CNN:

Sporting earbuds and sagging backpacks, students lounge on patches of grass, shaded by trees from the harsh sun. They sit in the library, hunched over laptops, massaging their temples, cramming for tests or bashing out lines of code.

It could be a college campus anywhere in the world, but Sharif University of Technology sits in the shadow of the Azadi tower in Iran's capital, Tehran.

SUT represents the aspirations of a generation of Iranian policy makers who, in the wake of the 1979 revolution, were determined to put their country on the science and technology map.

It is often called the MIT of Iran -- re-imagined after austere beginnings, based on the example of that American powerhouse, Sharif President Mahmud Fotuhi Firuzabad told CNN on a recent spring morning in Tehran.

"I don't want to exaggerate the situation," says Professor Jawad Salehi, tongue far from cheek, but "MIT is the Sharif of the U.S."

Be that as it may, Iran's educational leaders must also brace themselves for the fact that Sharif is a conduit out of the country...

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