Talk:Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering

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Contents

[edit] Copyedit request

I've copyedited this article as per the posted request. It seems fine now, so I'm going to remove the Request for Copyedit tag. Vontafeijos 01:47, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Page too student-focused

While Olin College is certainly a student-focused institution, the information on this page leaves out information about the faculty and staff and does not communicate the mission of the College in a coherent manner. Also, care should be taken not to make statements that are tilted for or against the school. --Nertzy 06:02, Oct 27, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Introductory section

The word "private" is linked to the article on Private school, which says the term is "almost never" used to refer to postsecondary education. The companion article, though, is Private university, which does not apply to Olin either. Remove the link? --Zoombody 16:35, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

NB: This applies to the infobox as well --Zoombody 16:42, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The Olin Experiment section

There's no good reason for the mishmash of bullets in this section. Over time we should flesh it out into sentences. Also, there is no context for the random quote from Howard Stevenson. Who is he? I think some random Wikipedian added that who is external to the school, so I don't really know who to ask. --Nertzy 05:52, Oct 31, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Academics section

Is there a need for the major/concentration abbreviations? They aren't referenced elsewhere in the article, and they seem to me to be mostly just jargon. --Zoombody 21:35, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Culture section

Most other colleges do not have a culture section, and culture is something very hard to define, fleeting, and often very partial. I think it should either be renamed or eliminated in order to keep this entry more encyclopedic.--Nertzy 06:37, Oct 27, 2004 (UTC)

Check out MIT. --L33tminion 19:22, Oct 27, 2004 (UTC)
Note that MIT's culture section has the embodiment of many decades of evolved culture, whereas Olin, yet a fledgling institution, has little that can be distinguished as a longstanding part of "Olin". I think documenting our official activities and some of our academic culture is great, but activities that have been going on for less than a semester (i.e. rumbles, mechanical design challenge) can hardly be used to characterize who we are. We also change far too much from year to year to be able to make any kind of assertions about the way we conduct ourselves (with regard to procrastination and spontaneity). Perhaps a few years down the line we can comfortably add that. For now, I think we should try to ensure a more stable perspective on what Olin is. --Dan83 20:42, Oct 28, 2004 (UTC)
Were this a standard encyclopedia, I would agree with you 100%. But Wikipedia is dynamic, so I'm not going to shy away from writing about Olin traditions just because they may change down the road. The article can change as Olin changes. --L33tminion 14:57, Oct 29, 2004 (UTC)

I am starting to take issue with the idea that Olin has a tradition of procrastination. The fact that the school has had students for a short amount of time and we have everything running at the level it is now is testament to very much the opposite. At times, committees are criticized for making too much policy ahead of time, and several students actually get their work done early. The culture seems to be more of having a lot on one's plate and less of procrastination. No edit for now, just want to bring up the idea. --Nertzy 07:24, Oct 31, 2004 (UTC)

I would agree entirely with nertzy. We should get that changed as soon as we get around to it. --Terron 02:07, Nov 1, 2004 (UTC)
Fixed. --209.94.128.82 15:07, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Motto

Should "Carpe Diem" be listed as the school's motto? --L33tminion 06:00, Oct 23, 2004 (UTC)

No, because the school has no official motto. Several students unofficially started an email list in spring 2004 called "Carpe Diem" as a call for students to be more spontaneous, and several students have adopted this philosophy, but to call "Carpe Diem" the motto of the school is extreme. --Nertzy 05:42, Oct 27, 2004 (UTC)
Have you noticed that on the "liscence plate" nametags Carpe Diem is in the place for the motto? I think "Carpe diem" is Olin's motto, even though it's not official. Actually, I think it should be Olin's official motto. Is there any support for this among other students? --L33tminion 19:19, Oct 27, 2004 (UTC)
The R2s made those up for fun; they're not supposed to be a serious suggestion of motto.--Xeo 02:01, 31 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Actually, we put Carpe Diem on the plates at Nick Tatar's suggestion. I think Nick unofficially would like to see Carpe Diem as the school's motto. He also put it on the back of this year's R2 shirts. Tostie14 12:31, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Student Life

I agree that we need a student life section, but the one posted was dreadfully disorganized and unencyclopedic. We need to get this organized and rewrittten. --L33tminion 17:53, Oct 26, 2004 (UTC)

Original Section: "Olin students participate in many random activities, such trying to set world records, to normal college fun. One activity that stands out though is the prevalent presence of "gangs" which have frequent "rumbles". They also have random design challenges organized by students such as building soapbox cars and racing them down hills. They are participating in Mini Baja as well as planning entry into the DARPA Grand Challenge."

Which of the following should be mentioned:

  • The rumble
  • Mechanical design challenge
  • Mini Baja and DARPA
  • FILM
  • Friendly Fire
  • Habitat for Humanity
  • Olin Conductorless Orchestra
  • FWOP
I don't think the "rumbles" should be included, as they do not really help someone who is trying to learn about the college, and would not otherwise appear in an encyclopedia. The other groups you mention are official and relevant to the mission of the school, so I think it makes sense to include them, although at the risk of making them seem more important relative to other activities at the school. --Nertzy 06:02, Oct 27, 2004 (UTC)
*shrugs* I mentioned the rumbles because they were mentioned in the origional section stub above. I'll defer to your judgement on this one. --L33tminion 19:20, Oct 27, 2004 (UTC)
... although now that I seee that you hadn't deleted it, I will express a preference that you don't. I think for many students that is a significant feature of Olin culture, and I also think that the anecdote about "sending an iCal for the rumble" shows a lot of elements of Olin culture quite clearly. --L33tminion 20:15, Oct 27, 2004 (UTC)
While many students might feel the rumble is a significant feature of Olin culture, I feel it is not as much as you might think. This being Wikipedia, we can always grab it and add it back later. I just want to give it some time. As for the iCal comment, I have to disagree. I think it's not very clear at all. Most of the rest of the world would have no context for our way of using iCals, since to my knowledge we are the only school who does so to such an extent. Same goes for the use of wikis. With the proper explanation, these ideas could probably be put across, but I still feel like there are bigger issues that should be addressed. As always, I appreciate your work. Ever since you started editing the page, the quality has increased greatly. I'm sorry to have such issue with specific details when generally what you've done is very useful. --Nertzy 05:52, Oct 31, 2004 (UTC)
Not a problem. --L33tminion | (talk) 20:15, Nov 1, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Admissions

I added a footnote leading to statistics under the admissions fact-bar heading. There's no way that can be NPOV as written without citing sources. --L33tminion | (talk) 20:34, Nov 1, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Olin Logo

I added the Olin logo (a .png file, used with permission). It looks great in Firefox, but for some reason the transparency works oddly on IE. How can this be fixed? I'd like to keep the transparancy if I can, as it looks better than a white background, but a white background is better than an offcolor one. --L33tminion | (talk) 03:19, Nov 3, 2004 (UTC)

I used a .png with a white background. I'll change it if I can find a better solution. --L33tminion | (talk) 05:31, Nov 3, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Advertisement

Some sections of this article read like an advertisement taken from the school's promotional materials. Especially "The Olin Experiment" and "Academics". Is there a way to make these less rah-rah and more factual/informative? —thames 23:57, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Based on the suggestions at peer review, I've made some major changes. --L33tminion | (talk) 22:40, Apr 9, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] The Olin experiment

After an attempt to rewrite the first sentence I wondered about the title of this section. It mentions an "experiment" but the main text does not. What is the experiment?

I would appreciate it if someone could answer the additional questions I raised at peer review. Jan van Male 07:45, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I addressed what you said at peer review. As far as "experiment" goes, Olin's a new college and it takes a unique approach to things. So it's "experiment" in the sense of something new (it means, basically, "what makes Olin different"). Should that be reworded? --L33tminion | (talk) 01:32, Apr 17, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] "Sense of Community" Section

I removed this section. Parts of it seemed very POV, and other parts seemed far too granular.

Also, email lists like "helpme" are not very unusual (judging from what I've seen at other colleges). Olin's extensive use of wikis might count as unique, if it can be discussed NPOV-ly in more general terms. The best way to illustrate Olin's "sense of community" might be in the fact that almost everyone eats in the dining hall, with people sitting with whoever's nearby, not with specific groups. However, I'm not sure how to best state that in an NPOV manner. --L33tminion (talk) 01:21, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] academic boosterism

Wikipedia:Avoid academic boosterism —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.35.148.201 (talk • contribs) 02:47, 4 February 2006 (UTC).

I removed the Faculty section, due to the advice of the second bullet point on this version of the Wikipedia:Avoid academic boosterism page. --nertzy 02:45, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Residential life

I changed the wording on this topic from an 'exception' to 'special arrangements' because all students who have been married while attending the college, have so far been under the early scholarship offered, which gave them free housing in addition to free tuition. Thus all married students thus far have had a room on campus, and so it is not clear what will happen when a situation arises where the student would have to pay for the campus housing they rarely if ever use.

--Jeff DeCew Class of 08


Changed the wording to "Most students at Olin College have chosen to live on campus in the dormitories." since only one student has lived off, although we do have the option. Olin doesn't require students to live on campus any more. Some of us were considering it and were told by the Office of Student life that we merely had to sign some forms and tell them where we would be living. -Nina ('08)

[edit] School or college?

Should Olin generally be described as a "college," instead of using the less-precise word "school?" I'm not sure how this would work when making comparisons to other institutions of engineering education, some of which are colleges and others universities. --Zoombody 06:00, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

I would think college is slightly preferred because it is more precise, as you stated. However, other college articles such as CNU use "school", conversely, other college articles, such as Virginia Tech, do not.--Matthew 06:09, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Removal of advertising tag

I have removed the advertising tag placed by Beland because it interrupts the flow of the article and I feel, overall, the article or section is not that problematic. Nevertheless, if you see a problem, please consider revising the section in accordance with Beland's wishes. The tag was placed before the section:

“ Classes at Olin College emphasize the importance of context and attempt to take an interdisciplinary approach. Freshman take integrated course blocks that teach engineering, calculus, and physics by exploring the relationships between the three subjects. Arts, humanities, and social sciences courses take an interdisciplinary approach to subjects such as the "self" ("What is I?"), history ("History of Technology"), and art ("Wired Ensemble" and "Seeing and Hearing"). ”

And read:

 This article or section is written like an advertisement.
Please help rewrite this article from a neutral point of view.
Mark blatant advertising which would require a fundamental rewrite in order to become encyclopedic for speedy deletion, using {{db-spam}}. (December 2007)

Cedars 10:17, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

An anon IP put the ad tag back in (and then deleted a great deal of the article, which I reverted). I left the ad tag because much of the Culture section does read kinda like an ad. Anyone wanna discuss? steventity 19:32, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
I'm not sure it reads like an ad any more than any other college's page here does, but I'm a bit biased. --Matthew 16:33, 10 March 2007 (UTC)