The Idea Factory: Learning to Think at MIT
This is a personal story of the educational process at one of the world's great technological universities. Pepper White entered MIT in 1981 and received his master's degree in mechanical engineering in 1984. His account of his experiences, written in diary form, offers insight into graduate school life in general—including the loneliness and even desperation that can result from the intense pressure to succeed—and the purposes of engineering education in particular. The first professor White...
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This is a personal story of the educational process at one of the world's great technological universities. Publishers Weekly ``Getting an education at MIT is like getting a drink of water from a firehose,'' says one of White's fellow students in this grad school memoir. Test anxiety, lab-project drama and stylish prose propel White's recollections with enough force to make three years of engineering study compelling, even to readers committed to the liberal arts. The professors' egos, the career stakes and the quizzes are presented as powers more intense at MIT Engineering than elsewhere. But the author's deft personality sketches and diary-like accounts of encounters with even such stuff as ``System Dynamics and Control Problems'' yield a technical school analogue to Scott Turow's One L. (Sept.)
Preface to the MIT Press EditionxiiiPrologue11.Logging On52.Class173.Break304.Midterm455.Funding606.Finals697.The Guild788.The Taskmasters939.Spring10810.In Control11911.Sigma Delta13412.Two Seventy14513.Is Suicide Painless?16314.Perpetual Motion17415.Hackito Ergo Sum19116.Papa Flash20317.The Joy of Six21518.Results23019.No It Isn't25020.Quality Control26021.Continuing Education277Chapter Notes287Index309
\ Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly\ ``Getting an education at MIT is like getting a drink of water from a firehose,'' says one of White's fellow students in this grad school memoir. Test anxiety, lab-project drama and stylish prose propel White's recollections with enough force to make three years of engineering study compelling, even to readers committed to the liberal arts. The professors' egos, the career stakes and the quizzes are presented as powers more intense at MIT Engineering than elsewhere. But the author's deft personality sketches and diary-like accounts of encounters with even such stuff as ``System Dynamics and Control Problems'' yield a technical school analogue to Scott Turow's One L. (Sept.)\ \ \ \ \ BooknewsReprint of the popular Dutton edition, 1991. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)\ \
