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MIT Media Lab Tightens Its Belt
Forbes Magazine has this story about the MIT Media Laboratory's current "burn rate" problem. It seems that the Media Lab is feeling the same big draft at its posterior that dot-com companies felt last year after years of go-go growth and seemingly unlimited funding. The Media Lab is particularly sensitive to this downturn due to its heavy reliance on corporate sponsorship, as well as its fondness for unconventional, even eccentric, research. Items that will no longer receive funding according to a January 5th internal E-mail from the Lab's Executive Director Walter Bender: cellular telephones, first-class air travel, food at internal Lab meetings, and furniture. Other more serious cutbacks for the Lab include layoffs for 29 staff members and reduced funding for students, including salaries for "Undergraduate Research Opportunities" (UROP) positions. The Media Lab had previously paid such positions $8.75 and up in order to remain competitive with industry offers that even not-yet-graduated students were receiving.
I worked at the media lab as a freshman MIT EECS student last spring for $8 an hour. My group was decked out with donated 18.1 inch LCDs, food at meetings and other perks. I can't imagine all the things professors and grad students got to play around with. All good things have to come to an end, the environment there through the dot-com boom was definitely too good to be true.
The recent layoffs and cutbacks were spurred by the discovery that the Media Lab didn't have $6 or $7 million in the coffers, but were rather that much in the red.
Let me say that again: instead of a surplus of several million US dollars, they had a similar deficit. I can't fathom how anyone keeping the books -- even the most incompetent of accountants -- could make such a mistake. But it was made, and it's what sparked this whole trimming-of-the-fat. Worst bit is that some regular employees (not grad students, not UROPs) are having their hours cut, while the UROPs -- many of whom do nothing but sit on their asses all day long -- can work full weeks.
Let's hope some generous sponsor(s) will cough up the cash to get them back on track and not disrupt their research too much.
When I was at MIT in the 90s the campus minimum wage was about $7.85 or so. This number is dictated by the need that a 15hour/week need-based work study program cover some fixed percentage of tuition, room, and board.
The AI lab and Media lab were usually paying in the $8.50-9 range, which back in 92 before the boom we thought was a decent salary.
Then of course we took one look at off-campus jobs, as the boom started, and realized we could consult for $50/hr as freshmen to some mom-and-pop business that wanted to connect to that internet thing.
eric
More data, damnit!
I understand they had to offer the $$$ to keep people from going elsewhere. But I remember when students used to do this for free, and loved it. This is probably the most fun you will ever have, and you will look back on those years fondly. I'd love to go back and play with the toys we had in robot and VR lab.
Memories of early Nintendo Powerglove hacking... Mmmmm.
On another note, does anyone think they'll need to tighten their lego budget?
Some men spend their entire lives trying to kill themselves for having been born. --Ross MacDonald
give me a break. these students who work at the media lab could make quite a bit more than $8.75 an hour in pretty much any field in existance. MIT pays a minimum wage on campus of $8 for undergrads. i suspect that this is the 'industry' that they are trying to remain competitive with.
but, then again, there is little chance that these students are there to cash in on the huge salary. i am currently an undergraduate assistant for a january class at mit (2.670) where students make a working stirling engine, and learn enough solidworks to make a working assembly of the engine. i could easily spend this time during january and work a real job solid modelling and make at least 5 times the amount.
but i like teaching. its not about the money.
It's probably a typo (on Slashdot? Nooo....), but $8.75 an hour is pretty close to the minimum wage here in Massachusetts. Is that actually what was meant here? If so, no wonder they were having staff problems :)
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
It finally all makes sense. Media Lab set up a "European Branch" in Dublin about a year ago, for which they got about 50 million IRP (approx) $60 million, which was allocated from the indigenous research funds supposedly reserved for research activities in Irish Universities (not the most affluent at the best of times, but still producing solid results). The initial payment was not exclusively for the Dublin site, rather a large chunk was redirected back to Media Lab in Mass., supposedly it represented a "payment" from the Irish people so that Irish students we could have the privelege of access to Media Lab's IP. To the best of my knowledge, the number of students in the Dublin institution, a year after its establishment, can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Oh yeah, I almost forgot that they managed to get a clause agreed on that a significant percentage of all funds donated to "Media Lab Europe", i.e. the Dublin based institution, would be redirected back to Media Lab in Mass. We're suckers.
Meejalab
I work as a cashier at a grocery store. I get paid $9.70/hr with time and a half on Sundays and Holidays. I also get 3 weeks of paid vacation per year and access to one of the best retirement plans available. Keep in mind that I'm 20 and this is part time.
$8.75/hr is NOT a lot to be making for that kind of work...
-- Dr. Eldarion --
MIT is more well known because of a few famous people who taught, graduate or worked there. People shouldn't put too much stock in prestiege. All degrees are only as valuable as the effort you put into it. Likewise, an university is only as good as it's students' ability to be resourceful. I don't know that having the world at your finger tips with first class flights really fosters a scrap dog mentality. If necessity is the mother of invention, having everything at your fingers tips (as MIT is accustomed to) might inhibit creative thinking.
It's tragic that a significant portion of the private sector takes this kind of a stance. The Media Lab, in it's day, was a unique place where sometimes extremely disparate companies were able to work together, share ideas, and advance not only their businesses, but technology in a much more significant way than they would have separately.
What happens when Intel sits down with Lego and some creative, bright students? Lego gets Mindstorms... Intel gets an entirely new product line. This was the place where corporate R&D hit the academic cutting edge. It brought you HDTV, Mindstorms, Electronic Ink (which is turning very quickly into printable transistors). It's working on building automation with cooperation from both appliance companies and building companies. MEMS, Education, Agents, News Delivery... Hell, students there even had a part in remeasuring Mt. Everest. Worthless indeed.
As for "frivolous perks," the professors at the lab get paid academic salaries. Many of them, who consult with their sponsors as a condition of their sponsorship contracts, travel 150-200k miles /year. Have you tried logging that much travel in coach, without a cell phone?
Yes, there are significant parts of the Media Lab designed to make it "plush" for both sponsors and researchers, but you don't attract some of the brightest and most creative people on the planet by giving them a cinder block office $5.25 an hour.
While limos, first class flights, and a new nicely designed building might seem outrageous, one should keep in mind that sites that look pedestrian and work on basic research rarely get corporate funding.
Every company wants to donate money to a "successful" department and, like it or not, a lot of people controlling the money determine success by the outward signs. Likewise, good research that doesn't have some flash/publicity potential isn't worth a whole lot when it comes to getting donations. It's why some of the wierder projects are very important from a fund-raising point of view. They get you noticed.
Of course, you can go too far, start looking ostentatious and have your projects look like time wasters. It's a careful balance and not an obvious one at that.
In other words, $8.75 per hour is probably right in line with the region around MIT where recruiters were trying to pull people into... starting pay that is. Let's not forget all the other benefits like 401K, good dental, vision, and health insurance, etc. A lot more than just an hourly/weekly wage goes into a job package - even in these economic times.
Dream as if you'll live forever.
Live as if you'll die tomorrow.
~Anonymous~
I always felt it spent too much of (our, I work for a sponsor) cash on frivolousness, and as someone who works at a corporate R&D lab, beleive me I can recognise a rigged demo when I see one.
The lego and the learning was the best stuff to make it out there -why did we have to pay for things like that wierd bloke with the webcam on his head, or Negroponte's endless travels to ask us for more money. Given we sponsors travel in coach and use our own cellphones, it is irritating to see the academics frittering away our stuff. That and buying computers from vendors like Dell who dont give them any money on the grounds they are cheaper: of course they are cheaper -they dont waste money on MIT.
I think this will give the group focus. If it doesnt, they will go the way of Interval Research
-steve
Different labs at MIT find their inspiration from different sources. I should know, I've worked for 3 different research groups at MIT, one of which was the intelligent graphics group at the Media Lab. Places like the AI lab are mostly driven by the professors who have built their careers there. But the Media Lab is of a different sort. It is totally driven by the students. With few exceptions (Neil Gershenfeld's Physics and Media group being one) most research groups in the Media Lab are propelled by students. Undergrads cook up all the crasy projects, they hack together all the pieces, they write all the code. The reason is that most of the staffers who work there are not engineers, they are artist types who like to reflect on the social ramifications of how great their projects are, but never really get much done. They hire genius undergrad engineers to come and bulid everything, and produce much of the fantastic gadgets that the Media Lab is famous for.