Sam finished 4 years of MIT in two becoming the youngest person to graduate Suma Cum Laude (with a GPA of 3.9 to 4.0). This is where he meets Al Calavicci and Professor LoNigro. It's with Professor LoNigro that he comes up with the string theory of quantum leaping.
The cabin shown in this episode was Stringfellow Hawke's cabin in "Airwolf", an earlier TV series produced by Donald P. Bellisario.
The phone number written inside the matchbook (555-2368) is the same number seen on different phones in different series. Sometimes the area code (311) which is fictional is also used with this number.
MIT actually doesn't grant latin honors so Dr. Beckett couldn't have graduated Summa Cum Laude from MIT. Also MIT's grade point system is on a 5.0 scale, where A=5, B=4, C=3, D=2 and F=0, so a failing grade is "double" penalizing.
In the original history, Dana Barrenger was murdered by Nick Kochifos at 3:18pm on September 26, 1973. Her body was found floating in Cheasapeake Bay near Havre de Grace off I-95 on the way to Baltimore.