Are the stories about how awesome places like MIT were in the past wrong, or is it just that these days they're riding on the reputation earned in the 70s?
Neither. MIT was and is awesome. That the Media Lab had a lot of people gifted with PR skills does not detract from the outsized contribution MIT faculty and graduates make in terms of publications, research or economic impact.
Ah, OK. My contact surface with MIT is through a) various old lectures of theirs I watched, and b) the "hot stuff" that I read about (which I guess is mostly from the Media Lab). The former was awesome, the latter not so much.
