Education Synergy – A Merger

On March 18th, while most of you were away, Babson College and Olin College signed an agreement detailing the acquisition of Olin College by Babson College. Under the new arrangement, Olin College’s official name will be the Olin Center for Engineering and Entrepreneurship [1].

Olin has had difficulty paying off the debt it acquired from the construction of an entire school[2]. To mitigate the damage endured by the fund, the full-tuition scholarship has been replaced with a half-tuition scholarship, and spending on post-its has dropped. Funds were so short last year, Olin leased parcel B out to the local delinquents to grow bud. Unfortunately, these efforts have not been enough.

Fortunately, the influx of capital will not only allow us to pay off our debts, it will also allow Olin to invest in two new dorms, called tentatively “Innovation” and “Entrepreneurship.” According to Olin’s Marketing Director, “These new dorms will be hotbeds of innovation and entrepreneurship. In fact, the more we say those two words, the more they will happen, and students don’t have to do anything differently!”

Though some had hoped the acquisition would allow the restoration of the full-tuition scholarship, it is being reported that in order to fulfill the mission of Babson College, all scholarships will be suspended. Starting next year, students will pay the full 60K required to fund the Olin Education. Additionally, in efforts to build the portfolio of Babson College, all intellectual property developed at Olin will now belong to Babson College[3].

Students at Olin should not have the impression they are being used. No, the elite education delivered at Olin will be supplemented by Babson’s new ownership. All Babson first years take a course called Foundations of Management and Entrepreneurship (FME), in which they build a business over the course of a year, selling products and services. In the past, products have been USB sticks and wrist bands. To take greater advantage of the market insights of Babson students and give students a taste of the “real world,” Babson FME teams will “contract out” POE, Software Design, HFID, Mobile Proto and Mech Proto teams. This will allow Olin students to spend less time figuring out what they want to do, and more time simply doing. “I came to Olin, because I don’t care about the bigger picture. I just want my 100K and flat in San Francisco,” explained senior Drank Underwood. “With this new change, I can start working towards that dream even earlier.”

This fusion of academic life will extend to the dorms, where Babson and Olin students will share dorms. To celebrate this bridging of cultures, a snowman monument will be erected between all four dorms—a snowman that will neither melt nor topple.

Students and faculty at Olin have expressed concern that Olin is “plateauing.” However, with this new deal, 2014 will be an inflection point for this brave phoenix.

[1] Aka. Babson’s Engineering Department
[2] Buildings and labs, a cafeteria and two dorms! Who does that?
[3] Open-source is what the Commies would have wanted us to do.

+ posts