Maeda's SIMPLICITY

Perspective, or Porsche

I was at a distinguished meeting of faculty here at MIT a couple years ago, where the topic was the mentoring of undergraduate students. The concern on the table was, like many top universities, the lack of direct one-to-one interactions between students and faculty members. There was a statistic pointed out that a large number of the professional staff here at MIT (i.e. not Professors) was engaged in the lion's share of the interaction.

"This is an outrage!" cried one of the leaders. "We must save the undergraduates!" exhorted another.

Then, a sheepish undergraduate representative at this meeting who really said nothing at all at previous such gatherings suddenly piped up, "I don't see anything wrong with that." All eyes turned to her.

A faculty leader said, "But ... if the Professors aren't there to mentor undergraduate's future careers ... won't they [insert equivalent of burn in h*ll]???" The room went quiet.

The student paused for a while as if to weigh what she wanted to say, eyes up to the ceiling for a second, and then shifting into perfect posture broke the news, "How can a Professor know anything about a real job? Haven't they chosen to not get a real job by being in academia?" I was happily stunned by this comment. It's the truth. Although it's also the benefit.

Industry creates new products; academia, at its best, creates new perspective. Our salaries and so forth are strikingly lower than our industrial counterparts, but the benefits are high in terms of the pure intellectual challenges we get to face. Pride is the currency of being a faculty person, which can of course either be the end of you (i.e. going to the "dark side") or a source of inspirations to other (i.e. what I refer to as "intellectual philanthropy").

If the tangible symbol of "making it" in the industrial world is the newness (or oldness) of their Porsche, the oppositely intangible symbol of success for an academic is manifest as perspective. Of course I know that some faculty here at MIT have both Porsche and perspective as examples of the Do Both Principle. I'm cool with that too.

So circling back to the student that cleansed the palates of the faculty with her open, honest, and direct remark. We can say that her truthful perspective is the result of our unique education system here at MIT. "Saying it like it is," takes a lot of courage. But more importantly, "Saying what you think." I think this is more accurate, as it would be unfair to label all faculty as completely worthless in the career-mentoring arena. Ah, there goes my own professorial pride ...