research: it ain't gonna kill you

[jaina]

Dear writers of TV shows and movies and books and fic and everything,

MIT grades on a 5.0 scale. So if your character had a 4.0 when they were at MIT, they were a B student, which is probably not what you are trying to convey. (However, if that *is* what you're trying to convey, then come over here, I would like to bake you some cookies as a token of my gratitude.)

And because it always bears repeating, you cannot graduate cum laude, magna cum laude, summa cum laude, "with honors," "at the top of your class," or anything freaking else from MIT. No really, not even your super-special genius character. Seriously.

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Now that that's taken care of-- yay, Friday! We're going to get our tree tomorrow so we have to finish cleaning the house tonight. :)

Comments

[kaylle.livejournal.com]

Thank you, thank you, thank you! This makes me insane!

(The other one I vaguely remember was that some character in Armageddon had a double major in Geology and something. We have a Geology department?!)

[vampiretheatre.livejournal.com]

Actually we do. I majored in geology. Well, technically I focused in geoscience for a degree in Earth, Atmosphere, and Planetary Science, but for all intents and purposes I'm a geology major...not that I actually use it. :-D

[kaylle.livejournal.com]

Lol. See, I'd still have said that was an EAPS degree (at least, I wouldn't run around telling people I was a double major in physics and geology), but maybe that's because I wasn't in that department?

[vampiretheatre.livejournal.com]

Well I tell the MIT kids I'm course 12, but I tell everyone else I majored in geology. If I say earth, atmosphere blah blah blah or even geoscience they get confused and ask what it is. Geology they understand. And besides, I did study rocks, or at least pretended to.

[brightcupenny.livejournal.com]

Yay, I'm glad I'm not the only one! :)

[rez-lo.livejournal.com]

(However, if that *is* what you're trying to convey, then come over here, I would like to bake you some cookies as a token of my gratitude.)

THIS.

[brightcupenny.livejournal.com]

Seriously, I could really do with a few more characters who are Really Quite Smart, but not Super Special Geniuses.

[cran-apple.livejournal.com]

You mean it's possible to be Really Quite Smart, but not a Super Special Genius? That you can contribute something important even if you aren't "top of the class" at MIT? Wow. Fiction has taught me wrong. *looks for self-esteem*

[qui-gon-d.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, the effort to educate writers on these two items is probably a bit like trying to bail out the ocean...I have little faith that they're ever going to get it right. Does make you wonder what *else* they didn't research....

[brightcupenny.livejournal.com]

Well, what's a livejournal for if not to scream pointlessly into the void? ;-)

[qui-gon-d.livejournal.com]

This is true, this is true.... :-)

[rford.livejournal.com]

When I applied to law school the dean of undergraduate education (or something) had to fill out a form that included quartile of class rank. Apparently there is some unpublished ranking; I was in the second quartile.

[brightcupenny.livejournal.com]

I mean, I figure there must be-- they've got all our GPAs (not to mention our actual grades from the P/NR days). But nothing they actually tell us.

[(Anonymous)]

So what you're saying is that, for simplicity all around, super-genius science types in TV shows, books, and movies should be alumni of Case, which grades on a 4-point scale and awards degrees cum, summa cum, and magna cum laude. ;-)

[tristmasjedi.livejournal.com]

That was me, sorry.

[brightcupenny.livejournal.com]

Then absolutely yes, I agree! ;-)

[raykel.livejournal.com]

I think the problem is that the way MIT operates is such a deviation from most American colleges, which use a 4.0 scale and have various honors with which you can graduate, etc. So if I were making a throw-away reference to a character who went to MIT, it probably wouldn't occur to me that I'd NEED to research it.

Not an excuse... we all know what happens when we assume. But I can see where a writer wouldn't know they didn't know something in that case.

[tirianmal.livejournal.com]

Plus would the rest of the universe understand a 5.0 scale and how do you denote that a particularly MIT student is the cream of the crop without saying he got a magna cum laude? MIT is wierd and sometimes it is just best to let the rest of the world not get involved in our idiosyncracies. IF they ever got it right, I suspect that it would confuse everyone else ... or worse, it would "end the world as we know it". :)

[brightcupenny.livejournal.com]

If anyone ever gets it right, I will mail them a fangirly letter full of squee and thanks. *g*

[qui-gon-d.livejournal.com]

MIT is not alone among US colleges/universities in NOT using the "cum laude" series of accolades for graduates. The writers could at least check on that one for any school they were using in their story.

[brightcupenny.livejournal.com]

Yeah, pretty much everything about MIT is weird. :)

It's really not that big a deal, just a pet peeve of mine, you know?

[raykel.livejournal.com]

Oh, I totally know what you mean. Nothing is more distracting then knowing something about a subject and a story completely screws it up. Yanks you right out of the story. If I see a blind person using a cane that is too short for them, for example (canes for the blind are MUCH longer than walking canes, they come up to about your shoulder... the whole point is that they REACH OUT in front of you to feel what's ahead) or if they don't do the tapping motion right, it drives me NUTS.

Or... I will never forget this one. Bad Mel Gibson/Goldie Hawn movie called Bird on a Wire, I think. It's one of those escape-from-badguys movies, and at one point they're supposed to be in Detroit, and then they're getting on a ferry. To Wisconsin. From DETROIT. Which is on the EASTERN edge of Michigan. ::headdesk:: I mean, how stupid do you have to be to not even do simple research of the geography of your setting???? I've set stories in places I've never been, but I at least use freaking MAPS to figure out the lay of the land as best I can without going there myself.

[cran-apple.livejournal.com]

Or like when House gives people fMRI scans and there is no head coil (the thing they put around your head before they slide you into the scanner). I mean, I guess they like for the drama to be able to see the patients face as they go it/come out, but seeing as my undergrad thesis involved building a head coil, I can't help but be irked :-P

[brightcupenny.livejournal.com]

I have the feeling I would enjoy House much less if I knew the first thing about medicine, so I am happy to be ignorant. ;-)

[amaz0n-princess.livejournal.com]

ORLY? Learn something new everyday!

[brightcupenny.livejournal.com]

*The More You Know* (Imagine a shooting star logo and little song thingy here!)