1
- I Intend to give myself some personal time every Sunday to just reflect upon how I’ve been living my life. The good things that happened, the bad things that happened, things I could improve on, things I probably otherwise really wouldn’t consider any other time.
- In parallel, I want to wake up in the morning and have an hour before class to myself each day
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+1
I'm thinking about getting into a rhythm of jogging around maybe 7:30 or 8:00 for like half an with hour to 45 minutes to begin
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-I tried doing this last semester, but it’s hard to be persistent unless I were to be with a close friend who can help me keep it up. Yet the few times I tried getting up at 7 am and going jogging along the Charles River, I focused extremely well during the day and felt much happier.
MIT: Take Prof Seth Lloyd’s Quantum Computing Class -- his book Programming the Universe inspired me so much in high school!
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Establish a lifelong relationship with at least one faculty member
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+2
Go to/hold intellectual “Salon” dinners/brunches -- Their purpose is basically to get people of all disciplines/generations with big ideas/interesting perspectives who would really appreciate meeting each other in the same room. Called salons after the famous salons of Paris where the intellectuals met to discuss their big ideas
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Become a world-class singer, honing my skills through a cappella
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Wake up early and watch the sunrise over the Charles River! Or just watch the sunrise from any college. Go for a jog and watch the same sun set with some friends from atop of a hill. Become inspired by peers and channel the inspiration into something meaningful.
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Stanford: I would study something that covered applying business models using new technology to old industries (real estate) but mostly I would try to make as many friends as possible. The knowledge learned will go stale if not maintained, which makes the alum network the most valuable/durable asset you are buying by attending Stanford or Harvard etc. This is one of those quality over quantity things, I can attest to that being from the 2nd largest school in the nation. Building a technology requires a lot of human assets and investor confidence. Investors offer confidence to the Stanford/Harvard alum when evaluating technologies, the assumption is they must be worth a look (the school already pre-screened them).
If I were an investor I would surely do the same. As the technology builder, I can't help but wonder if changing my school's name would have changed investor's reactions when I say "Here is an inevitable technology that open a billion dollar plus market". With UCF on my resume, all I get is a goofy facial expression that says "You must have over estimated, or have no idea what you are talking about". However, in the past year I have watched will $35m be invested into two companies, separately developing Part A & Part B of my technology. It is only a matter of time before someone figures out that the real magic happens when the two parts are combined. Hindsight being 20/20 I wonder how my decision not to attend a well named Boston school has affected real world outcomes. I don't believe the education at UCF was inferior in any way, but I do wonder, "How much difference does the name make?"
So go to Stanford if you can, and make a lot of friends
StanfordI'd major in Symbolic Systems, which is one of the most interesting majors I've ever heard about.
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+1
MIT: I would work as hard as I possibly could in order to receive the highest possible degree in business management. I would work my hardest to get an internship with a sports team in the Boston area and follow my dream: to reach the upper echelons of a sports franchise. Using advanced metrics and stats, I would change the way sports teams viewed, recruited and signed players. I would modernize the game using math.
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MIT - I’d study really hard, and get inspired by all the great Professors over there. I’d talk to them to get to know more about making impossible things possible, join a UROP (probably D-Lab or GAMBIT)and write a Pulitzer prize winning book :) And of course, enroll in thousands of activities....in short, eat, breathe, drink, love MIT :)[‘
MIT: I’d spend time reading all books at the Barker library, meet all the professors ( specially Walter Lewin ) , I would make great lifelong friends and devise lots of physics theories. I will open a website for all of the world to see my theories. I would also love to spend a year abroad and immerse myself in different cultures and places
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MIT: Rogue programmer here...I’d finally get the chance to systematically learn computer algorithms from the best of the best!! (:
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-to the roguerammer: What would you say to inspire current MIT students who picked up programming in college considering the idea of majoring in CS? What’s your own take on why algorithms are awesome? What is the thread of curiosity that led you to get into them? If you’d like, posts thoughts on WhyIsItAwesome.tk! Finally, is there anything you know you would ask Minsky or Sussman or Winston if you got a chance to meet them?
MIT: I’d work and do my best to not let opportunities slip by. To take advantage of whatever comes and try a variety of things.
+1
MIT: I’d pursue massive heavy media studies and use computer science knowledge to be frontrunner of the changing digital media today. :) And I’d constantly tell people it’s nsm iess synthesis ot a bad idea to go to MIT for anything other than engineering because at the core of everything is engineering. Journaliof words to stori, just like how engineering is synthesis of formulas to theories, and theories to projects. Long story short: I’d pursue Comparative Media Studies which is my dream major (and only exists at MIT) at the time I will be learning how to code and work digitally.
Comments:
-”at the core of everything is engineering” ←- +100
Stanford: Make my amazing ideas a reality by building an AI that can help me.
If I get to MIT I’d use what I learned to make a revolution in Education . Comments: ooh, tell me more!
If I get to Harvard School Of Public Health, i will choose to study cancer epidemiology. i will read through all the research and conduct some of my own research so that one day i can list out or even write a book to guide all humans in how to live a healthy life. What to do, what to eat, how to eat, what not to do, is olive oil really good to our body, how to make our body healthier.......how to grow old in a healthy way, how to not grow old haha
I want to get into Cornell’s CS department and then go to Harvard Business School and start my own business of computers!
MIT: I’d immerse myself in the startup culture and entrepreneurship opportunities there. Stuff I want to get into: Entrepreneurial Ecosystem, martial arts, crew maybe? I can’t imagine anything more beautiful than watching the sun rise over the Charles River and rowing across it in the early morning - it’d be a form of stress relief and a way to get to know other awesome MIT students. I want to be inspired by my fellow classmates, let them open my mind, keep me focused on my goal, and work with them to revolutionize technology and how humans interact with it and with each other. I want to meet people with the same goals, the same passion, the same intensity and belief in their ability to change the world. I want to know that I can survive being hosed; I want to be forced to prioritize; I want to know what it means to be at the forefront of innovation.
Start up a non profit (while in undergrad) that aims to improve healthcare in underserved communities and SUSTAIN IT, and at the same time, doing public health fieldwork, particularly in the areas of sanitation, tuberculosis, and other neglected diseases (via Duke’s Global Health major or public health @ JHU or at MIT)
Get a PhD in neuroscience as well, from either JHU, Harvard, or UCSF.
And travel round the world.
Build my own robots with Arduino and prank my roommates
At MIT:
Absorb the physics.
Make glass: http://glasslab.scripts.mit.edu/
At RICE:
I would study in the Nanotechnology Department then I could definitely construct a molecular self replicator to design my own 3D printing factory! Okay, a little expansion on that. Now i’ve gotten into Rice University albeit in the Social Science Department.
I’d sit in the cafeteria and eat free food… Doesn’t get better than that :P
+1
At MIT
I would build my own house on the tree
Harvard:
I would double major in Economics and Computer Science. Apply, and since were talking fantasies, and win the Rhodes Scholarship for my master's degree. Come back to the United States for my MBA and then work at a private equity firm. Wall Street Baby!
MIT:
I would work my ass off doing a business major to make the most out of the tuition and get recruited by a multinational company. I’d work there, save up some money, get an MBA, and work on my own businesses, eventually becoming a serial entrepreneur.
MIT: The cool thing to research would be working at Lincoln Laboratory, examining ways to use the new networked sensor into an effective platform for the US Airforce and US Navy for a peer war/ high intensity war concept. There are also allowances for cross platform development in engineering or computer science. Good luck!
Stanford:
Create startups that help make human civilization multi-planetary.
[1]*or Harvard, or Stanford, or any college really -- college-specific dreams are fine
[[2]](#ftnt_ref2)To future editors: please refrain from being assholes and deleting the whole document. :) This document is meant to be a source of inspiration. Don’t treat it as an opportunity to complain - [email protected] and [email protected]