Back in the early 60s at MIT undergraduates often had little time for social events and to my best recall the only "prize" one gets is at graduation and a diploma. Now I note that MIT News almost daily has students getting some prize or other. They note:
Elected by the Burchard Committee from a large pool of impressive applicants, all students chosen for the program have demonstrated excellence and engagement in the humanistic fields, but can major in science, design, and engineering fields as well as the humanities, arts, and social sciences. In the course of this calendar year, the Burchard Scholars will attend seminar dinners with members of the SHASS faculty, during which they will have the chance to engage with the faculty and one another. The program is designed to both broaden horizons for promising students and provide scholars the chance to engage in friendly but challenging discussions in which to hone skills for expressing, critiquing, and debating ideas with peers and mentors.
"Prizes" like this seem to be a common occurrence. There seems to be a common thread here of engaging with faculty and one another. Back in the Middle Ages of this process one got to engage via class performance and one on one contact. No "organized" prize awards. It seems that there is some need to have awards en masse. It is becoming like Hollywood, awards every week or so, making everyone "happy". How about just a little work, less awards.
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