What MIT was like for me

(from June 20, 2021)

My MIT education was a lot like what an actor does when they prepare for a role; I hung around for four years, observing, learning how scientists and engineers acted and talked, Then (somehow) I graduated and left to make the movie that was my life. But like an actor, I never really learned to be a scientist or an engineer.

Thus, I say “Close enough for government work,” without ever having done any, or having had to measure anything precisely. My entire career in journalism was based on my computer knowledge from MIT, which was trivial. “I’m not a computer scientist, but I do play one on television,” and, in the newsroom, for that matter.

Comments

[Robert E. Malchman]

I've long said that if you went to MIT, at some point in your life someone would turn you into a computer jockey. On my law school journal, I was the Production Editor, meaning I read through everything on the computer (Word Perfect for DOS!) and fixed typos and coding errors. This despite my degree being in Political Science, though I suppose my unofficial major in The Tech prepped me well to be a proofreader.