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Well, we live in a different time now.

I went several times to present at Berkeley following Berkeley prof Terry Speed who was from Australia and was a personal friend of one of the members of my doctoral committee. The world is small at the top. I attended special seminars given by famous faculty. Berkeley was a big deal but more structured academically than Caltech. Lawrence labs, both Berkeley and Livermore were intense, very secret, compartmentalized, very important to everything. I know that from people I met at science conferences and people I met via Terry. I had a chance to apply to Livermore with references but went with other opportunities.

Not sure why you describe Caltech in such lowly terms unless it’s changed since I’ve been there. Back then Caltech in my view was an even bigger deal than Berkeley. They both had different environments. JPL was to Caltech as LL was to Berkeley. Perhaps both names became victims of their own prestigious reputations.

Not sure about Berkeley now. The Cultural Marxism that seems to pervade the campus and region would make me gag. I have no compulsion to ever want to go there now but back in the day I always looked forward to it. Times have changed.

I remember having lunch with faculty and students at Caltech, it was often hard to tell the difference between the two except that usually the lead scientist was usually the one where all heads were turned to. In casual conversations I heard students say there were no class texts, one had to go to the library and get whatever was needed. Lower ranking faculty in the work groups would sometimes take students under their wing and give them notes from lectures or seminars, and that would serve as a ‘class text’. Students were in working groups (which most ‘classes’ took shape in), and if they heard the lead say something like “the enthalpy equations lead me to believe we need to simmer this about 30 minutes at such and such ...” and if the students didn’t have a firm grasp on enthalpy concepts, they would be up all night day after day studying it and maybe one of the junior ‘faculty’ (working group members) might give them some notes or an old out-of-print text or an unpublished manuscript (Feynman’s notes arose this way). And all this was outside the working groups. The group projects (’classes’) were more like studio sets of production. There might be a chalkboard or one would be rolled in. But it was a sideshow.

Over time, a student would accumulate knowledge and working theory, enough maybe to insert suggestions to the lead during a working project. If the suggestions were good ones, the lead might give the ‘student’ some theory draft to comment on. That would be when the ‘student’ had an opportunity to publish with the lead, maybe. The working environment was very unstructured except for understanding that one was expected to demonstrate value to the project, nothing was taken for granted, and as you say, nothing was given. Each project had theoretical or engineering questions that were the focus. I couldn’t really say these were ‘classes’ but that’s what they were if one had to ask.

On my own project involvement such as the Galileo Jovian atmosphere probe (damn that was fun!), there would often be Caltech students who I didn’t know until later were students. They looked more like young scientists and engineers. When I would learn they were students, I would ask a friendly question like “what you studying?” and the answer would be something like “Everything”. I would try to clarify “I mean, what classes you taking?” and they would look at me and stare with a facial expression “Huh?”, “What?”. They were obviously a different breed of student. I didn’t ask too many questions after. In fact, I learned these were doers more than questioners, very impressive group. After getting to know them, they opened up more about life as a student there.