RA Selection Day 2 by Matt McGann '00

Today’s tie: blue/gray/slate-colored.

I worked with Amy and a student today in my subcommittee, and we had great group dynamics. For lunch, I ate at the brand new Steam Cafe, a very yummy new dining option! I might also add that the two bearded admissions officers, Ben and Stu, were paired on the same subcommittee today.

In other news, while we were in committee yesterday, the MIT faculty formally approved MIT’s undergraduate major in Biological Engineering:

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology faculty yesterday approved a new course of study for undergraduates, in biological engineering, the first entirely new curriculum established at the Institute in 29 years.

MIT is the first university in the nation to take the step of fusing molecular and cellular bioscience with engineering to create a new biological engineering discipline. Many other universities and medical schools offer biomedical engineering (or bioengineering) programs aimed at applying engineering to medicine, and there are biological engineering programs that have an entirely different focus–generally mainly on agriculture. But an engineering discipline grounded in molecular and cellular biology, enabling a broad spectrum of applications, including but not focused on medicine, has not been established before now. Other universities are expected to be influenced by MIT’s approach.

Read the full story at http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2005/major.html, or yesterday’s corresponding Boston Globe article here. Also, it was slashdotted, that discussion is here (thanks Phil).

Tomorrow: another selection committee day, another tie.