Dr. Franklin Epstein: Massachusetts Institute of Technology

I graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a
Bachelor of Science in Physics. MIT’s founding charter was approved in
1861 and it admitted its first students four years later. The school’s
foundation was driven by William Barton Rogers, who wanted a
revolutionary educational institution equipped to change with a rapidly
industrializing America. A popular natural scientist at the time, Rogers
believed in the marriage of education and research that focused on
real-world problems and it is with these values that MIT was first
established. Today, MIT is one of the top research institutions in the
United States, as well as one of the most distinguished schools, staying
true to Rogers’ original vision.

MIT currently consists of five schools and one college: the school of
Architecture and Planning; the School of Engineering; the School of
Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences; the Sloan School of Management;
the School of Science; and the Whitaker College of Health Sciences and
Technology. As a highly charged research environment, MIT has been the
birthplace of many scientific breakthroughs that continue to affect our
lives today. The modern food preservation process, the chemical
synthesis of vitamin A and penicillin, technology for artificial limbs,
inertial guidance systems, high-speed photography, and magnetic core
memory, the heart of digital computing, were all discoveries made at
MIT. New advancements include the creation of a new type of matter and
the development of a semi-conductor polymer that detects TNT vapor even
act extremely low concentrations. Currently, scientists at MIT are
working on creating a smaller and more efficient battery, the ultimate
goal being a battery the size of a grain of rice.