Over the past few weeks, I’ve been transfixed, and saddened, by Eric Gilliam’s three-part series about the history of MIT (my alma mater ). I’ll post a few quotations and responses below, but if you’re interested you should just go read the original essays (1, 2, 3). Why MIT Was Created This quote highlights how MIT was intended to be a counter-cultural university, founded on a distinctly different model than other institutions (like