Live data from Hacker News

Chinese University Tops MIT in Engineering Rankings

blogs.wsj.com

31–40 of 73 posts

Re: Chinese University Tops MIT in Engineering Rankings

#31
post #21

[deleted]

Are all Chinese businesses run by "creative" foreigners who "understand the root of the problem"? At some point in the hierarchy someone has to be making the meaningful decisions, they can't all just be heads down technicians all the way to... where?

A culture of hierarchy and following orders from above is orthogonal to whether or not people understand the issue. You say "they rarely ask why" but that doesn't mean they don't think why.

I know in American business it's common to agitate and question your superiors at all levels, but that doesn't necessarily translate to better outcomes. For example, the American military doesn't work that way (it works much more akin to Chinese businesses, really). And the American military is quite good.

edit: I say this as an MIT grad who has been mightily impressed by Tsinghua students. I still think MIT is better, of course, ;-) but it doesn't surprise me that Tsinghua is at the top of the list this year.

Re: Chinese University Tops MIT in Engineering Rankings

#33
The Weibuo quote in the article sums it up. Would you rather have your child go to Tsinghua or MIT? The fact is, MIT remains the most prestigious scientific and engineering school in the world, and number of published articles be damned.

Another metric not considered by USNWR is academic freedom. Can students and faculty at Tsinghua use Google? I don't think so. No Google Scholar, no Google Books, not even Search. How ridiculous. Without equal access to the Internet, a fair comparison is not possible. And what if a student published an article complaining about lack of access to some internet resources? End of career.

That said, this evaluation should be a wake up call to American educators that our formerly great academy has deteriorated, brought down by decades of decaying performance in K-12 and lack of energy and commitment in the universities, where many or most of the science and engineering graduate students are foreign born.

Re: Chinese University Tops MIT in Engineering Rankings

#34
post #12

To those that believe that US system is rotten and ineffective and think that Chinese are doing something right because they are Chinese I can tell you only one thing. NEVER TRUST A COMMUNIST REGIME. Even if you compare millionaires to millionaires the quality of life in China is far worse than in the USA. Never trust a communist propaganda. Never ever do that. The gov and chinese in general are known for trying to s…

I'm a chinese. I think most of what you said is right. The gov achieved a lot of success. At the same time, they made lots of mistakes and commited lots of crimes.

Re: Chinese University Tops MIT in Engineering Rankings

#35
post #21

[deleted]

It is only natural that the place with the most engineering jobs (China), the most engineering schools (China), ultimately produces a world class elite engineering school.

But why does news like this make China a "house of cards"?

You seem to have had some experience there. I wish you would tell your full story.

Re: Chinese University Tops MIT in Engineering Rankings

#36
post #30
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then you obviously have no idea what you are talking about. And the air pollution in China is something you can't imagine. The VW scandal is nothing compared to chinese air pollution. And China is far worse than the former Soviet Union because they have more money and more control. Being lower class in China is far worse than in former states of the soviet union.

You talk a whole lot, but you've never addressed his point that "it would rock being rich in China". (I am not taking a side).

Being rich does not guarantee that you will have a good life anywhere. There are numerous other things you have to consider. Yes a rich man can buy a big land for himself and build a wall to keep the beggars outside. He can even move to the countryside and never go out or use a private jets / helicopters.

The thing is that China is a home for a lot of people and is too polluted and crowded because of wealth distribution. If people do not care about the environment, intellectual property and a countless of other things then being rich and filthy rich are too different things.

A wealthy man can walk the streets of european/american cities without worrying too much about its health or not having a space for himself without guards. Do not forget that european / us cities are dwarves compared to Asia in general.

The movie Elysium is a good picture (maybe too exaggerated but hey) of people being wealthy in China.

Yes you can have a good life in a golden cage but it's still a cage.

Re: Chinese University Tops MIT in Engineering Rankings

#37
post #12

To those that believe that US system is rotten and ineffective and think that Chinese are doing something right because they are Chinese I can tell you only one thing. NEVER TRUST A COMMUNIST REGIME. Even if you compare millionaires to millionaires the quality of life in China is far worse than in the USA. Never trust a communist propaganda. Never ever do that. The gov and chinese in general are known for trying to s…

I'm a chinese. I think most of what you said is right. The gov achieved a lot of success. At the same time, they made lots of mistakes and commited lots of crimes.

Thanks for commenting. I hope you did not get from my comment above that I have a negative opinion about chinese people in general.

It's quiet the opposite in fact. People of China have achieved a lot but I am afraid too many of chinese people had to and still have to suffer and distribution of wealth in China is worse than in the other parts of the earth.

Re: Chinese University Tops MIT in Engineering Rankings

#38
post #21

[deleted]

Are all Chinese businesses run by "creative" foreigners who "understand the root of the problem"? At some point in the hierarchy someone has to be making the meaningful decisions, they can't all just be heads down technicians all the way to... where? A culture of hierarchy and following orders from above is orthogonal to whether or not people understand the issue. You say "they rarely ask why" but that doesn't mean t…

The Chinese businesses you talk about are led by western educated people. I don't know why you even bring the military up...

Re: Chinese University Tops MIT in Engineering Rankings

#39

American education based on sales. It sells knowledge and that is why it is going downhill. Being politically correct on races is another curse. And don't talk about creativity when you students cannot do math on paper!

It is? Can you provide some evidence?

Re: Chinese University Tops MIT in Engineering Rankings

#40
Seeing everyone on here so dismissive is simply shocking to me. If you don't like these results or don't believe them look at the overall trend folks. A decade ago there wouldn't have been the Chinese University in the top 10. Now they have half the top rankings. I take my hat off to them; I respect their achievements and if you follow the trend forward they look unstoppable.and of the people at these universities they or their parents grew up in villages without electricity with nothing. they've built out of that the ability to scratch the stars quickly. much respect let's hope this doesn't turn into a latent Cold War
Post reply on HN