[DanielN]

It's worth noting that MIT didn't really become an academically prestigious institution until the 1940-50's. Before the second world war it was largely a Engineering and technical college and certainly wasn't one of the top 10 institutions in the country.

More specifically, at the time of this exam the school was only ~8 years old and engineering wasn't considered the prestigious career it is today.

The round up of federal funding in the 1940's and 50's is really interesting to read about as it completely transformed the school and in a broader sense transformed higher education in the US as a whole.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Massachusetts_In...

[cma]

Along with the funding, prior to the 30's/40's guys like Norbert Weiner were excluded from places like Harvard due to their race, and ended up turning MIT into a powerhouse (on top of the federal funding).

[DanielN]

This is a really good point. They talk about this in "A Beautiful Mind". It was a big divider between places like Harvard and Princeton, and places like MIT and Carnegie Mellon. The latter would take in Jews and other immigrant populations. This pissed off Nash (an undergrad from CM and a Phd at Princeton) to no end.

[tibbon]

Interestingly enough, many students there currently are all about 'keeping tradition' and are very adverse against change. There's an uproar currently over potentially required purchase of dining hall plans. In the not too distant past, they had such as well from what I understand, but now students want to keep things as they were.

[Thunder_Child]

As a current MIT undergraduate, I would say that this isn't the whole story. The reason that people are in an uproar about the new dining hall plan is not that we dislike change. It is because the new plan will cost incoming students an additional $3,000 per semester (students already enrolled will only have to pay $2,500). Also, our administration was dishonest in drawing up these plans (releasing them for student input during finals week, blatantly ignoring the input we are currently providing).

EDIT: well, maybe not blatantly ignoring our current input, but the concessions that they are making are too little too late in my opinion

[tibbon]

Yea, you're right. It isn't just about the action, but the way the administration isn't listening. It's probably a poor example of the way I've seen students want to keep traditions.

I've often heard, "Oh, the (parties|hacks|accomplishments|steer roast) was better years ago, and now all the incoming students don't do it the same anymore". There's a weird looking back on things, and today is never as good as yesterday to some students. I hope that this is due to a missampling on my part in talking to people, because that's a really depressing view of the institution

[andreyf]

Is it just me, or would one expect the dining hall system to be open to use for anyone who is a student (and their facebook friends)?