Episode Details

The guest for this episode is a recent graduate of Harvard College, now pursuing a STEM PhD at another elite university. We have withheld his identity so that he can speak candidly.

Steve and his guest discuss:

0:00 Anonymous student’s academic background and admission to Harvard

21:37 Intellectual curiosity at Harvard

29:36 Academic rigor at Harvard and the difference between classes in STEM and the humanities

46:47 Access to tenured professors at Harvard

50:08 The benefits of the Harvard connection and wider pool of opportunities

58:46 Competing with off-scale students 

1:00:48 Ideological climate on campus, wokeism, and controversial public speakers

1:23:11 Dating at Harvard

1:26:52 Z-scores and other metrics to add to the admissions process

Harvard Admissions and Meritocracy:

http://infoproc.blogspot.com/2009/11/defining-merit.html

https://infoproc.blogspot.com/2014/09/what-is-best-for-harvard.html

Harvard Affirmative Action Lawsuit:

https://infoproc.blogspot.com/2022/01/supreme-court-to-take-up-harvard-unc.html

https://infoproc.blogspot.com/2019/09/former-yale-law-dean-on-harvard-anti.html

https://infoproc.blogspot.com/2018/06/harvard-office-of-institutional_21.html

Music used with permission from Blade Runner Blues Livestream improvisation by State Azure.

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Steve Hsu is Professor of Theoretical Physics and of Computational Mathematics, Science, and Engineering at Michigan State University. Previously, he was Senior Vice President for Research and Innovation at MSU and Director of the Institute of Theoretical Science at the University of Oregon. Hsu is a startup founder (SafeWeb, Genomic Prediction, Othram) and advisor to venture capital and other investment firms. He was educated at Caltech and Berkeley, was a Harvard Junior Fellow, and has held faculty positions at Yale, the University of Oregon, and MSU.

Please send any questions or suggestions to manifold1podcast@gmail.com or Steve on Twitter @hsu_steve.

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