Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/17/84 chuqui version 1.7 9/23/84; site daisy.UUCP Path: utzoo!utcs!lsuc!pesnta!hplabs!nsc!daisy!david From: david@daisy.UUCP (David Schachter) Newsgroups: net.followup Subject: Re: Defending Nassau Hall (MEDIUM LENGTH) Message-ID: <61@daisy.UUCP> Date: Sun, 24-Feb-85 03:22:37 EST Article-I.D.: daisy.61 Posted: Sun Feb 24 03:22:37 1985 Date-Received: Mon, 25-Feb-85 02:22:38 EST References: <1980@inmet.UUCP> Reply-To: david@daisy.UUCP (David Schachter) Organization: Daisy Systems Corp., Mountain View, Ca Lines: 111 Summary: In article <1980@inmet.UUCP> version B 2.10.2 9/17/84 chuqui version 1.7 9/23/84; site daisy.UUCP daisy!nsc!hplabs!hpda!fortune!amdcad!decwrl!decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!godot!ima!inmet!stern stern@inmet.UUCP writes: >scc!steiny asks: > >>But will Princeton graduates find it easy to get jobs >>at companies that subscribe to USENET? > >Yes. I had no trouble. > I had no problem either and I didn't graduate, I quit! However I have had a hard time recommending other people from Princeton because the EECS Department was so bad as were most other aspects of the place. There are only a few good people there (correction: there >were< a few...) and the ones I knew learned about computers and computing by doing it, not by going to useless classes taught by incompetent "professors" who did more harm than good. Professors want tenure. Princeton grants tenure on the old publish-or-perish scheme. (It also helps to be Male-WASP. Good old Princeton.) Professors at Princeton spend lots of time doing research. They spend less time on students. Little surprise that other universities get the Profs who are interested in teaching while Princeton gets the Profs who are better at researching. Furthermore, the EECS Department at Princeton was underfunded. It was often engaged in internecine battles with the Princeton University Computer Center. To do well, you had to butter up to a professor or a graduate student such as Peter Honeyman. (He was a grad student when I was a freshperson.) Whether or not you knew anything was unimportant. Princeton is allegedly a first-rate school for physics or economics. It is (or was) not a first-rate school for computer "science" or electronic engineering. If I were doing it all over again, I would have applied to Carnegie Mellon, Stanford, MIT, or Berkeley. Possibly even Yale. But not Princeton. >In saying that the statements of one person >immediately represent the personalities, attitudes and opinions of >everyone else at the same net-site, you sound extremely ignorant. I visited Princeton not too long ago and I asked a number of EECS students their opinion of the future of computing. They echoed what they had been taught. Their opinion of the future revolved around VAXen to which are attached SUN workstations. They could even tell me the model numbers. They are woefully ignorant of the many possible directions of future computing. So while I agree with your statement that we cannot judge the many by the statements (or the actions) of the few or the one, I believe it is possible to use the source of one's degree as a valid measure of one's likely competence. Not the only measure, mind you! A far more important measure is "what work have you done? How much in industry?" But if a student mouths the opinions of his teachers as well as the facts he has been taught, and if many, randomly selected students do the same, I can reasonably conclude that any student coming from the same set of teachers is likely to have the same opinions. I can't depend on it: to do so would be stereo- typing. But I can use it as a rough guide when I am inundated with a thousand resumes from all over the world. By the way, I'm not especially ignorant, my friends say. Avoid ad hominem arguments, if you please. > >Something tells me that having Peter Honeyman on the faculty of >Princeton's CS department could hardly be bad public relations for >the university. If the great PR powers in Nassau Hall decide that >I am wrong, and that Professor Honeyman is personally destroying >Princeton's reputation, then I will burn my Princeton degree and >immediately apply to Dave's Discount Technical Institute (free >toaster with each application). I'm sure Mr. Honeyman is a wonderful person. Honorable people tell me so. But you misunderstand Nassau Hall (the location of the powerful people of Princeton University.) Nassau Hall is interested in only one thing: the preservation of Princeton. Nassau Hall is not concerned with Princeton's reputation except as it will affect Princeton's ability to keep its coffers full. If Mr. Honeyman's reputation pulls more prospective students to Princeton than it puts off, Nassau Hall will be happy. Even if Mr. Honeyman were to do something awful, say, embezzlement or child molesting, Nassau Hall would not fire him if he continued to attract more students. Princeton's business is Princeton. Princeton's business is not teaching or research. It is the preservation of Princeton. How else do you think Princeton survived that past 220 years? (Yes, the school is older than the country.) (By the way, I am >not< suggesting that Mr. Honeyman has done anything illegal or even contemplated doing something illegal. As I said above, I'm sure he is a truely wonderful Princeton professor and a delightful human being.) Oh, my Technical Institute doesn't give out toasters anymore. We used to but the Princeton engineer who designed them put the slots on the bottom, not on the top. Seems he spent more time learning theory and not enought actual >engineering<. >Please direct all flames to: >Hal Stern (class of '84 honey-worshipper) >{ihnp4, harpo, ima}!inmet!stern I see by your parenthesized comment that you have learned the Princeton lesson. Here is another lesson I learned at Princeton: given enough money, you can buy anything. Take the Princeton Inn College, for example. Malcom S. Forbes Sr. gave Princeton how many million $ ? Two or three? And in return, Princeton renamed the P.I.C. after his son, Forbe's Jr. Perhaps if I gave them enough money, I could get them to rename Forbes College to Schachter College. Princeton consists (consisted) mostly of moneygrubbers, hangers-on, preppie students, would-be preppie students, and outcasts. Independent thinking is (was) discouraged. Conformity is (was) the watchword. "Be a Princeton Man." Then you won't have to think for yourself anymore. The opinions expressed herein do not necessarily represent the views of my company, its employees, or its affiliates. They soley represent the views of the author who is exclusively responsible. {There is at least one redeeming feature: the town of Princeton has two excellent ice cream stores: Thomas Sweet and Hagendaaz. On the other hand, there were no fast food joints when I was there. On the other other hand, there is an excellent student-run FOR-PROFIT campus radio station, WPRB, and a well-run science fiction society, Infinity Ltd.}