10 Unusual Facts About the Top Engineering Schools in 2018

Ranked seventh in the engineering ranking, the National University of Singapore (NUS) has a museum with a permanent collection of over 8,000 artifacts, focusing mainly on Southeast Asian art and culture. It also owns the Baba House museum, built in the 1890s, which is one of the best-preserved Peranakan heritage homes, showcasing Peranakan history, architecture and heritage. NUS itself was originally founded in 1905 as the King Edward VII College of Medicine.

Yes, not only has Imperial College London been the site of a number of scientific discoveries (such as penicillin), but the university was also the place where iconic rock band Queen first formed. Guitarist Brian May was working towards a PhD in astrophysics when he placed an advert for a "Mitch Mitchell/Ginger Baker type" drummer, which Roger Taylor responded to. Brian May abandoned his PhD to pursue Queen, but eventually completed it 36 years later in 2007. (You can read about more bands that met at university here).

Not only is Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University (NTU) ranked one of the world’s top engineering schools, but alumni can tie the knot on campus at the Nanyang Executive Centre. The director of Alumni Affairs, Mr Soon Min Yam, has presided over more than 90 marriage ceremonies over the years, having been a licenced marriage solemniser since 1992. You can read more interesting facts about NTU here.

ETH Zurich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology) is up one place this year to rank fourth in the world for engineering and technology, and boasts Albert Einstein as one of its most famous graduates. Einstein studied physics at the university from 1896 to 1900 and returned in 1912 as a professor of theoretical physics, teaching analytical mechanics and thermodynamics. In total, ETH Zurich has been associated with 21 Nobel Prize winners.

Ranked third in the engineering ranking this year, the University of Cambridge may not be the first English-speaking university founded in the world (this distinction goes to its rival, Oxford) but it can claim to have been the birthplace of football.

The first official game of football with rules we would recognize was played on Parker’s Piece, a green space in Cambridge, in 1848 (it was City vs University, with City winning 2-1). However, the earliest records of football being played in Cambridge go back even further to 1579. 

…And it’s not that anyone turns into a werewolf. Between midnight and 1am on the night of the first full moon of the Autumn Quarter, Stanford University freshmen traditionally receive a kiss from seniors. Live music and entertainment turn the night into a big celebration, but unfortunately a few days later everyone is ill from the same virus.

Other traditions at Stanford include fountain hopping, in which people jump in and out of Stanford’s many water fountains (very refreshing on a hot day).

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is ranked first in the world for the broad subject area of engineering and technology and is known for its “hacks” (used in this context to mean elaborate but harmless practical jokes).

One particularly famous hack is the Annual Baker House Piano Drop, in which students of the Baker House dorm drop an old, irreparable piano off the roof and let it plunge six storeys to the ground, marking the spring semester’s “Drop Date”, the last date students can drop classes.

Other hacks have revolved around the university’s iconic Great Dome (for example, being transformed into R2-D2, or having a fire truck/police car/Apollo Lunar Module placed on top of it over the years).

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