The Top 4 Universities Of The World

The most prominent universities in the world are leaders of global higher education. These esteemed institutions have witnessed pioneering and groundbreaking research & creative endeavors. The world’s top universities are home to some of humanity’s best minds, well-designed infrastructure, well-defined educational curriculums, and revolutionary research & development. 

From notable world leaders & pioneering researchers to numerous professional authors & essay writers, engineers, doctors and teachers, the four universities mentioned in this article have spread education to one & all.

This article takes a look at the top 4 universities in the world today, as dictated by leading university rankers, Quacquarelli Symonds & Time Higher Education.

The Top 4 Universities Of 2021

1. Massachusetts Institute Of Technology

Ranking in 1^st place for the ninth year in a row in the QS World University Rankings, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is one of the world’s most famous and prestigious higher education institutions. 

• MIT is a private land-grant university founded in 1861. A polytechnic research university, MIT is world-renowned for its comprehensively detailed & well-structured courses and progressive research in applied science & engineering. The institution was central to the development of science and technology in the United States of America and continues to push the boundaries of research & innovative development to date.

• Almost every major technical discipline has its course program at MIT. Aeronautics, Chemical Engineering, Electrical Engineering & Computer Science, Mathematics, Mechanical Engineering, Physics – the list goes on.

• Besides world-class course programs, MIT has been the host to many far-reaching types of research and the birthplace of several electronics & computer science-related organizations.

The World Wide Web Consortium by Tim Berner-Lee and Richard Stallman’s GNU Project were both founded on MIT grounds. In addition, the MIT Lincoln Laboratory, the Computer Science & AI Laboratory and the Railroad Club have been instrumental in the progress of the digital age.

MIT’s Robotic Cheetah

• The university strongly believes in open source & open access policies and free education. The MIT OpenCourseWare initiative, MITx (in partnership with edX), and the implementation of policies to making scholarship publicly available online are some prominent examples of MIT’s aim to make world-class education readily accessible to one and all.

• Electrical Engineering & Computer Science remains the most popular course. Five schools make up the university- Science & Engineering, Architecture & Planning, Management & Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences.

Full-time undergraduate course programs are of four-year duration, with 44 undergraduate degrees awarded. Postgraduate programs are offered on numerous disciplinary & multi-disciplinary courses. In addition, MIT Bootcamps operate intensive, week-long innovation & leadership programs. Students work in teams and are given substantial training for working on an entrepreneurial project.

2. The Oxford University

Considered the oldest university in the English-speaking world, Oxford University is undoubtedly one of the most well-known universities. Commanding an almost mythical aura, the university comprises over 100 libraries and 44 colleges & halls. 

• The Oxford University Alumni Network consists of more than 250,000 individuals, a who’s who comprising Olympic medalists, Nobel Prize winners, poet laureates, and over 30 modern world leaders.
• The university is the alma mater of several pioneering individuals such as Tim Berners-Lee, Stephen Hawking, Richard Dawkins, actors Hugh Grant & Rosamund Pike, and notable writers like Oscar Wilde, Graham Greene, Vikram Seth.
• Every constituent college in the university is a semi-autonomous and self-governing institution, with its own internal structure spread across the entire city.

• OU is exceptionally selective about its intake rates and has the lowest offer rates of all UK’s Russell Group Universities. Undergraduate teaching centers around class tutorials conducted over three eight-week academic terms – Michaelmas, Hillary & Trinity.

• The university conducts examinations and confers degrees. Research at the postgraduate level is conducted for any subject studies at the graduate level in the university.

The Oxford University

• Natural Sciences, Computer Sciences, Engineering & Technology, Medicine, Law, Social Sciences, Arts & Humanities – the university covers almost every major academic discipline at all levels. The university is particularly renowned for its prowess in the arts & science fields.

Oxford University ranks globally amongst the top 10 universities for courses & research programs for life sciences, physical sciences, social sciences, arts & humanities

3. Stanford University

Situated in the heart of Silicon Valley, the cradle of the digital revolution in the USA, Stanford University stands as a testament to man’s will to use education to bring about progress & development. 

• Stanford University’s area of excellence spreads over with numerous standalone & overlapping disciplines. The institution constitutes seven schools: Business, Education, Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences, Engineering, Humanities & Sciences, Law and Medicine.

With a 5:1 student to faculty ratio, 8180 acres of campus, 7700 externally sponsored projects with a total endowment of $1.93 billion, Stanford is a leading proponent of academic research in the US and the world. 

The Stanford Campus

• Stanford University is notable for acquiring large-scale funding for start-ups, and a prominent number of university graduates have gone to establish successful entrepreneurship of their own.

The institution has been a significant catalyst in developing the US electronics industry and the progenitor of the worldwide digital revolution. The institution is classified as a tier 1 doctoral facility with very high research activity. 

Some innovative and disruptive researches conducted at the institution are:

• Investigation & discovery of the mechanisms involved in the biological synthesis of DNA
• First gene transplant between two different organism
• Research on Lasers
• Development of new methods for achieving nuclear magnetic precision measurements
• Design of the Internet architecture
• Development of Google
• Design of RISC instruction set processors

William Shockley, the inventor of the first semiconductor transistor, was a professor at Stanford.

A hub of innovative & breakthrough researches that changed the world, Stanford University is a shining beacon of human intellect, dedication, curiosity and perseverance.

4. Harvard University

Harvard University is one of the select few world-class academic institutions with dedicated programs & plans to eradicate education disparity & inequality. An Ivy-league research university, Harvard is THE OLDEST higher learning institution in the USA and amongst the most prestigious universities worldwide.

• A wide variety of undergraduate and postgraduate academic disciplines are available at the institute. The Harvard Library System stands as the most extensive educational library system, with more than 20.4 million items and 79 constituent libraries. The university enjoys massive financial endowment benefits amounting to approximately $ 41.9 billion, allowing it to offer financial aid to students without any loan.
• The university offers around 50 undergraduate majors, 134 graduate degrees and 32 professional degrees. The four-year full-time undergraduate course requires students to partake in four courses per semester, while major’s courses require advanced coursework & a senior thesis.
• Harvard University is a preeminent research institution with a very high volume of research been conducted in arts, science, engineering and medicine. Harvard Medical School ranks amongst the first in research in the domain. The medical school is affiliated with 15 hospitals and research institutes and attracted $1.65 billion in research grants from the USA’s National Institutes of Health.

The Harvard Main Building

• Harvard University offers students numerous opportunities to research as early as their freshman years. The Harvard College Research Program, the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Program, and the Faculty Aide Program are some of the mechanisms in place to aid funding & initiation of research at different academic levels.
• In addition, interconnected labs, clusters and offices spread across more than 24 University buildings are available for collaborative research on natural & computational sciences and engineering.

 All in all, Harvard University continues to be a seat of innovative research and a learning environment that encourages individuals to seek knowledge, think critically and conceive solutions to the most pressing issues of human society. 

And that rounds up this article. Hope it was informative enough for all readers alike. If you too want to write papers & essays of this kind but need some help doing so, remember to seek the assistance of professional essay writers from reputed essay help services only.

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