I’m a few weeks away from finishing a Probability and Statistics course (on Unit 4). It has been time consuming and difficult, but extremely rewarding.
> In consultation with members about strategy and priorities, in 2019, it became apparent that our biggest value proposition is the global perspective on open education. In recognition of that a name change to Open Education Global (OE Global) was made to better reflect our role in supporting open education globally across all sectors.
What a way to throw away a strong decade old-brand.
That is crazy. Harvard is $40 billion but much bigger and older institution. Attracting the very crust of talent means a lot paying it forward. People assume that 'old money' like Carnegie's are funding universities...hardly, a lot of it is 'new money' , like in tech, finance, or other business.
If we raised income taxes to 90% for the highest "earners," then the government could more equitably distribute these funds to a wider range of equally deserving universities.
Neither Harvard nor MIT represent "the very crust of talent" either.
DEI initiatives and legacy applicants make up a significant fraction of their admissions.
MIT does not consider legacy in their admissions process.* My kids may be more likely to be admitted to MIT because I've spoken fondly about it, because we've done a lot of engineering projects growing up, because we've supported their STEM education, because we knew how to navigate standardized testing, etc.
But it won't be because there's an "if (legacy_p) admit_chance++;" in their process.
I believe their policy statement on admissions as much as I believe former MIT president Susan Hockfield's reason for stepping down from her position in 2012.
Also, don't forget that Susan Hockfield never referred her dean of admissions at MIT to the attorney general's office to face prosecution on wire fraud charges after it was discovered that she had fabricated a medical degree from a medical school that she had never attended on her resume.
Do you genuinely believe that they could have a legacy preference in admissions that everyone in the admissions process for all times is keeping a secret?
You have a much higher degree of faith in the ability for humans to cooperate and never defect than I do.
has the same chances of being accepted to MIT as yours or mine, regardless of test scores, then "I've got some property overlooking South Beach down on Martha's Vineyard that I'd like to sell you," as Alan Dershowitz recently told a news reporter :)
Regarding your degree of faith in the ability of humans to cooperate without ever defecting, let me refer you to this aptly entitled book:
How do you think Harvard and MIT helped Mr. Jeffrey Epstein evade prosecution on the child sex-trafficking charges for over thirty years?
Type into your favorite search engine: "Martin Nowak Jeffrey Epstein Alan Dershowitz and the legal definition of a Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organization" if you need a refresher.
And quite frankly, I could care less who MIT or Harvard accepts these days. Admission to these schools has become nothing more than a modern-day equivalent of the 'beauty pageants' of yesteryear ... for all of the nerdy teenagers who don't look good enough in a bathing suit for Mr. Epstein apparently:
It seems like they're not matching donations or anything - are they just saying "hey we just got a nice donation - why don't you also donate?". I feel like I'm missing something
My understanding was that they were doing the open coursework thing because it was "the right thing to do" and doesn't truly undermine their selection and certification process. If that's the case it shouldn't be profitable and the college should be fully paying for it without donations. This makes it seem more like some independent body that needs funding to survive
Gamifying charity. It is sadly very common. Who knows if there even is a mystery $20k donor, or if it’s just a figment of the MIT marketing department?
I am honestly surprised there is no “2x match for the next 24 hours” or something similar (which again is completely unverifiable).
PLEASE don't do donate to MIT. MIT is overcapitalized, and this, in particular, is waaay overcapitalized in light of the super-sleazy sale of edX for $800M.
I'm a member of the MIT community for over a quarter century (including right now). There are a lot of things one can do to help MIT, but giving money is NOT one of them. It actively harms the Institute to have more.
MIT's endowment stands at $25 million per faculty member. More money leads to worse behavior. This is one of those cases where there's plenty of money, and less would be more -- lead to better research, better teaching, and less fraud (which is now overrunning the Institute).
That's already well-known news. The above seems to imply research fraud, possibly tied to grants, which is now "overrunning the Institute" and I'd like to know more.
I personally know the open agriculture stuff was a joke, I got wrapped up in it and actually had several conversations and email exchanges with Caleb Harper (not in any shady or illegal way, I just sold kits of their open source food computer after seeing Caleb's TED talk, until I found out they didn't work, and never did, and don't provide any real benefit over something like an Aerogarden)
https://www.wired.com/story/dirty-money-and-bad-science-at-m...
It's actually pretty hard to dig into it unless you're a member of the community, and even then.
There is financial fraud at the top. It's really easy to skim off the $25B. I'm not too worried about that.
What worries me more is widespread research fraud. Hiring rewards high-impact research, and not high-integrity research. I do have visibility into a lot of research in the Institute, and about half of the high-profile results I see come out have had some level of fraud that I know about (at least as a typical person would define it), and I suspect far more that I don't know about.
Note that I chose my words carefully there. The caveats:
(1) Many things, if done carefully, aren't fraud in the prosecutable sense, but lead to bad science.
(2) Most results are low-profile results. I define "high-profile" as roughly the level to either make major press or to get a tenure-track job.
I had a position which gave me a lot of visibility into this stuff. I can talk about this in online forums, but in real life, I'm under legal agreements with the Institute which would make this kind of conversation impossible.
One of the first things which would need to happen for me to trust MIT research at all is the elimination of NDA / non-disparage gag agreements.
29 comments
[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 60.7 ms ] threadhttps://ocw.mit.edu/courses/6-041sc-probabilistic-systems-an...
I just gave a little to the OCW Challenge.
https://mit24hourchallenge.mightycause.com/story/Ocw
If you'd like to support OCW, you can support to the Consortium: https://www.oeglobal.org/about-us/history-of-oeg/
What a way to throw away a strong decade old-brand.
Neither Harvard nor MIT represent "the very crust of talent" either.
DEI initiatives and legacy applicants make up a significant fraction of their admissions.
But it won't be because there's an "if (legacy_p) admit_chance++;" in their process.
* - https://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/just-to-be-clear-we-do...
Also, don't forget that Susan Hockfield never referred her dean of admissions at MIT to the attorney general's office to face prosecution on wire fraud charges after it was discovered that she had fabricated a medical degree from a medical school that she had never attended on her resume.
You have a much higher degree of faith in the ability for humans to cooperate and never defect than I do.
https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/07/mit-gets-a-140m-anonymous-...
has the same chances of being accepted to MIT as yours or mine, regardless of test scores, then "I've got some property overlooking South Beach down on Martha's Vineyard that I'd like to sell you," as Alan Dershowitz recently told a news reporter :)
Regarding your degree of faith in the ability of humans to cooperate without ever defecting, let me refer you to this aptly entitled book:
https://www.amazon.com/SuperCooperators-Altruism-Evolution-O...
How do you think Harvard and MIT helped Mr. Jeffrey Epstein evade prosecution on the child sex-trafficking charges for over thirty years?
Type into your favorite search engine: "Martin Nowak Jeffrey Epstein Alan Dershowitz and the legal definition of a Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organization" if you need a refresher.
And quite frankly, I could care less who MIT or Harvard accepts these days. Admission to these schools has become nothing more than a modern-day equivalent of the 'beauty pageants' of yesteryear ... for all of the nerdy teenagers who don't look good enough in a bathing suit for Mr. Epstein apparently:
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/fbi-want...
https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/how-an-elite-univer...
My understanding was that they were doing the open coursework thing because it was "the right thing to do" and doesn't truly undermine their selection and certification process. If that's the case it shouldn't be profitable and the college should be fully paying for it without donations. This makes it seem more like some independent body that needs funding to survive
I am honestly surprised there is no “2x match for the next 24 hours” or something similar (which again is completely unverifiable).
I'm a member of the MIT community for over a quarter century (including right now). There are a lot of things one can do to help MIT, but giving money is NOT one of them. It actively harms the Institute to have more.
MIT's endowment stands at $25 million per faculty member. More money leads to worse behavior. This is one of those cases where there's plenty of money, and less would be more -- lead to better research, better teaching, and less fraud (which is now overrunning the Institute).
https://www.wired.com/story/dirty-money-and-bad-science-at-m...
Step 1: Download the MIT Epstein transparency report. http://factfindingjan2020.mit.edu/
Step 2: Go to archive.org, and pull up Epstein foundation web site photos. See MIT faculty on sex island.
Step 3: Try to find those names in the transparency report.
Many more MIT faculty flew to sex island.
No press did due diligence here. Literally the only people who got thrown under the bus were the honest ones who came forward, and ones who were dead.
MIT delayed until the story was no longer hot, and released a boring 60+ page report, so the press apparently didn't even bother reading it.
There is financial fraud at the top. It's really easy to skim off the $25B. I'm not too worried about that.
What worries me more is widespread research fraud. Hiring rewards high-impact research, and not high-integrity research. I do have visibility into a lot of research in the Institute, and about half of the high-profile results I see come out have had some level of fraud that I know about (at least as a typical person would define it), and I suspect far more that I don't know about.
Note that I chose my words carefully there. The caveats:
(1) Many things, if done carefully, aren't fraud in the prosecutable sense, but lead to bad science.
(2) Most results are low-profile results. I define "high-profile" as roughly the level to either make major press or to get a tenure-track job.
I had a position which gave me a lot of visibility into this stuff. I can talk about this in online forums, but in real life, I'm under legal agreements with the Institute which would make this kind of conversation impossible.
One of the first things which would need to happen for me to trust MIT research at all is the elimination of NDA / non-disparage gag agreements.