Milena wrote a few days ago about how she felt that the only thing she needed right now to compliment her life is a hot boy. She has good grades, she parties, she eats well and even goes shopping. As an 18 years old girl she’s only missing that special person that will give her some love at the end of the day. I was happy to hear that she was doing so well, but a prospective MIT applicant wasn’t. He wrote her the following:
“Well, you applied and got into MIT…as a prospective student, it’s hard for me to see someone who has been accepted have that kind of mentality. If the epitome of success is good friends, good looks, good grades, a good guy and being very well off, living off of a comfortable income and indulging in luxuries, then what is being at MIT all about?”
Let’s call this prospective applicant Y (because X was part of my last blog entry). I just have one thing to say to Y, I think you’ve been overwhelmed by MIT promotion material. Seriously, close your eyes and shake it off for a little while. MIT has ~4000 undergrads, most of them between the ages ~18-22. Do you really think that all these people are constantly thinking about how to save the world? No.
MIT students party, drink, enjoy their lives in many ways. This is, of course, when taking a break from doing homework. What kind of homework? The one that consumes their lives during the days (and nights). The solutions to the problem sets that MIT undergrads work on, are not going to save the world, not at all.
The things that Milena, and most MIT undergrads, want right now, are just normal things. They do not want to throw away the ‘college experience’ so they can save the world… because even if they did, they’ll probably just fail out of the institute after getting depressed. Which is pretty sad. In order to keep themselves sane, MIT students just don’t try to save the world and get good grades at the same time. It would just consume their lives.
I’m not saying that every MIT student wants what Milena wants. Oh no, some of them are just looking forward to Friday night so they can do something they call “LAN Parties” where they sit in a lounge and play starcraft all night. There’s also others that just want to watch a movie, or at least catch up on what has been happening in the world. MIT students barely talk about world issues, because they don’t know shit about what’s going on out there. Most of the people I talked to three days after the California fires began, didn’t even know that it was burning down there!
If you’re a prospective applicant, you can come get your high quality education, and afterwards use it for everyone’s good. But don’t think that after 50 hours of school work in a week you’ll be able to call home and say, I’m making the world a better place… cause you’re not. Not just yet. There’s time for everything, and current undergrads are just expecting that recent graduates are making the world a better place.
I hope my realistic point of view doesn’t go unappreciated.
-Omar
