Five Things to Know about MIT

The Boston Globe's student guest writers have honed in on MIT in an article titled "School Secrets: 5 things to know about MIT." The column, TNGG, stands for the Next Great Generation: Opinion and insight from Boston's students and twenty-somethings.

And the commentary is just that—light hearted and often on target, with the exception of a quote by an MIT freshman that claimed that MIT generates its own power via a nuclear power plant. [Not!] The footnote explains that MIT uses a small nuclear reactor mostly for medical research, but the power comes from the MIT Cogeneration plant.

In brief, here is what Northeastern University student Melissa Werthmann sees as MIT's secrets:

1. Want to sail the Seven Seas? Head to MIT. That’s about our new official pirate certificates.

2. MIT students aren't just using the school's tunnel system to avoid sunlight. What happens underground, stays underground…until now.

3. Everything at MIT is numbered. Seriously, everything. You know where she is going with this. Other universities don't designate their buildings and majors by numbers. Really.

4. MIT students can't fail. It's clear that the author deeply envies MIT first-year students' option for pass/no record in their classes.

5. It may be the "Harvard Bridge," but it's got MIT's mark all over it. Make that the measurements of Ollie Smoot '62, now memorialized in the new American Heritage Dictionary.

What secrets do you think should have been in the top five? Add your comments.