Cassia wrote: Mon Mar 30, 2026 10:34 pm
Harvard...for engineering? Well perhaps it's a good match.
While most of us probably think about MIT or Stanford first when someone says engineering, Harvard has a great engineering school. Times Higher Education rank's their engineering school #1 in the world.
Cassia wrote: Mon Mar 30, 2026 10:34 pm
Harvard...for engineering? Well perhaps it's a good match.
While most of us probably think about MIT or Stanford first when someone says engineering, Harvard has a great engineering school. Times Higher Education rank's their engineering school #1 in the world.
This ranking is mostly based on research output...
Yes, my opinion was dated:
"For most of the 20th century, Harvard saw engineering as a lower-tier "middle-class profession" compared to law, medicine, or business, leading to smaller engineering faculty and few students"
They played catch-up it seems. Somehow lawyers have lost much of the respect and prestige they once enjoyed. I can't imagine why, LOL. However, Elon is working hard to bring techies down as well with all his assholery.
Cassia wrote: Thu Apr 02, 2026 12:51 am
Yes, my opinion was dated:
"For most of the 20th century, Harvard saw engineering as a lower-tier "middle-class profession" compared to law, medicine, or business, leading to smaller engineering faculty and few students"
They played catch-up it seems. Somehow lawyers have lost much of the respect and prestige they once enjoyed. I can't imagine why, LOL. However, Elon is working hard to bring techies down as well with all his assholery.
Their engineering program is still different than places like MIT. You get more humanities at Harvard if you study engineering their than you would at MIT, but some Harvard engineering students take some of their advanced classes at MIT.
I'd like to think I had a very small hand in dragging Harvard's engineering into the 21st century. They operate the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory that manages the Chandra X-Ray Observatory.
I helped put in the comms systems for this place back in the late 90s. Techs from Huntsville spent a few month in Cambridge before the telescope launched. We went in groups of four for 2 weeks at a time. I was there twice. Lockheed paid us the per diem and M&IE rates wether we actually used it or not. That was about $400 a day back then. The four of us were staying in a 2 bedroom (4 beds) dump that cost $70 a night. You could put more than $4000 in tax free money in your pocket over a two week trip. To put that in perspective $4000 was about 10% of my regular annual wages back then.
Cassia wrote: Thu Apr 02, 2026 12:51 am
Yes, my opinion was dated:
"For most of the 20th century, Harvard saw engineering as a lower-tier "middle-class profession" compared to law, medicine, or business, leading to smaller engineering faculty and few students"
They played catch-up it seems. Somehow lawyers have lost much of the respect and prestige they once enjoyed. I can't imagine why, LOL. However, Elon is working hard to bring techies down as well with all his assholery.
Their engineering program is still different than places like MIT. You get more humanities at Harvard if you study engineering their than you would at MIT, but some Harvard engineering students take some of their advanced classes at MIT.
I'd like to think I had a very small hand in dragging Harvard's engineering into the 21st century. They operate the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory that manages the Chandra X-Ray Observatory.
I helped put in the comms systems for this place back in the late 90s. Techs from Huntsville spent a few month in Cambridge before the telescope launched. We went in groups of four for 2 weeks at a time. I was there twice. Lockheed paid us the per diem and M&IE rates wether we actually used it or not. That was about $400 a day back then. The four of us were staying in a 2 bedroom (4 beds) dump that cost $70 a night. You could put more than $4000 in tax free money in your pocket over a two week trip. To put that in perspective $4000 was about 10% of my regular annual wages back then.
Having engineers take more humanities is a good thing, however that would practically result in a 5-year undergrad degree. There was a 1-credit 'Ethics in Engineering' course and just two humanities electives in my program. My starting salary in 1985 was $28.5K. I was rich.
