Someone asks "Is anyone here going to MIT" well I have answer for them. I won't go to MIT. Not even if the devil himself were hot on my heels. And why you ask? Well MIT is a danger in disguise. People say it's one of the greatest centers of learning, but I'll let you in on a little secret.
MIT is a place where people become tools, mere pawns of a ravenous machine that seeks only to perpetuate itself. They must submit to the machine utterly, become a conforming member of the system, or they will be crushed brutally, destroyed and tossed out. The competition there is worse than almost anywhere in the country, and competition is terrible! People are so eager to hurt each other, because it's the only way they can prevent from being overwhelmed. It's like one big feeding frenzy, and you can't blame the sharks for going crazy with all the blood, but... stay away.
It doesn't seem that way at first. You look there and you see bright people who think out of the box doing wacky things. That's mostly a clever propaganda campaign that focuses on the fun life of students, and misses out on the grueling 8 hours of solid studying that leaves you a quivering and very suggestible lump of what used to be human. They don't mention the weeder classes specifically designed to fail you regardless of your performance, unless you destroy your companions. I saw a whole article in one of those pop science magazines about the wacky things MIT students get up to. But in that wackiness I don't see a kind hearted playfulness.
I see desperation.
I see wonderful, bright young minds, full of hope and eagerness, and desiring nothing more than to learn. I see them bending, straining under the pressure, their inevitable destruction, slowly cracking under the insane amounts of stress that the runaway meme that is MIT inflicts upon their brains. I see their wacky stunts much in the way that a rat being electrocuted will throw itself madly against the sides of the cage, anything to escape the pain. The funny t-shirts, the campus pranks, all of those are coping mechanisms under a storm of psychological torment that will likely ruin them in the end.
MIT doesn't help its students. It hurts them as much as possible. It's the old adage that the strong survive, so if you hurt everyone, only the strong will survive. But what makes a strong person? Is it their imagination, their creativity? Is it their desire to make the world a better place? Is it the depth of feeling they hold for their fellow man? How about a cunning sense of efficiency seeking to minimize work wherever possible? Why do we only want 'strong' people in the world?
So no, I'm not going to MIT. I wouldn't wish MIT on anyone. I don't specifically refer to the Massachusets Institute of Technology, because it's not the only one out there. There are many traps designed to ensnare intelligent people, disguised as top of the line universities. The University of California: Berkeley is one I had a personal experience with. Barely escaped with my sanity. What they all share is the assumption that suffering causes personal advancement. I would kill for half of the gadgets, faculty and networking they have access to at MIT, but I sure as heck wouldn't go there. It's just not worth it. You can get a better education with a coconut on the end of a string on the end of a stick.