MIT in popular culture
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts in the United States, has been referenced by many works of cinema, television and the written word. MIT's overall reputation has greater influence on its role in popular culture than does any particular aspect of its history or student lifestyle. Because MIT is well known as a breeding ground for technology and technologists, the makers of modern media are able to use it to establish character in a way that mainstream audiences can understand. A smaller number of works use MIT directly as their scene of action. MIT featured a rap music video by PomDP the PhD rapper about the school and notable alumni during the 2020 commencement.
MIT as metaphor
The use of "MIT as metaphor" is relatively widespread, so much so that in popular culture, "the MIT of" is an idiom for "top science and engineering university", or "elite technical institution", like "Cadillac of" for "most luxurious", or "an Einstein" for "intelligent person". Similarly, any regionally prominent science or engineering school is likely to be called "the MIT of" that region. For example, the Georgia Institute of Technology and the University of Texas at Dallas have also been popularly and historically referred to as "the MIT of the South". Additionally, US Senator Richard Shelby touted the University of Alabama in Huntsville as a possible "MIT of the South". Other examples, make "X is the MIT of Y" an example of a snowclone.Films and television
Frequently, when a character in Hollywood cinema is required to have a science or engineering background, or in general possess an extremely high level of intelligence, the film establishes that he or she is an MIT graduate or associate.. Numerous films and television series indulge in this technique, including:- The Day the Earth Stood Still
- Desk Set
- The Phantom Planet
- Help!
- Operation Crossbow
- '
- WarGames
- Ghostbusters
- My Stepmother is an Alien
- Hackers
- Independence Day
- Conceiving Ada
- Contact
- Orgazmo
- X-Files
- Good Will Hunting 1997
- Armageddon
- Sphere
- The West Wing – in Season 3 Episode 0
- Space Cowboys
- Gilmore Girls Season 1 Episode 1
- Malcolm in the Middle – in Season 5, Episode 6
- The Fast and the Furious
- Antitrust
- Undergrads
- Arrested Development
- Las Vegas
- NCIS
- The Recruit
- National Treasure
- Supernatural
- Numbers
- Fantastic Four
- Mr. & Mrs. Smith
- Rent
- E-Ring
- 21
- Seven Pounds
- Death Race
- Iron Man
- Fringe
- Knowing
- House Season 6, episode 9 Ignorance Is Bliss
- Burn Notice
- SGU Stargate Universe
- Edge of Darkness
- Iron Man 2
- Take Me Home Tonight
- No Strings Attached
- The Big Bang Theory
- Lie to Me
- Castle
- Person of Interest
- Iron Man 3
- Futurama Season 7, Near-Death Wish – Professor Farnsworth was accepted to MIT at age 14 but wasn't allowed to enroll
- Revolution
- Arrow
- The Signal
- Forever Episode 17, Social Engineering
- Blackhat
- Project Almanac
- '
- Ghostbusters
- The Simpsons Season 26, Episode 15 Sky Police and Season 28, Episode 3 The Town.
- MacGyver
- Orphan Black
- The Last Ship
- Modern Family
- Bad Hair Day
- Keeping Up with the Joneses
- The Magicians
- Timeless
- Salvation
- The Defenders
- Twin Peaks
- Black Panther
- Shaft
- Santa Clarita Diet
- Watchmen Character Lady Trieu, who is also a reference to historical figure Lady Triệu
- Rick and Morty
James Burke's television series The Day the Universe Changed employs the same technique for a more academic purpose. In the episode "Point of View", which describes the discovery of perspective geometry and its ramifications, Burke spends a little time in the Italian city of Padua. This city, which hosted the second-oldest Italian university after Bologna, boasted a large concentration of intellectuals. In Burke's phrase, Padua was "the MIT of the fifteenth century". An episode of his later series Connections 2 uses a similar shorthand to characterize the seventeenth-century Royal Society.
The television series Numbers has several different connections to MIT. The pilot episode was shot in Boston. Co-creator and Executive Producer Cheryl Heuton says, "We originally tried to choose MIT for the show. We originally set the show in Boston, and Charlie was going to be a professor at MIT. We contacted MIT, and their answer was they're not in the film and TV business..." Multiple episodes of the show mention that Charlie studied at MIT. Dylan Bruno, the actor who plays Colby Granger, has earned a bachelor's degree in environmental engineering from MIT.
Films set at MIT are less common than those that use the MIT name as metaphor. Nevertheless, MIT has been part of movie settings, in such films as Blown Away, Good Will Hunting, A Beautiful Mind, 21, and Knowing. Most of the scenes for these movies, especially indoor scenes, are in fact filmed elsewhere due to MIT's reluctance to give permission to film on campus. Although portions of Blown Away were shot on the institute campus, the film still makes several geographical errors about MIT and Boston in general. An incidental scene in The Friends of Eddie Coyle was shot on location outside of MIT Baker House. A scene in A Small Circle of Friends was shot in Walker Memorial, an MIT cafeteria and gymnasium. The movie setting portrays Harvard University, but Harvard declined to allow the filming on their campus.
Some cinematic references to MIT betray a mild anti-intellectualism, or at least a lack of respect for "book learning". For example, Space Cowboys features the seasoned hero trying to explain a piece of antiquated spacecraft technology to a rather whippersnapping youngster. When the young astronaut fails to comprehend Eastwood's explanation, he snaps that "I have two master's degrees from MIT", to which Eastwood replies, "Maybe you should get your money back". Similarly, Gus Van Sant's introduction to the published Good Will Hunting screenplay suggests that the lead character's animosity towards official MIT academia reflects a class struggle with ethnic undertones, in particular Will Hunting's Irish background versus the "English aristocracy" of the MIT faculty. Help!, The Beatles' second film, ties MIT to the mad scientist stereotype when Professor Foot declares, "MIT was after me, you know. Wanted me to rule the world for them!"
HBO's television miniseries From the Earth to the Moon contains segments set at MIT, most notably in the episode covering Apollo 14. The series portrays the institute's denizens as very slightly eccentric engineers who do their part to keep the Apollo program running successfully.
"Inside" MIT references also appear in film without attribution. In Stir Crazy, the opening close-up shot of Grossberger, played by Erland Van Lidth De Jeude, clearly reveals his actual "Brass Rat" class ring. In The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle, a background image of Whassamatta U. is recognizable as a main MIT building.
MIT is referenced in some Japanese anime: the sci-fi series Neon Genesis Evangelion mentions MIT as the location of one of the replica MAGI supercomputers; the comedy series Pani Poni Dash! revolves around an 11-year-old student who graduated from MIT and travels to Japan to become a high school teacher. The CIA character "Ed Hoffman" in the film Body of Lies can be seen wearing an MIT shirt in multiple shots.
In the television series Las Vegas, Mike Cannon, one of the main characters, is a highly intelligent, and technically very gifted engineer and MIT graduate. The character Eli Wallace in the television series SGU Stargate Universe is a genius MIT dropout.
Individual characters in single episodes of television series are often announced as MIT graduates. For example, in the 1992 episode "The Corporate Veil" of the television series Law & Order, both mother and son protagonists are said to be electrical engineering graduates of MIT. MIT was also mentioned in the pilot episode of Gilmore Girls.
On separate episodes of Da Ali G Show, Ali G interviewed two MIT professors: Jerome Friedman, Institute Professor and Professor of Physics Emeritus, and Noam Chomsky, Institute Professor Emeritus.
Randal Pinkett, the winner of season 4 of The Apprentice, is an MIT alum, with an SM in Electrical Engineering, an MBA from Sloan School of Management, and a PhD in Media Arts & Sciences from the Media Lab.
Two lead characters in the television series Fringe have MIT backgrounds: Walter Bishop earned a Ph.D. at MIT, and his son Peter Bishop falsified an MIT degree.
The movie Keeping Up with the Joneses depicts its protagonist, Jeff Gaffney, pretending to be a scientist named Dr. Rascal Flatts, about whom his wife says, "He's very smart. MIT."
An episode of the television series The Magicians introduces a character named Kira, who says, "I went to MIT, but I didn't study a lick of magic in school".
In the television series Timeless, a protagonist named Rufus Carlin often mentions on the show that he is an alumnus of MIT. In one episode, Carlin time travels to 1893 and meets real-life MIT alumna Sophia Hayden, who assumes that Carlin must be Robert Robinson Taylor, the first African-American student at MIT.
A story arc from Rocky and Bullwinkle, Goof Gas Attack, starts with a gas attack that induces stupidity at the "Double Dome Institute of Advanced Thinking". The MIT campus is noted for its 2 neoclassical domes.
In the 2018 animated series, Tenacious D in Post-Apocalypto, the protagonists meet a group of scientists who say, "Where are we from? MIT, where else? We are the top uttermost scientists in all of the world, surviving."
The comedian James Mattern, in his 2019 comedy album "No Segues," tells this story: "When they invented emojis years ago in Cupertino, California, who had the gall to go to Steve Jobs like, 'Steve, I've got a great idea -- how about drips of water?' 'Eureka, Merv, way to use your MIT degree.'"
The title character of the 2019 movie Shaft is a cybersecurity expert with a degree from MIT.
In a 2019 episode of the television series Lost in Space'', principal character Judy Robinson's biological father, Grant Kelly, is described as having had "a scholarship to MIT when he was 17 and graduated top of his class."
Radio
and his younger brother Ray were "Click and Clack, The Tappet Brothers", the hosts of National Public Radio's comedy car advice show Car Talk. Both were MIT alumni — Tom earned a degree in chemical engineering, and Ray earned a degree in humanities and general science — and they regularly used that fact in their self-deprecating attempts to establish their credibility on technical matters. After campaigning on-air for years, they were finally invited to speak at MIT's 1999 commencement exercise. Although Tom Magliozzi died in 2014, and their radio show had stopped new programming in 2012, past episodes continue to be aired nationally as The Best of Car Talk.Written works
Nonfiction works have examined MIT, its history, and its various subcultures. In addition to books like Nightwork, which recount the institute's hacking tradition, Benson Snyder's The Hidden Curriculum describes the state of MIT student and faculty psychology in the late 1960s. Noted physicist and raconteur Richard Feynman built up a collection of anecdotes about his MIT undergraduate years, several of which are retold in his loose memoir Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! Some of this material was incorporated into Matthew Broderick's film Infinity, in addition to Feynman stories from Far Rockaway, Princeton University, and Los Alamos, New Mexico.In fiction, the novel Now, Voyager features a key character, Jeremiah Duvaux Durrance, who studied architecture at MIT. The novel The Gadget Maker traces the life of aeronautical engineer Stanley Brack, who performs his undergraduate studies at MIT. Ben Bova's novel The Weathermakers about scientists developing methods to prevent hurricanes from reaching land, is also set in part at MIT. Patricia Vasquez visits MIT in Greg Bear's Eon. Neal Stephenson hints at MIT in Quicksilver, and other books of The Baroque Cycle, by having Daniel Waterhouse found the "Massachusetts Bay Colony Institute of the Technologickal Arts" in the 18th century.
Ayn Rand's novel The Fountainhead begins with architecture student Howard Roark being expelled from the fictional "Stanton Institute of Technology". As that institute is depicted as being located in a seashore suburb of Boston, it seems that MIT – specifically, its School of Architecture – was meant.
Focusing principally on campus architecture, Robert B. Parker wrote in Mortal Stakes, "Across the river MIT loomed like a concrete temple to The Great God Brown."
Jhumpa Lahiri's The Namesake features a character, Ashoke, who received his PhD in Fiber Optics from MIT.
When the novel The Magicians by Lev Grossman was first published in 2009, the principal review of the book in The New York Times described the story's academic location, Brakebills College, as "kind of like the M.I.T. for magic".
The 2012 historical fiction novel The Technologists, by Matthew Pearl, is set in the MIT of 1868, during its first decade of existence. The protagonists are some of the first students to enroll in the fledgling college, and include both fictional composite characters and real-life historical figures, such as Ellen Swallow Richards and Daniel Chester French. In response to a high-tech terrorist attack on the City of Boston, the students form a secret research laboratory to discover the perpetrator and to forestall further attacks. They interact closely with prominent historical figures, such as William Barton Rogers, Harvard professor Louis Agassiz, and Charles William Eliot. The author spent many hours doing background research in the MIT Archives while writing the novel, and weaves many historical details into his narrative of mystery and adventure.
Geeks & Greeks is a semi-autobiographical graphic novel by Steve Altes and Andy Fish, set at MIT. The story was inspired by MIT's hacking culture and Altes's experiences with fraternity hazing.
In Thornton Wilder's play "Our Town", the stage manager mentions the gravestone of Joe Crowell, whom he describes as "awful bright – graduated from high school here, head of his class. So he got a scholarship to Massachusetts Tech. Graduated head of his class there, too. It was all wrote up in the Boston paper at the time. Goin’ to be a great engineer, Joe was. But the war broke out and he died in France. – All that education for nothing."
Kurt Vonnegut
MIT is a recurring motif in the works of Kurt Vonnegut, much like the planet Tralfamadore or the Vietnam War. In part, this recurrence may stem from Vonnegut family history: both his grandfather Bernard and his father Kurt, Sr. studied at MIT and received bachelor's degrees in architecture. His older brother, another Bernard, earned a bachelor's and a PhD in chemistry, also at MIT. Since so many of Vonnegut's stories are ambivalent or outright pessimistic with regard to technology's impact on humankind, it is hardly surprising that his references to the Institute express a mixed attitude.In Hocus Pocus, the Vietnam-veteran narrator Eugene Debs Hartke applies for graduate study in MIT's physics program, but his plans go awry when he tangles with a hippie at a Harvard Square Chinese restaurant. Hartke observes that men in uniform had become a ridiculous sight around colleges, even though both Harvard and MIT obtained much of their income from weapons research and development. Jailbird notes drily that MIT's eighth president was one of the three-man committee who upheld the Sacco and Vanzetti ruling, condemning the two men to death. As reported in The Tech, June 7, 1927:
Palm Sunday, a loose collage of essays and other material, contains a markedly skeptical and humanist commencement address Vonnegut gave to Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva, New York. Speaking of the role religion plays in modern society, Vonnegut notes:
Isaac Asimov
Kurt Vonnegut was friends with fellow humanist and writer Isaac Asimov, who resided for many years in Newton, Massachusetts. During much of this time, Asimov chose the date for the MIT Science Fiction Society's annual picnic, citing a superstition that he always picked a day with good weather. In his copious autobiographical writings, Asimov reveals a mild predilection for the institute's architecture, and an awareness of its aesthetic possibilities. For example, In Joy Still Felt describes a 1957 meeting with Catherine de Camp, who was checking out colleges for her teenage son. Asimov recalls:Asimov's work, too, trades on MIT's reputation for narrative effect, even touching upon an anti-academic theme. In the short story "The Dead Past", the scientist-hero Foster must overcome the attitudes his Institute physics training has entrenched in his mind, before he can make his critical breakthrough. Several jokes in Isaac Asimov's Treasury of Humor and its sequel Asimov Laughs Again hinge upon MIT, its reputation for scientific prowess, and the technocentric focus of its students. In a similar vein, the satirical newspaper The Onion published an article entitled "Corpse-Reanimation Technology Still 10 Years Off, Say MIT Mad Scientists", among many others in the same general tradition.
Joe Haldeman
Since 1983, science fiction writer Joe Haldeman has been an adjunct professor teaching writing at MIT, and knows the institution well. This is very evident in The Accidental Time Machine where MIT at various past and future times in its history plays a central role. The institution is described with considerable affection and much "insider" knowledge of the hidden corners in the MIT campus, of the relations between students and lecturers, and of various wild and rather illicit student practices.The book begins with MIT student Matt Fuller accidentally discovering the time machine of the title. He jumps a decade forward to find that his professor has taken credit for his discovery and gotten a Nobel Prize for it; jumps centuries ahead and finds a theocracy where MIT is the Massachusetts Institute of Theology; and after more adventures winds up in the past, in the late 19th century when MIT was still in its original location on Boylston Street. In all time periods, under vastly differing circumstances, the protagonist becomes an MIT full professor.
Comic strips
Several comic strips make use of MIT. In Doonesbury, Kim Rosenthal almost earned her PhD in computer science, dropping out because it was "too easy". In the fall of 2006, Kim and Mike Doonesbury's daughter Alex entered MIT as a freshman. Dilbert received a degree from Course VI-1. Bill Amend's FoxTrot has also made MIT allusions, in keeping with the strip's genial satire of nerd subcultures. On Christmas Day 2005, the comic strip Baby Blues featured a character reading the instruction manual accompanying a gadget that he has given to his child as a Christmas present. The first volume of instructions begins, "Assembly Instructions — Step 1: Obtain a master's degree in mechanical engineering from M.I.T. Step 2:..."Computer and video games
Some genres of computer and video games have characterization requirements like those of movies. For example, a game involving a team of commandos might require a member who can break into computers, crack security systems, or work with explosives. This character's background would typically have to be established very quickly and efficiently, perhaps within one screen of introductory text. Stating that a commando or top-secret operative "graduated from MIT" is one way to accomplish this.MIT is mentioned in the computer games Area 51, Half-Life, Half-Life 2, Metal Gear Solid, and in the Fallout series.
In the case of the Half-Life series, the main protagonist, Gordon Freeman, is an MIT graduate and has a PhD in Theoretical Physics.
The Infocom game The Lurking Horror, written by MIT alumnus and interactive fiction pioneer Dave Lebling, is set on the campus of the George Underwood Edwards Institute of Technology, which strongly resembles MIT. Its fictional culture also parodies the MIT culture. For instance, G.U.E. Tech's class ring is known as the "brass hyrax", parodying MIT's Brass Rat.
In the Fallout games, MIT is known as the "Commonwealth Institute of Technology". As nuclear war began, researchers from the university hid below the main building and continued with their research without making contact with other survivors. Eventually after many years, they took on the title of simply "The Institute", and became well known as a shady organization with extraordinary technology and the ability to create androids. The institute is featured as a major faction in the 2015 title, Fallout 4.
In, one of the main characters in the story is Edwin Robert House, also called Mr. House is a graduate of the institute, as stated in his obituary.
Music
The song and music video"MIT" by PomDP the PhD rapper was released on May 23, 2020 and played during MIT's 2020 pre-commencement ceremony. The song and music video feature the contributions of a number of renowned alumni from MIT, including Richard Feynman, Patrick Winston, Isaac Chuang, Claude Shannon, Marvin Minsky, and Rafael Reif. The song introduces a new form of tech rap music, and was the first rap song to be featured in an MIT commencement.In the Broadway musical Rent, a major character, Tom Collins, is expelled from teaching at MIT, "for theory of actual reality".
The song "Etoh" by the electronic music group The Avalanches describes MIT as "the home of complicated computers, which speak a mechanical language all their own". This lyric can be taken literally, or it can be read metaphorically as a description of MIT student culture. Allan Sherman's paean to initialisms, "Harvey and Sheila", notes that Harvey "works for IBM; he went to MIT, got his PhD". Rhythm and blues group Tony! Toni! Toné! mentions MIT in the song "Born Not To Know", from their 1988 debut album Who? In the song, a pretentious individual rattles off a long list of his impressive academic credentials—culminating with a "Ph. D from MIT"—only to then ask, "so, can I get a job?" Tony! Toni! Toné! responds with a resounding "No!"
"Nerdcore" rap artist MC Hawking's song "All My Shootin's Be Drive-bys" takes tropes associated with gangsta rap and plays them out in a more academic setting. He speaks of taking revenge for the death of a friend, part of his Cambridge, UK crew:
When the narrator learns the identity of Pookie's killers, he decides to "give a Newtonian demonstration, of a bullet its mass and its acceleration", leaving six MIT students dead in the street.
"Weird Al" Yankovic's "White & Nerdy" riffs upon MIT, along with a plenitude of other geek culture references — Star Wars Holiday Special, pocket protectors and editing Wikipedia, to name a few. Yankovic claims that he graduated "first in class here at MIT"; however, the institute does not assign class rankings or confer traditional Latin honors upon its graduates.
The students and faculty of MIT have produced their own share of musical material. For example, the mathematician and satirist Tom Lehrer taught for a time in MIT's political science department, lecturing on quantitative methods and statistics. This experience led him to write a song called "Sociology", played to the tune of Irving Berlin's "Choreography". The lyrics conclude,
Students have also written their own songs during their tenures at the institute. This tradition, which goes back at least to The Doormat Singers of the 1960s, continues with several present-day groups.
List of fictional characters
List of fictional characters in movies
- Ellie Arroway, Contact – SETI researcher
- Ben Chapeski, Orgazmo – "MIT graduate"
- James Clayton, The Recruit – CIA trainee, degree in "non-linear cryptography"
- Emma, No Strings Attached – Protagonist is an MIT graduate, played by Natalie Portman
- Jack Florey
- Benjamin Gates, National Treasure – historian and amateur cryptologist
- Will Hunting, Good Will Hunting – Savant on-campus janitor
- James O. Incandenza, Infinite Jest – Played tennis as an MIT student, optical expert
- Invisible Woman, The Fantastic Four
- Gerald Lambeau, portrayed by Stellan Skarsgard in Good Will Hunting – professor of mathematics and Fields Medal winner
- David Levinson, Independence Day – manager at NYC cable station, degree in computer science
- Lex Luthor, in Superman movies – MIT graduate
- Sean Maguire, portrayed by Robin Williams in Good Will Hunting – Psychologist
- Rockhound, Armageddon – Geologist with two MIT doctorates in Chemistry and Geology
- Richard Sumner, Desk Set – A "PhD from MIT in Science"
- Tim Thomas AKA Ben Thomas, Seven Pounds – studied engineering at MIT
- Peter Sullivan, Margin Call – Senior Risk Analyst with a "Ph.D. in Physics"
- Richmond Valentine, – billionaire philanthropist
- Tony Stark, "Iron Man" – At the age of 15 Tony entered the undergraduate electrical engineering program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and graduated with two master's degrees by age 19. Stark has a "Brass Rat" ring which can be seen during a dinner scene in the movie.
- Erik "Killmonger" Stephens, Black Panther – attended graduate school at MIT
- Nicholas Hathaway and Chen Dawai, Blackhat, two hackers and computer experts, who co-wrote a remote access tool during their time at MIT
List of fictional characters in TV shows
- Sam Beckett, Quantum Leap – completed bachelor's degree in two years
- Darcy, secretary in The Loop
- Mike Cannon, Las Vegas – "MIT graduate degree"
- Zane Donovan, Eureka – expelled from MIT
- Tobias Fünke, Arrested Development, completed his fellowship in psycholinguistics
- Tim McGee, NCIS "has a Masters in Computing Forensics at MIT"
- Howard Wolowitz, The Big Bang Theory – Masters in Engineering
- Barney Stinson, How I Met Your Mother – May be an MIT alumnus as revealed in Season 7, Episode 16. Turns out it stood for Magicians Institute of Teaneck as told by him in Season 9, episode 15.
- Walden Schmidt, Two and a Half Men – MIT dropout
- Eli Wallace, SGU Stargate Universe – genius MIT dropout
- Walter Bishop, Fringe – doctoral degree
- Peter Bishop, Fringe – falsified an MIT degree
- Harold Finch, Person of Interest – attended under the name Harold Wren
- Nathan Ingram, Person of Interest – attended alongside his friend Harold Finch/Wren
- Nolan Ross, Revenge – dropped out to start his own company, NolCorp
- Felicity Smoak, Arrow – Master's degree in cyber security and computer sciences
- Ash, Supernatural – Thrown out of MIT for fighting, computer genius
- Keira, The Magicians
- Rufus Carlin, Timeless
- Ben Larson, Incorporated
- Phillip "Lip" Gallagher, Shameless
- Liam Cole, Salvation – MIT graduate student
- John Raymond, The Defenders – graduated from MIT
- Tamara Preston, Twin Peaks – on dean's list at MIT
List of fictional characters — other
- Stanley Brack in the novel The Gadget Maker
- Dilbert-has an MIT degree.
- Alex Doonesbury- character in the comic strip Doonesbury, daughter of Mike Doonesbury and J. J.
- Gordon Freeman, Half-Life – Degree in theoretical physics
- Harvey, from Allan Sherman's song parody "Harvey and Sheila"
- Sou Touma, Q.E.D, a-15 year-old genius graduated from MIT's mathematics undergraduate
- Mei Ling, Metal Gear Solid
- Black Mass was a physicist at MIT before he was granted powers by the Overmaster
- Rebecca Miyamoto, Pani Poni Dash, 11-year-old MIT graduate
- Otacon, Metal Gear Solid
- Jim Rhodes, Marvel Comics' Iron Man
- Reed Richards, Mr. Fantastic Marvel Comics The Fantastic Four
- Tony Stark, Marvel Comics' Iron Man – enrolled in MIT's undergraduate program and easily graduated with double honors majors in electrical engineering and physics at the age of 17.
- Ed Straker, commander of SHADO
- Djinn Makhmud, Virgil Ayres, and Anne Saint James met at MIT and teamed up as the engineers in the novel New Jersey's Famous Turnpike Witch by Brad Abruzzi. Makhmud received "wholly unsolicited admission to class of 2012", Ayres was Makhmud's classmate, and Saint James was a "townie to haunt with impunity the student-only computer clusters at MIT".
- Alex Altschuler, in Mind's Eye by Douglas E. Richards "finished his doctorate at MIT in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science in only four years".
- In the novel Split Second by Douglas E. Richards, the character Edgar Knight says, "Long story short, the head of Black Ops R&D got wind of my abilities and plucked me right up after I graduated MIT".
- Elena Janev, in the novel 3:34 a.m by Nick Pirog, "was awarded a full-ride scholarship to MIT where she studied chemistry with a minor in psychology. She graduated in 1970."
- Anna Thurman in the novel First Shift - Legacy by Hugh Howey. "Her research at MIT had been in wireless harmonics; remote charging technology; the ability to assume control of electronics via radio".
- The novel MindWar by Douglas E. Richards includes the character Lucas, who "had just graduated from MIT with a PhD in physics and robotics, the youngest PhD the school had minted in over a decade".
- In the novels Extinction Code and Extinction Countdown by James D. Prescott, Rajesh Viswanathan "help to pioneer 's creation, a move that has made him one of MIT's rising stars."