Customer Reviews

The Idea Factory: Learning to Think at MIT

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

After almost 20 years in and around MIT, I've encountered only two great MIT books: (1) A.R. Gurney's out-of-print novel _The Snow Ball_; (2) Pepper White's book.

White went to a top undergraduate school and was very strong academically. Yet he was completely unprepared for MIT grad school and couldn't believe how easily the folks who'd been MIT undergrads took everything in stride. He didn't know that they'd had exactly the same experience four years before!

It is all here. Losing the girlfriend. Being surrounded by nerds. Scrambling for funding. Being called a jackinape by professors.

Every MIT kid should make his parents read this book, if only to increase the supply of mailed-in CARE packages.

I'm currently a grad student in the same lab Pepper White worked in. His descriptions of the professors, classes, and quals are dead-on, even today - not all that much has changed in that regard. Some of the same equipment is still in the lab.

But his MIT experience is NOT typical, for a whole host of reasons. He took way, way more classes than any grad student should - I've never taken more than two per semester, often only one. A master's thesis usually takes 2 years or less. Most students aren't resident tutors in Senior House, one of MIT's more, shall we say, unique dorms. Considering how unprepared he was to be a graduate student in mechanical engineering, I'd say he did pretty well in the end.

Unfortunately, the part about knowing someone lost to suicide is all too typical, but many, many ways MIT is a kindler, gentler place than it was in the early '80s, for better or for worse.

It's interesting to see the binary response readers/reviewers have given this book -- like an inverted bell curve. For my part, I'd say that the picture painted of MIT's graduate program is pretty repellent, but the very things that repel are also a source of the school's strength. Maybe civilization needs places like this and Caltech -- but you wouldn't necessarily come out of the experience a better person. To his credit I think White does emerge a better person, and that makes the story interesting. For those who haven't read the book, I'll just say keep an eye on the peripheral figures. They are more important than you think at first -- and more important than White initially thought, too.

As one of the undergraduates in Pepper White's dormitory, and one who shared many if not most of Mr. White's experiences, I can personally attest to the accuracy of almost every description in this impressively detailed and honest account. In fact if anything Pepper's book is honest to a fault, perhaps leaving people who lived and worked in a different part of this incredibly varied school with the mistaken impression that his descriptions are innaccurate simply because they don't match their own.
Not everyone going through MIT is going to experience the same things - some will have kinder, more supportive professors and friends while many others will suffer under less kind, less supportive (and quite often downright nasty) professors and friends who are more interested in their work than in spending the extra time it takes to be a good friend. Some because of their natures will thrive in the isolation and loneliness of eighty or hundred hour work weeks, month after month, year after year, and others will sooner or later find this life just too lonely and unsatisfying to bear and decide that it's time to move on.
Pepper was one who moved on (though this wasn't his choice, it's interesting to wonder if he would have moved on anyway if he had passed his PhD exams). So it might be helpful to think of his book and descriptions as being accurate for the sort of person who also would be inclined to move on in similar circumstances. Whether that's the majority or minority at MIT is hard to say. My guess, as one who also chose to move on (but
who also knew many who genuinely liked this life, as well as many (mostly students from underdeveloped foreign countries) who hated it but endured it anyway because they felt that a PhD from MIT was the only chance they had to succeed in life) is that more students at MIT hate it than like it (or at least that more students in the early 80's, the time this book describes, hated it than liked it) and that for them Pepper's impressive work could not be more accurate.

Pepper White, a Mechanical Engineering Grad student tells of his life at MIT. Anyone who is considering gradaute study in engineering has to read this book. Anyone who is curoius about what life might be like at MIT should read this book. In summary, Pepper works like a slave for a couple of years and loses a part of himself in the process. But there is no doubt that he emerges with an education that makes him incredibly better at thinking. But really, is it worth it? Anyone who is having the Be-All-You-Can-Be-At-The-Top-Notch-Tech-School OR Settle-For-Less-And-Have-A-Real-Life debate with themselves needs this book. This book will push you to "having a real life." MIT sounds scary.

Read this book if you want to know what it is like to live and breathe and be at MIT. Being at MIT is an honor, and a privilege that I take seriously...and a pain. Pay close attention to Pepper's underlying message...MIT is a place of beautiful torture and torturous beauty...a place students hate, but alumni miss dearly.

A warning to readers...don't let his experience define yours. While I am currently going through much of what Pepper has described, I must give my fellow reviewers that his (or my) experience can be atypical. Last year, for eg, I breezed through and couldn't identify with most of Pepper's experiences. Most MIT student experiences lie between these extremes.

The bottom line...accurately painted with a great sense of humor.

I loved this book! It made me want to go to grad school (but not MIT! ) It should be mandatory reading for all prospective students and their families. The stories about the (all-to-common) student suicides were both scary and fascinating. Interspersed throughout the narrative are physics/engineering problems that demonstrate Pepper's evolution as an engineer. It was fun testing myself against the solutions at the back of the book. I got two right! But, the story is an engaging one, even if you skip over the physics.

Do you really think you are smart and it is all there is to get everything in this world? Read this book and reconsider. (And no, I won't talk about tea leaves. Pepper did a better job of doing that.)

MIT or not, if you have ever spent a couple of years banging your head with some intensive mechanical and civil engineering courses, had to struggle under the pressure of inhumane deadlines to stand up to the standards of your university, or had to bear the harshness of your professors (the kings of the mountain) then you really know what Mr. Pepper is talking about.

Being an engineer is not easy and trying to have your master's degree in engineering (mechanical, civil, computer, electrical, etc.) from one of the best technology universities in the world, MIT, probably is tough experience, if not tougher and harsher than the description of the author who had been there and done that.

I read the book more like a thriller than a diary. Mr. Pepper proved to be not only a good engineer but also a very engaging writer. Well, I guess if you have at least a bit of that geek, nerd or engineering streak than this book will be definite page-turner for you. It has its technical points, psychological analyses, personal dramas, behind-the-scenes expositions, hard-to-bear suspenseful moments. What else could a reader like me ask for?

This book is the saga of young man who goes to a temple in order to get the degree he wishes for but what he really gained was the ability to think in a very rigorous manner when faced with challenging and original problems. One of the most important aspects of the book is that you can see how the author spends very intensive time to solve a problem and how his experience with seemingly an artificial problem helps him to solve many different 'real-life' problems.

And the final take home message of the book should be considered this: No matter what your ambitions are, no matter how pressured you are, do not forget your humanity. You may think you'll compensate for the broken hearts in the future and then it may be too late. Think like a human, act like a human.

Well done, Mr. Pepper. And thanks for the recommendation of the bicycle museum at Dinant, Belgium. I'll be listening to some tunes played by the instrument invented by Mr. Sax as I wonder at the adventures of human creativity and problem solving.

PS: Don't forget the references to Lisp and Scheme programming, managing complexity and answers to fluid dynamics questions :)

This book gives a first hand account of one man's journey through graduate school at MIT. I will be attending this fall as a freshman undergraduate and from what I've seen of MIT myself and heard from friends who are current students. This book, although the story is 20 years old, accurately describes life at the institute. It is a great read for anyone who is considering MIT or is just curious about it from the point of view of a student. LOVED IT!!!

If you're going to MIT, I bet there are loads of websites and info-dumps out there for you. This is the book for the rest of us, those that that wonder what it would have been like. How is it different? How is grad school in the sciences different from taking undergrad classes? Easy, well-paced read that is a good balance of social and academic and everything else. Worthwhile read. Just not the peak best-of-the-best. If it wasn't for the MIT info it would go (for me) from 4 to 3 stars. One L (Scott Turow's first year law at Harvard) would be 5 stars on this ranking. I enjoyed Pepper's ride, and it's a good thing that I wanted more, that I finished the book in a few happy days, but when you finish the book and feel like it could have been more it is a little frustrating.

Great for anyone making the transition from undergrad to grad in the sciences. Good for anyone who has thought about MIT.