Intel Ranks Colleges with Best Wireless Access 526
newdamage writes "Intel recently released it's ranking of The Most Unwired College Campuses and I was happy to see my school, Purdue, up there at #2. I can personally attest that my laptop w/ wireless card can be used over almost all of the main campus, and there's always a few people in lecture using laptops to access notes and take extra notes. Granted all I've found is that internet access in class just gives me a better way to not pay attention. What are other peoples' experiences with wireless access on their campus? Is there widespread coverage, and if so, does it help you get more school related work done by having your laptop connected where ever you are on campus?"
2 from Indiana? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:MIT = 26? (Score:5, Interesting)
At Wake Forest University... (Score:5, Interesting)
Since I have housing in the Technology Quarters, I had some experience with the wireless network which was installed here early, but it was only with a PDA and not a full laptop. My room had poor reception, and I couldn't get a signal in any interesting places (like outside on the sun roof or patio). I'm hoping that next year when there's more access points up my new dorm will have better reception, particularly in the nice courtyard area.
Oh, and the network looks unencrypted so far. Which means I'll be checking my email with Pine over ssh. =b
I don't have a laptop... (Score:4, Interesting)
Colleges must be pretty lacking... (Score:5, Interesting)
Good/Bad (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Also of interest (Score:3, Interesting)
Do these rankings bear any resemblance to reality? (Score:5, Interesting)
No surprise -- makers of lists like these don't usually attempt to apply any scientific methodology.
Good of bad? (Score:5, Interesting)
I have found that in class, all a laptop does is distract the students. Sure, we're supposed to follow along with the notes on our screens, but the prof can't see them. 90% of the time, everyone is surfing the web, talking on IM, checking their email, playing CS, basically everything but paying attention.
Further, most classes don't even require/use a laptop (it's pretty tough to take linear algebra notes on a computer). I estimate that maybe only 20% of classes or less use laptops actually IN class.
Most of the time when your laptop is required for class, it is just a pain to drag it to class, set it up, not use it for anything but to click through powerpoint slides. However, for the few professors who actually design the class with the use of the student's laptops in mind, it can be a great learning tool. It's nice doing in-class activities where you collect data and display it on your computer changing parameters to see the effect; or running simulations were you get to mess with the settings/initial conditions.
On the whole, I wished I could have saved a grand or so and purchased a desktop that could do the same as my laptop (after all, it spends all but 4 hours a week just sitting on my desk). For the, mmm, maybe 2 classes that the professor has actually incorperated the use of laptop into his lecture (same professor for both classes), it was a very powerful tool. Unfortunately, professors who know how to lecture well, especially incorperating a personal computer, are few and far between. An Unwired (or Wired) classroom can either be a great benefit, or a waste of time.
Alternate Article Title: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:negative wording (Score:3, Interesting)
Ranking Intel Campuses (Score:5, Interesting)
I've heard that at Intel your manager has to get you permission to use WiFi and your department must pay some sort of ongoing fees to some other group for the priviledge.
Actually, Stanford is 68th ... (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm kinda surprised that we don't have a higher rating, since almost all the main areas of campus are covered, as well as roughly half the undergraduate dorms. It makes me wonder how they're doing their calculations. If it's total coverage / campus size or something silly like that then I could understand 68th (since we have a 8000+ acre campus) -- if they're using some sensible measure
(and yes, I'm a student and Residential Network Admin here at Stanford)
-S
Re:MIT = 26? (Score:1, Interesting)
Wireless access = pointless waste of my tuition money.
Education programs are what get me those job interviews. Not Wireless access.
I'm at a wired campus (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:MIT = 26? (Score:1, Interesting)
Yeah, they actually teach students stuff there, rather than give them the latest toys to play with when they should be paying attention during lecture.
Re:Purdue (Score:2, Interesting)
The Japanese already do. Granted, it's not streaming or HDTV... it's digital satellite direct to cell phones, and through repeaters in rural areas. 70 channels, though, and crystal clear.
If the next 10 years brings us as far as the last ten, the big thing will be something you don't have a worse version of now. My expectation is that MIThril type systems [mit.edu] will be hot in ten years, and that the stuff we do with them will change the way we perceive things as much as cell phones have so far.
In 1994, a man walking down the street talking to himself was clearly insane. Now he's just gadget savvy. Conversation can be anywhere, anytime... iPods and the like make music anywhere, anytime.... expect the same sort of thing for visual perception. In Duke3D cooperative, you could switch to see what your buddy was seeing and hearing (maybe it was Shadow Warrior). In 2014, you'll be able to do that in real life.
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Also of interest (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:negative wording (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't want to theorize on why we didn't make the list, but my guess is it's cuz we didn't use Intel. Eat me Intel. AMD for life!
Re:2 from Indiana? (Score:4, Interesting)
The Internet2/Abilene NOC is located in Indianapolis at IUPUI.
Note Taking Considered Harmful (Score:2, Interesting)
Note taking is an evil distraction, that misleads you into the belief that you're actually getting something out of the lecture, while all you're really doing is taking dictation and not thinking about the bits passing from your ears to your hands. Once you get rid of the note taking crutch, you're forced into critical thinking -- that's how people actually learn.
Rochester Institute of Technology (Score:4, Interesting)
-dave
Re:Not very accurate (Score:3, Interesting)
I think part of the discrepancy may be the shear size and layout of our campus--we are spread across many blocks of Manhattan where it's hard to get "full coverage" compared to, say, a completely enclosed campus. But they damn well try, and pretty much everywhere I would want to use wireless, I have a strong connection. So basically I question what this list really tells you. Please don't make your decision to go to school based on this list. If you really care about wireless take your laptop over and check it out for yourself.
Meaningless (Score:2, Interesting)
DePaul (Score:1, Interesting)
Not to mention that all classrooms and prof. offices have distance learning capabilities. A student can use his remote connection, or wi-fi from any public area, and have a visual advising session with his/her favourite professor.
I have never seen anything comparable in the other universities listed by INTEL.
Just a time waster! (Score:1, Interesting)
narrow-minded jerk (Score:1, Interesting)
I use wireless to download supplementary notes and study material, as well silently ask my friends in the classroom questions relating to the material.
Its also useful for finding quiet places to study at the University. I can take my laptop to a silent place outside while I study and take more notes.
Re:2 from Indiana? (Score:5, Interesting)
His problem was that they'd figured out that Napster's inefficient P2P was jamming up their network, so in self-defence the IUB network guys advised Napster on how to be a bit more efficient (and download yr song from the frat boy in the next room, instead of from some geek in Japan). Good technical move, bit of a legal problem.
Re:Also of interest (Score:2, Interesting)
Security sucks though. No encryption, only MAC authentication for registered cards. Of course, all campus email, grade servers are encrypted (even our library requests are!). But you could just snoop anyone's yahoo mail off the air for example. Maybe they should have criteria like how secure the network is, in the criteria for judging as well.
Re:MIT = 26? (Score:2, Interesting)
NDSU sure wouldn't be on here... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:AKA "Which Schools Recommend Centrino" (Score:2, Interesting)
That's not entirely true. My school, at number 31, only recommends Cisco. They sell "University" laptops (at a "discount") with Centrino, but stick a Cisco card in them anyway. In fact, if you read the "official" documentation, you'd think that any non-Cisco cards wouldn't work at all.
Caltech (Score:3, Interesting)
So the problem with surveys is that they require people's time to respond. For example, when I was a frosh the Princeton Review or someone conducted an online survery and one of the questions was about workload/free time. Now, if you think about it there are likely to be some freaking brilliant people that will say that they have plenty of free time and the work load isn't hard. Meanwhile, the other 99% of us aren't bored enough to fill out the survery. As a result we were ranked really low on the workload that year. And believe me, this week was the first week I've ever had an easy problem set (it took only 3 hours).
So back to the topic, where is my school? We have wireless in most of the lecture halls and some of the newer classrooms. It's not great but its good for simple browsing/IM/e-mail. From the way that you describe the wirelesss there, I would think that Caltech should be higher than "not on the list." There is none as of yet in the houses (not frats, campus owned dorms, but cooler) but that is because they are old Faraday cages that are going to be rebuilt so current wireless is student owned access points. So why the institute doesn't provide them, I can walk from one side of my house to the other and have access the whole time, switching from AP to AP.
In other words, the wireless access here is good in my opinion and surveys are pretty crappy means of advertising.
-Scott
Re:AKA "Which Schools Recommend Centrino" (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:MIT = 26? (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Dartmouth (Score:3, Interesting)
Either you're a prof or you've gotten extremely lucky housing assignments.
We do have an assload of APs, though, and a lot of ground covered in theory. Probably makes for a strong ranking.
Of course, our wireless network is COMPLETELY unsecure here, too...as in, no WEP, no nothing. You know the SSID, you're on the network, and all traffic is out in the open.
Needless to say, I use SSH a lot...
Purdue's VP of IT just spoke to my class on Tues. (Score:5, Interesting)
... and I asked him about this very same topic. Funny, because he said "Have you seen the Intel article about the most wired college campuses?" Of course, I hadn't at the time and forgot to look it up. Then, bam, on Slashdot two days later.
I asked him to compare our setup and implementation to our peer universitites and he basically said that we were right at the top. We've had full coverage on campus for three semesters (counting back including this one). Before that they rolled it out over three semesters. So, it's been on campus for about 3 yrs now. Kinda cool.When ITAP (the IT services dept) decided to do it, they actually rolled together three other independant implementations from the School of Mgmt and a couple of other places. In addition to full campus coverage, now we even have wireless access at our footbal stadium (with a ton of money donated by Cisco and other companies) that can be used to access stats, etc. during the game - mostly from PDAs.
Funniest part of the story from the VP of IT was that when he told us that IU was number 1 on the list. Apparently, after Purdue had rolled out wireless across the campus (or was partly through implementation), IU called and asked how they did it and copied the setup. He said that they beat us on 'green space'. IU's physical campus is spread out over a larger area than Purdue's. IU covered the green space and nudged us out.
The University of Memphis (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:2 from Indiana? (Score:2, Interesting)
Perhaps that's a side-effect of going unwired, but I think its a challenge to be a more interesting speaker.
Geneseo's Wireless (Score:2, Interesting)
While we don't rank as high on it, Forbes also has a Wireless Ranking [forbes.com]
Re:AKA "Which Schools Recommend Centrino" (Score:4, Interesting)
For example Kettering University [kettering.edu], a small engineering school (interesting, we graduate more engineers than any other University, and 1 out of 5 graduates becomes a business owner or fortune 500 exec, but that's a side point) which has great, almost 100% coverage (I live two blocks away and get signal) isn't on the list because it's are so small (there are 5 buildings on campus).