Good day prefrosh!
I hope that you find this blog well, and that you have no predispositions about MIT, or any part of campus. I'm starting this blog with the hope of cleaning your minds of the kind of deceit that has been subliminally implanted by other bloggers. I'll begin with some basics.
At MIT, there is a grand unity, above and beyond all subtle differences. We are MIT. We are the best of the best (this includes you, prefrosh: you have been accepted and will soon be assimilated). Nobody at MIT is "weird". If you say that someone is weird, then it is in fact you who are weird. If you say that you are "scared" of someplace on campus, it is merely because you have not taken the time to try to understand them, and thus, you have failed at your duties as a student. As a student, you must remember that the campus belongs to you. It has become you, and you have become it. One thing that you will not be told by bloggers, etc, is that at MIT, it is your life. You already know that you will live here, learn here, sleep here, more than likely eat here, but you will also play here, socialize here, and fight here. This is your study, your bed, your kitchen, your game room and your battle ground. You will love life at MIT, and you will hate it. The one lesson that must be learned before you can succeed is this: try harder. If you are having trouble in a class, don't immediately go and blame it on a professor (like some people, especially those with big egos do) but try harder. Get all the resources you need. No one goes through MIT alone. You use the resources offered to you because you must in order to survive.
There are some at MIT that try to hide the fact that they are social and scholarly failures behind a veil of alcohol, fake friends, drug abuse, and pathetic attempts to be popular by fitting into the mainstream. Please, for your own sake and for the sake of the institute, don't do this. Be who you are, because that's who MIT admitted. Don't become a lemming, don't become a clone of your living group, or your frat, or sorority. Don't allow people to ostracize you because you don't want to live on a particular part of campus, or because you do. If you face bigotry, if you face lies and opinionated chauvinists, turn your back on them. They are not welcome at MIT, and you should not feel that you need to empathize with them in order to fit in. There are vast numbers of people at MIT who will not tell such latent falsehoods.
I hope I have helped at least a few of you. I hope you feel a little bit better about your decision to come to MIT, and if you haven't decided yet, perhaps this will help you to. Remember, I'm here to answer any questions, or to offer any other advice. More posts to come!
~Till
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15 comments:
you so funny.
i love you!
I love you, too.
I agree with some but not all of what you say. Obviously you are entitled to your opinion, but I wonder if this is the most effective manner to make it known. Not to mention, part of this seems a vendetta against the MIT Admissions blogs, which troubles me - why not get in touch with the bloggers (either as a group or individually), perhaps via email?
Ah, a vendetta, you say? No, no, not at all. I have nothing against MIT blogs. There are many of them that are very good, but there are some that aren't, and unfortunately it seems like the least accurate ones are the most popular. This is not a personal vendetta against MIT blogs in general. I've been in touch with the inaccurate bloggers in question, and they've ignored me, deleted my comments, and are now asking prefrosh to forward my name and personal information to them. I've been made into a criminal, and I've done nothing wrong! I appreciate your concern, and I agree with you wholeheartedly, but unfortunately,I've already attempted the things you've suggested,but to no avail.
"and are now asking prefrosh to forward my name and personal information to them"
Because that's the best way to go about doing things, of course. Christ, I hate people sometimes.
Alright, screw it, I'm done.
Have your blog, say what you want. I don't care who you are, tell anybody anything you feel fit to print, the internet is built on the freedom of information. Just know that if it's accusatory, profane, lacks content, and is in the comments of something I write, it will be deleted. If you'd like to actually discuss something instead of flaming my entries then e-mail me.
@Keri
Prefrosh IM'd and e-mailed me, I don't use people to hunt down others and didn't ask for anything but a name when offered.
Are we done? Can I get back to 18.03?
By the by, Snively, I have personally never flamed any entries. And I've heard it through the grapevine that you have contacted prefrosh trying to find out who I am, not the other way around.
Oh, and if you HAVEN'T been doing 18.03 then you really need to reconsider your priorities. Tsk, Tsk! Letting the internet take prominence over your school work? You should be ashamed!
~Till
One comment: I have a huge problem with anonymous posters. No matter how valid their points may be, anonymity is a stupid cloak to use. I'm sorry to say this includes you, Till. I've been flamed once or twice on the blogs, and every time, it was by an "anonymous" poster. So hopefully you can understand why I am distrustful.
Dear Paul,
I'd like to point out that I have never used "Anonymous" as a cover. I've always signed off. Personally, I believe that "Anonymous" is fantastic. I have nothing against people posting comments here under the guise of Anonymous. Anonymous is everyone, and it is no one. It is everything you have ever wanted, and everything you have ever feared. I respect anonymous.
Also, Paul, I respect you as a blogger. I don't see why you seem to have issues with me. Please let me know if you do.
True, but considering that Till Linderman isn't an actual person (and I happen to know it's an alias you borrowed from someone else), it almost boils down to the same thing.
My point is, when you affix your actual name to a comment, it lends a bit more credibility and, indeed, respectability to what you say because there is someone to whom those words can be traced.
*shrug* I don't have an issue with you per se, only your methods. Snively and I have had quarrels and disagreements in the past, but I believe the two of us have mostly worked through that. I sincerely hope that the two of you will somehow be able to do the same.
Till Lindermann is a person. Till Lindermann is also (like Anonymous) an idea, a belief, a state of being.
If any credibility is lost due to the status of being Anonymous, then I think that perhaps charities should not accept money from anonymous donors. If you're Christian (I don't honestly know if you are) you'll probably have read that the Bible teaches us to be humble, even with our generosity, and that we should not take credit for the good things we do if we can avoid it, because then it's not something we did out of the good of our hearts, but something we did for popularity, for esteem.
This is one of my issues with some of the bloggers I've been reading. They seem to think they're important. My argument is that no blogger is any more important than anyone else at MIT. Bloggers are nothing special. No one is anything special. This is MIT, you are a number attatched to a name without a face. This is the way it is at most institutions, the way it is in the U.S. Only when we deny the self can we realize our greater potential.
I'm sorry, but I'll get off my soap box. I understand your concern, but I hope you also realize that I'm not doing this for popularity or self benefit.
Till Lindermann will forever be everyone and no one.
I'll be the man sitting next to you on the T.
The weird kid who sits behind you in math.
The young woman behind the lab bench at your UROP.
I'm everywhere and nowhere.
~Till
Regarding the MIT bloggers: I agree. I believe it's important to select bloggers who have interesting things to say, who experience a broad range of the opportunities MIT has to offer, who have the personal charisma to articulate precisely why they love MIT, who have the guts to answer difficult questions. But fundamentally, I also believe that as a blogger, I am a kind of "gateway drug" to MIT - that I represent the many other fascinating people at MIT whom prefrosh (and, indeed, current students) will meet if they choose to attend MIT.
Therefore, as a blogger, I believe I am simultaneously my own self and a representative of the student body. At least to my mind, the philosophy I just expounded sounds a little like the ideal you are espousing - except that I believe firmly that people at MIT are, indeed, something special. That is why we were admitted.
But I do agree that being a blogger does not make me "more special" than anyone else; it simply makes me more visible - for better or for worse.
Agreed, Paul. But the problem lies therein: bloggers are more visible.
It's a well known saying among those who study politics that those who desire power the most deserve it the least. Personally, I feel that most people (not all, mind you) desire positions of "power" (and yes, blogging is technically one of those positions) because they want to make themselves out to be important.
It's true that compared to people attending other universities (or not at all) MIT students are special; a rare breed. However, within the confines of the institute, we are nothing.
This is my point.
ZOMG!
interwebz!
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