Massachusetts Institute of Technology

I am a technical guy and have come up with a design which I think is pretty good. I’m in the fund-raising mode and the banker-guy recommended that I partner with a good school. So today I decided to contact MIT.

Google: [MIT Engineering Department]. The Google search result page introduces us to MIT:

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Women’s Initiative Program seeks to increase the number of women enrolled in engineering majors by educating ...

Sigh.

So I call MIT, and some lady picks up the phone. She will put me in touch with the appropriate department, click, wait, robogreeter. Robogreeter gives me options and then says to stay on the line to speak to a representative. Who isn’t there.

More calls. And I get a person, who refers me to a Professor, and gives me a phone number. I call this person, who answers with some unintelligible greeting. I introduce myself as a private sector engineer. The man seems to be somewhat condescending. He tells me that he does not actually work at MIT anymore. And refers me to some non-Ivy-League schools who are actually doing research on energy independence.

I called an engineering program at one of these schools, and an intelligent person picked up the phone.