Alumni leave MIT armed with knowledge and a whole lot of memories. During Tech Reunions in 2023, the MIT Alumni Association asked returning alums what else they had held onto since leaving campus. See their responses in this MITAA video and check out some of the photos below that alums sent in after.
Walt Gibbons ’73, SM ’75, had the most popular response, provided by 22 of the 69 alums interviewed. He named his MIT Brass Rat.
Alan Paul Lehotsky ’73 said that in addition to his Brass Rat, he still has the Groucho glasses he wore to graduation. He admitted that the mustache has not held up very well.
Jeanne Yu ’13 said, “The one thing I kept from MIT was my sense of resilience.”
Elliot Owen ’18, SM ’20, still has the precision-machined aluminum flexures that he used for his graduate research. “It is easy to create structures with a low stiffness in the direction of travel and high stiffness in all other directions,” he said. “I keep them on my bookshelf and show them off when I have people over. Most people are very surprised to see a solid piece of metal flex and move so easily and without friction.”
Amy (Schonsheck) Simpkins ’03 got her Institute keepsake early—a “cheap hoodie sweatshirt that was on special at the Coop the first week of my freshman year.” She still wears it almost every day.
Diane Marie McKnight ’75, SM ’78, PhD ’79, kept a bronze oarlock used for securing an oar on a boat. “I sand-casted it myself as part of my last class in mechanical engineering, and I learned how to use a lathe,” she said.
“I kept a propeller from one of the first planes I ever built,” said Morgan Ferguson ’23. “It was a spare propeller from a plane that I worked on as part of a team of undergraduate and graduate students at MIT that develop aircraft for the annual AIAA [American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics] Design/Build/Fly competition. I continue to work on these planes.” His latest aircraft is pictured above right.
I wear my brass rat every day. In my job (I have worked for The Coca-Cola Company ever since I graduated in 1996), I have been to over fifty countries, and there are times when people recognize it in faraway places. Once I was on an airport shuttle in Singapore and I heard someone say, “nice ‘rat.” Great conversation starter and connection maker…always!!!
I still have Aluminum bicycle I machined from scratch in 1976 during IAP Mechanical Engineering Course. Gary Klein helped with course and he created Klein Bicycles, when Al frames were still very rare. All frames used to be steel, like 531 alloy. The sealed aircraft bearings have never been lubricated in almost 50 years. Have found memories also of Professor Daniel Schaefer Kemp who taught organic chem and who I did UROP for 1.5 years. Too bad Covid did him in. ):
When I arrived at MIT in '74 MIT the news was full of articles about the late Vannevar Bush. As an off-campus student I needed furniture and headed over to The Technology Matrons of MIT. They pointed me to a collection of identical desks, small but usable. $15 later I was populating my new desk. As I pulled the center drawer all the way out for the first time I found a carved inscription
--------------------
V.BUSH
'10
--------------------
The ' character had a mirror image C shape to it.
Given that Bush was at Tufts in '10... my theory continues to be that the collection of desks originated at Tufts. After a basement flood I kept the drawer and ditched the rest and a few years later I cut out a roughly 5x8 section of the drawer and keep it prominently displayed on my desk.
The Brass Rat is obvious, but one keepsake I enjoy from time to time is a set of pledge booklets published by the DUs 1965-1969. These were the primary recruiting tools before Rush Week, which happened the week before classes began. Recall that back then Freshmen rushed directly into living in the houses. These booklets portrayed life at the fraternity the way we wanted everyone to remember it, and there are a ton of memories in them, as well as the obligatory cover picture with all the members, to help remember not only my Class of '69 pledge brothers, but all the guys in the three classes before and the three classes that came after us. The Delta Upsilon chapter is long-gone from 526 Beacon St., but the '69 guys still get together, now even more often than every five years in Cambridge.
Comments
Benjamin Jordan
Sat, 05/18/2024 8:38am
(No subject)
I wear my brass rat every day. In my job (I have worked for The Coca-Cola Company ever since I graduated in 1996), I have been to over fifty countries, and there are times when people recognize it in faraway places. Once I was on an airport shuttle in Singapore and I heard someone say, “nice ‘rat.” Great conversation starter and connection maker…always!!!
Mark Camenzind
Sat, 05/18/2024 3:01pm
(No subject)
I still have Aluminum bicycle I machined from scratch in 1976 during IAP Mechanical Engineering Course. Gary Klein helped with course and he created Klein Bicycles, when Al frames were still very rare. All frames used to be steel, like 531 alloy. The sealed aircraft bearings have never been lubricated in almost 50 years. Have found memories also of Professor Daniel Schaefer Kemp who taught organic chem and who I did UROP for 1.5 years. Too bad Covid did him in. ):
Edward Kwok
Wed, 05/22/2024 2:50pm
(No subject)
A story:
One Friday night, a man walked into a bar in Harvard Square. He looked around and approached a target:
Man: Do you know that the expected value of a sum is the sum of the expected values?
Target: If and only if the variables are independently and identically distributed, and I am with someone.
Brian Leibowitz
Tue, 06/04/2024 12:24am
Memento
I still have the girlfriend (now also wife) that I found in 54-100 during an LSC movie almost 40 years ago.
Jeffrey Vandegrift
Tue, 06/04/2024 12:18pm
I kept Vannevar Bush's Desk
When I arrived at MIT in '74 MIT the news was full of articles about the late Vannevar Bush. As an off-campus student I needed furniture and headed over to The Technology Matrons of MIT. They pointed me to a collection of identical desks, small but usable. $15 later I was populating my new desk. As I pulled the center drawer all the way out for the first time I found a carved inscription
--------------------
V.BUSH
'10
--------------------
The ' character had a mirror image C shape to it.
Given that Bush was at Tufts in '10... my theory continues to be that the collection of desks originated at Tufts. After a basement flood I kept the drawer and ditched the rest and a few years later I cut out a roughly 5x8 section of the drawer and keep it prominently displayed on my desk.
Erik Anderson
Mon, 07/15/2024 11:52pm
Fraternity Rush Booklets
The Brass Rat is obvious, but one keepsake I enjoy from time to time is a set of pledge booklets published by the DUs 1965-1969. These were the primary recruiting tools before Rush Week, which happened the week before classes began. Recall that back then Freshmen rushed directly into living in the houses. These booklets portrayed life at the fraternity the way we wanted everyone to remember it, and there are a ton of memories in them, as well as the obligatory cover picture with all the members, to help remember not only my Class of '69 pledge brothers, but all the guys in the three classes before and the three classes that came after us. The Delta Upsilon chapter is long-gone from 526 Beacon St., but the '69 guys still get together, now even more often than every five years in Cambridge.