Alum Gary Marcus 86F gave the following lecture as part of Neilfest, an event celebrating the legacy of Psychology Professor Neil Stillings in April. Stillings will conclude his legendary career in June. I was 16 years old, really not loving high school. I loved what I was doing outside of high school, which was computer programming and thinking about cognitive science. So I decided to drop out and go straight to college. I wrote to a bunch of schools, and Hampshire sent me a little booklet, an excerpt of a cognitive science text. The cognitive science book that Neil put together hadn’t quite come out yet — this was 1986. I came for a visit on January 27, and I know that because on January 26 the Patriots had lost the Super Bowl.