思考与写作math.tamu.edu编辑精选
MIT 教育的教训
Lessons of an MIT Education
2007 — 2022，它一次次回到首页
黑点是上首页（≥ 50 分）的那次投稿，空心点是没冲上去的投稿，点越大分数越高。
导读
这是数学家 Gian-Carlo Rota 的经典短文，总结他在 MIT 数十年教学观察到的教育经验：如课程内容会遗忘但思维方式长存、必须用可验证的标准衡量学生、高标准的期望会被学生内化并伴随一生、看似无用的基础理论往往最终产生最重要的应用等。文章对软学科和人文学科也有颇为尖锐的评价。
为什么经久不衰：它跨越十五年三次登上 HN 首页，因为其中关于“学什么会忘、怎么想会留下”和高标准内化的观察，对任何自学或教人的人依然成立。
HN 评论精选
反驳作者对人文学科的贬低：历史等学科教的同样是思维方式而非死记硬背。
作者对软科学和人文学科相当苛刻，我想为其辩护。他把这些学科描述成只是“学什么”——记住事实——而不是“怎么学”——掌握技能。以历史为例，看似全是日期和人名，但一门好的历史课教你以不同的方式、带着更深的背景去思考世界大事和本国政治。一个只关心机器运转而不关心人如何运作的社会，很快就会把人当作机器来对待。
dougmwne查看英文原文
The author was quite harsh on the soft sciencies and humanities and I'm going to attempt a defense. First, he characterises these subjects as merely what, facts to be learned, instead of how, skills to be mastered. Let's take history, which seems very what, full of dates and names. A great course in history teaches you how to think differently and with deeper context about world events and your country's politics. I suggest that a society only interested in the workings of machines rather than the workings of people will soon treat people as mere machines. Let the nightmare begin.
质疑 MIT 优越论，认为美国高校等级制是非理性的，欧盟的课程标准化更合理。
“你必须达到非常高的水准”——有家长会问：为什么要在 MIT 而不是在便宜的 Oshkosh 学院学微积分？教材不是都一样吗？这在我看来是典型的大学沙文主义。我查过他教的微分方程课，我在非 MIT 的教育里完成过更难的数学课。欧盟通过统一大学课程体系，慕尼黑的计算机硕士和马德里的基本等值，报校名“不管用”；美国那种因非理性原因给学校分等级的体系严格来说更差。
bjourne查看英文原文
> Lesson Six: You must measure up to a very high level of performance. I can imagine a propective student or parent asking, "Why should I (or my child) take calculus at MIT rather than at Oshkosh College? Isn't the material practically identical, no matter where it is taught, while the cost varies a great deal?" Is there any truth to this? Because it seem like classical university jingoism to me. "My institution is better than yours." Anecdotes like "All MIT graduates I've met were dumb" or "All MIT graduates I've met were smart" does not count. Because I looked at the DE course he taught (18.03) and I completed harder math courses than that in my non-MIT education. I'm sure many other HN readers have too. I wonder if there is some test you can take to see if you are just as good as an MIT graduate? The EU has done great work in this area by trying to standardize the university curriculum across the union. What that means is that a master's degree in computer science from the university of München is mostly comparable to one from Madrid, so name-dropping your university "does not work." It also means that it is trivial for a Spanish student to study one year in Germany and then come home to Spain (see Erasmus). The US system, where some colleges are rated higher than others for irrational reasons, is strictly worse.
批评文中赞许熬夜苦读的态度，指出睡眠不足实际有损学习。
这份清单很有洞见，但有一点让我不舒服：对用功到无法保持清醒的赞许。这对学习有害，甚至有实验证明如此——这让清单里“要能证明自己知道、而不是胡说”的部分显得讽刺。也许有更深的道理，但我持怀疑态度。
abecedarius查看英文原文
An insightful list, but one part bugs me: the approval of working so hard you can't stay awake. This is bad for learning, and apparently there are even experiments showing that it's bad -- which casts an ironic light on the part of this list about demonstrably knowing things vs. bullshitting. Maybe there's a deeper reason it's good, but I'm skeptical.
印证“高标准内化”一说：它带来终身受益的标准，也带来初期的傲慢与压迫感。
“对高标准的期望会被学生无意识地吸收并采纳，并伴随他们一生”——这非常真实，也是 MIT 毕业生常被认为傲慢的原因。多数 MIT 应届本科生的傲慢会在接触真实世界后消退，但对高标准的隐性假设会留存几十年，甚至与冒名顶替恐惧并存，而且常常让人感到压迫。作为创业者我不招 MIT 应届生，宁愿让他们在别人那里经历现实的冲击；Caltech 的毕业生倒没有这个问题。
gumby查看英文原文
> The expectation of high standards is unconsciously absorbed and adopted by the students, and they carry it with them for life. This is so very true, and unfortunately is commonly why mit grads are considered arrogant. I say “unfortunately” because most recent MIT bachelor grads are arrogant* but that tends to fade after they encounter a real world in which there are other smart and/or hard working people. But the implicit assumption of high standards remains with many grads, including many who themselves can’t shed their imposter fears, even after decades. And that implicit assumption is often intimidating. * As a startup guy I tend not to hire MIT new grads, preferring that they suffer the shock of the real world on someone else’s dime. But I have hired a couple of CalTech new grads and they haven’t had “the problem”. As an MIT grad myself I wish the Institute could figure out what Caltech is getting right. But MIT doesn’t really care much about undergrads anyway.
指出“无用之学终有大用”的论证存在幸存者偏差。
“越理论化、离应用越远的科学主题，越可能最终找到最惊人的实际应用”，比如数论如今成了计算机安全的核心——这听起来像幸存者偏差。确实有很多曾经冷僻的数学后来极有价值，但那些始终冷僻的呢？
spencerchubb查看英文原文
> It is a fact, confirmed by the history of science since Galileo and Newton, that the more theoretical and removed from immediate applications a scientific topic appears to be, the more likely it is to eventually find the most striking practical applications. Consider number theory, which only 20 years ago was believed to be the most useless chapter of mathematics and is today the core of computer security. Sounds like survivorship bias. Sure, there are plenty of examples of math concepts that ended up being extremely valuable but were once considered esoteric. What about the ones that remained esoteric? I understand this was just one point of the essay, so he couldn't dive too deep. Would be cool to see a fuller analysis.
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