GUEST COLUMN Crises are not opportunities
The nuclear crisis in Japan is severe. A reactor core has partially melted, chemical explosions have breached the containment, and radiation has been released into the atmosphere and ocean. Of course, this is a direct consequence of a catastrophic natural disaster of historic, unprecedented proportions. The earthquake and tsunami have utterly devastated Japan, and the magnitude of the total ruin will unfortunately dwarf that of the nuclear component.
EDITORIAL Balance life commitments to maximize education
As attendees of CPW, you have all been admitted to MIT. Congratulations! You now have an important decision to make, and hopefully CPW will help you do so.
MIT is hard, and that’s why you should attend
CPW! As one person — famous for her truly insightful and thought-provoking lyrics — would say, “It’s Friday, Friday … fun, fun, fun, fun.” She’s got excellent grammar, too. But this article is not about Rebecca Black, it’s about you. More specifically, it’s about why you should choose MIT over any other school you may have been accepted to.
MIT — the premed’s choice?
I am not going to lie. If your goal is to go to college, take the easiest classes possible, and get into medical school with perfect grades, then MIT is not for you. However, if you want to excel in science and engineering and live among brilliant peers and professors, all in an environment that is unrivaled, then keep on reading. Not only is it possible to be a successful premed at MIT, but I would also argue that MIT is one of the best places for shaping future doctors.
CPW is not a time to slack off
CPW is a time for celebration, confetti, and cake. As a prefrosh, you will be welcomed with hundreds of MIT events that will entertain, pamper and feed you. I guarantee that you will overbook yourself. You will scratch your head deciding which event to attend. You will wish you could be at two places at once, maybe three, or even four. At night, you will party (dry) on Baker’s rooftop with newly-made friends drinking (unmixed) Monsters. Then you will sleep with your body fatigued but your mind restless. Your day will have gone by in a split second.
MIT is no rest, no mercy, no matter what
I know you, for I have seen you dozens of times before. You think you want to be a scientist or an engineer. But be realistic — what do you, a teenager, know of science and engineering? You have applied to this institution, not out of any sophisticated understanding of the choices you are making, but because society has sold you a lifestyle brand. You want to be able to call yourself a scientist for the same reasons trendy youths want to buy clothes with swooshes or cigarettes with cowboy mascots. You crave, as any human does, the respect and admiration of your peers. You see the status that Bill Gates and Steve Jobs have achieved, and hope that a career in technology will be your salvation. But you will find none here.
CORRECTIONS
A sports article published last Friday on NCAA championship predictions incorrectly referenced two team rosters. Jerome Dyson no longer plays for the University of Connecticut, and DeMarcus Cousins and Eric Bledsoe no longer play for the University of Kentucky. Dyson is now with the Tulsa 66ers, Cousins plays for the Sacramento Kings, and Bledsoe is with the Los Angeles Clippers.
The Good, the Bad, and the Strange Wars
Back in February 2009, I wrote a piece for this newspaper asking President Obama to take a moment and decide whether he was an idealist or a realist in the world of foreign policy. Failure to answer this question, I warned, would lead him into many of the situations his predecessor had found himself in.
The Guantanamo Bay camps must be closed
Let us begin with one obvious fact: the decision to establish detention camps at Guantanamo Bay has cost us much more than we have gained.
The Guantanamo Bay camps must be reformed
In his defense of Guantanamo Bay (and of our detention policy in general), Yost makes a fair point — our legal system, at its core, is a decision-making system with Type I and Type II errors, and the Guantanamo Bay detainees form a category of suspects that do not appropriately fit into either of our existing legal pathways.
GUEST COLUMN In the shadow of good will
Development agencies say they are concerned about corruption. A large part of the West’s donations of aid to poorer countries intended to do good ends up in the pockets of ruthless officials with no qualms about stealing from their underprivileged fellow citizens.
The Guantanamo Bay camps must remain open
Forget for a moment all of the legal exegesis of whether or not the detainees at Guantanamo Bay are prisoners of war (subject to indefinite detention and military tribunals), civilians (subject to the court system of the United States), or “unlawful combatants” (constituting a newly defined class of suspects). A legal system is, at its core, a decision-maker, determining whether alleged criminals are innocent or guilty. Like any other imperfect decision-maker, the system has two types of error: Type I error (deciding a person is guilty when they are innocent), and Type II error (deciding a person is innocent when they are guilty). For a legal system with a given degree of accuracy, we can trade-off between the two types of error, reducing Type I at the expense of increasing Type II, or vice-versa.
DISSENT Students are right to fight
Editor’s note: this is a dissent by the above members of The Tech’s Editorial Board in response to the editorial published on March 29.
CORRECTIONS
Tuesday’s Campus Life events calendar indicated the incorrect time for a talk by Jonathan E. D. Richmond PhD ’91 on corruption in developing countries. The talk will begin at 12:30 p.m., and lunch will begin at 12:15 p.m (W20-307).
Think you know the Muslim Brotherhood?
The 2011 Egyptian revolution was staged by two parts of the Muslim Brotherhood. One old. One young.
EDITORIAL Lessons learned from dining
The UA’s referendum on this fall’s dining plan is an unproductive stunt that only serves to prolong the often acrimonious debate on an already decided policy. To be sure, the referendum confirms what most undergraduates have known for some time — given the costs, a majority of students do not support a mandatory, all-you-care-to-eat meal plan at dining dorms. But at best, that data amounts to an “I told you so” from the UA to the administration; it accomplishes nothing, and will only weaken the UA’s standing as a serious organization.
Congress: do not take a hatchet to foreign aid
President Obama is receiving harsh bipartisan criticism for his handling of the economy, and his approval ratings are at an all-time low. Many are calling for the U.S. to reduce foreign aid and to pursue isolationist policies in order to save money. However, it is not in our best interest to take a hatchet to foreign aid. Instead, we need to carefully evaluate where our resources are allocated abroad so that U.S. interests and safety can be best secured.
Voodoo Innovationomics
First Solar, an American company, makes the best solar cells on the face of the planet. Their devices, while still an eternity away from being cost-competitive with conventional sources of power, are staggeringly far ahead of the rest of the photovoltaic field. The reason for their considerable lead is an innovative new technology for harnessing photons, using cadmium telluride (CdTe) in lieu of traditional crystalline silicon. Theirs is a story of American ingenuity and inventiveness. It is also a story about how we will not “win the future” through innovation.