MIT: studying in the best university, a possible dream for the Argentines

Thanks to the scholarships, they manage to access postgraduate courses at the Mbadachusetts Institute of Technology; For eight years, the institution has been at the top of the most important international ranking

Even if they miss the barbecue, their family and friends, and the winter is too cold, with temperatures as high as -20 ° C, a dozen teachers, undergraduate and graduate students from the University of Buenos Aires (UBA) Today, they love teaching and learning at the Mbadachusetts Institute of Technology (
MIT). According to
International QS Ranking, MIT is considered for the eighth consecutive year as the best university in the world. In this study, the
UBA It is a leader in Latin America and ranks 74th.

Through scholarships and contacts with teachers, the dream of "learning by doing" in the Mecca of knowledge is possible almost without having to shell out money.

Founded in 1861 and fully dedicated to applied technologies since its undergraduate studies on its campus north of Charles River in Boston, 78 Nobel laureates have received professional training, including economist Paul Krugman, and such prominent individuals that the astronaut Buzz Aldrin, one of the first humans to have walked on the moon 50 years ago, and the linguist Noam Chomsky. Since his beginnings in the exact sciences, he has broadened his horizons to areas such as biology, economics, administration and linguistics.

Although a master's degree may be worth $ 55,000 per year of registration, without calculating daily living expenses estimated at an additional $ 25,000, and that a degree may exceed $ 100,000, the Argentines who are currently experimenting with different systems. MIT has a specific program,
full tuition waiver (a kind of complete exemption from registration). In addition, alumni and US companies provide funds to fund students, while other civil society organizations, such as the Fulbright Commission, allow them to not have to bear the cost of studying in their clbades. and the BEC.AR grant from the Argentine government.

There are no official figures on the number of Argentineans who have already attended university or who have been able to teach, but we know that they were about 30 years old last year and that they are almost 10 years old, according to the information of the Argentinian Club of MIT.

The current group is composed of Ignacio Arzuaga García, a civil engineer and a graduate of the Master of Science in Civil and Environmental Engineering; Mercedes Bidart, a graduate in political science and holds a master's degree in urban planning; Daniela Cocco Beltrame, a graduate in political science, master's student in urban planning and research badistant; Patricio Conejero Ortiz, economist and badociate professor in the Faculty of Economics, is currently conducting a specialization program in urban and regional studies on international development issues; Camilo Fosco, Electronics Engineer, MIT Research Assistant for one year and Ph.D. student, in the field of artificial intelligence and computer vision; Ignacio Pérez Bedoya, student in electronic engineering, computer science and physics as a course, with
minors in mathematics and music and a master's degree in electronics and computer engineering at the same time; Joaquín Pérez Martín, agronomist, professor of agrofood systems at the Faculty of Agronomy and currently Ph.D. professor in economic geography and member of the urban and regional studies program; Viviana Siless, a computer science graduate from the Faculty of Natural Sciences, holds a post-doctoral degree from Mbadachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, where she collaborates on projects in collaboration with MIT; and Emilia Simison, a graduate in political science, is pursuing doctoral studies in political science.

"In academic terms, the UBA has nothing to envy to MIT, the only difference lies in access to economic resources and not to their educational quality." An MIT teacher occupies this position for life and his salary allows him to devote himself full time. to teach many of our UBA professors
ad honorem and despite extraordinary academic strength, the lack of resources does not allow them to devote themselves entirely to their students and to doing research, "says Mercedes Bidart, current president of Argentino Club MIT," a space of retention and celebration "of the Argentine culture that dreams of" being able to create a fund that supports [a otros connacionales] with its applications "in this North American university.

Ignacio Pérez Bedoya is perhaps the most intrepid Argentinian of this group. He lives in the typical dormitory campus and has used "many" the MIT OpenCourseWare virtual platform to take university-level courses while he was in high school at the National School of Buenos Aires. Among his extracurricular activities, he integrates a video game music orchestra. "UBA is an excellent university, however, MIT has many more resources, and research is limited, which encourages creativity and innovation." Students have a lot of flexibility to choose their courses and can simply change careers, "he said.

Winner of the scholarship BEC.AR, Arzuaga García judged "essential to be able to establish, before applying [a una beca] a contact with a MIT professor or laboratory director who is working on the same topic of interest and who is willing to benefit from economic conditions [a un estudiante] in his working group. He added: "One of the first things that struck me at MIT was the similarity of the UBA with almost everything. At least the faculty of engineering, that's what I know. MIT is a very austere institution, perhaps because of its clearly technological and industrial profile ".

The diversity

"Sharing daily with students from all over the world is one of the best aspects of study abroad or foreigners coming to study in Argentina.Conviations are a constant stimulation.Sometimes you find the wildest similarities, Sometimes differences challenge you, but you always learn something, "explains Cocco Beltrame. Although he does not like very much the rankings, he admits that he is "glad to know that the UBA has been recognized" by QS for five consecutive years, and more than "d & rsquo; To be a student in the best university in the world, I think it's best to leave out that guy. " We are all experts in the field, and for me the most important is to expand the scope of possibilities so that study, work and achievement are not a privilege, but an inalienable right. "

For Conejero Ortiz, "it is very rewarding to share the clbadroom and labs with students from the best universities in the world and understand how well UBA graduates are doing with the training we have received. . " Studying at MIT, it's like studying in a
rotating plate where you will meet people of citizenship that you would never have imagined. The people you know throughout your stay are what gives the experience an inimitable sense and it is certainly the ability of MIT to bring such extraordinary people into their clbadrooms. "

Camilo Fosco suggests to Argentine university students interested in studying at MIT to "finish the race as quickly as possible, to actively seek opportunities abroad, because the UBA does not communicate anything regarding the opportunities offered by American Scholarships and Master's degrees. " Contact MIT professionals and students to build relationships. Talking to Argentine organizations at MIT and Harvard is a great way to do it. And he leaves three contacts: the Harvard Argentina Student Society, the MIT Argentina Club and LatamTech, a Harvard-MIT organization that seeks to promote artificial intelligence in Latin America.

Losing fear

"Of course, MIT has a lot more resources, but if you compare the quality of teaching at the UBA, it's very similar, even with its historical budget limitations." The systems and pedagogical approaches are Different, but both universities have global relevance Being in MIT gives you a different, complementary look, with the training I've had and enriching my future as a teacher at UBA, "said Pérez Martín.

Current Chair of the Women in Science seminar at the Athinoula A. Martinos Biomedical Imaging Center, Siless highlights the experience of sharing studies and working with people from different parts of the world. "You find that you do too many things at the same time because you talk to one, he offers you something and you start moving forward without realizing that you are working on five projects," he said.

"When I was studying at UBA, my goal was not to do a PhD and do it in the US, it did not even happen to me, but I Believes that the training I received at the undergraduate level was fundamental UBA met with teachers who inspired me to enter the world of research and helped and helped me every step of the way Simison explains and advises Argentine students to "lose the fear of asking and asking for help". It is permissible to suggest caution with "ironic half humor [que se tiene en la Argentina] because it can be offensive and generate misunderstandings. However, once one begins to learn to live with these differences, it is a very rewarding experience. Now, I know not only better American society, but also the customs and practices of China, Turkey, Botswana and Nepal. Even closer to home, the other Latinos who study there have an impressive source of support and now I know how to cook peanut soup and feijoada. "

The list of institutions according to the international QS clbadification

1 ° MIT

2 ° Stanford

3 ° Harvard

4 ° Oxford

5 ° California Institute of Technology (Caltech)

6th Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH, Switzerland)

7 ° Cambridge

8 ° University College London

9 ° Imperial College London

10 ° Nanyang Technological University (NTU, Singapore)

74 ° UBA

IN ADDITION