The Harvard grads I know haven’t done it. But, then again, they know that I know that they are Harvard grads.
Not a Harvard thing, but in my experience of Army officers, they’ll typically drop the “West Point” thing amongst themselves without hesitation.
They don’t bother trying to impress enlisted or NCOs; most WP alumni don’t believe NCOs are intellectually capable of understanding the signifigance of being a WP grad, and they don’t believe that the enlisted are even sentient beings.
Some of the best officers I worked for were ROTC grads from various state U.
My wife went to Harvard. Undergrad and law school. She rarely mentions it. She has friends from college and/or law school, and of course they all know. She has professional friends, and they know. Otherwise, she really doesn’t mention it unless asked directly. She doesn’t beat around the bush, she just says “Harvard,” very matter-of-factly. I think I have relatives who’ve met her any number of times who don’t know where she went to college, or law school.
I’ve never met a lot of Harvard grads so I wouldn’t know (or they haven’t mentioned it).
I do want to add that this trait is common among people from California.
Like anyones cares what state you grew up in.
Harvard is not in Boston, it is in Cambridge (except for the football stadium).
If he thought I needed help on understanding “Harvard”, I’m sure he wouldn’t expect me to know Cambridge either.
I grew up in Michigan and would have never been able to tell you about Penn’s reputation until I thought about applying there for grad school. Everyone on the East Coast seems to know it right away though. Now that it looks very likely I’m going to be starting there this fall, I of course called everyone in my family. They’ve never heard of UPenn either. ‘‘That’s great. Penn State. Good for you.’’ I think if you’re ever justified in bragging, it’s to your family, right? ‘‘Not Penn State, UPenn. The Ivy League… it’s a really good… forget it.’’ They showed more enthusiasm when I was admitted to Michigan.
To be perfectly frank, I never shut up about the University of Michigan and if I go to Penn I’ll probably never shut up about that school either. I see no reason to hide my passion for an institution that gave me so much. I know a lot of Dopers view their education as a worthless waste of time, but I actually enjoyed college and feel like it made me a better person. I guess if people interpret my enthusiasm as arrogance, they’ll figure out the truth when they get to know me and my crippling insecurities.
Also, anyone think of this when they read the OP?
I find this extremely tiresome. I had a coworker that was ALWAYS talking about how things were done in California. “I was driving along the freeway - OH, that’s what we call the expressway in California…”
What made it even more annoying is that I’m from California, too, and she knew it. When she got like this, I’d say, “REALLY? Please tell me more about California! I don’t know ANYTHING about it!”
Something like 1/12 of the population of the US lives in California. It’s not particularly noteworthy. I’m more intrigued when I meet someone from Wyoming or South Dakota or some place with a small population.
Actually, it’s closer to 1/8.
Well, that makes my point even better! I don’t know where I half-remembered that 1/12 number from.
If someone asks me where I went to college, I’ll tell them. Otherwise, I don’t bring it up.
The problem is that I have co-workers who immediately bring it up when I meet someone for the first time. It’s almost like they’re trying to impress people with the fact that I work with them.
My current manager is an ex-fighter pilot who also went to MIT. He’s very … difficult.
I graduated from Caltech with a C average and no self-confidence, so for about 20 years after that, I didn’t mention it unless asked directly. Not fake humility; I was ashamed of barely crawling out of there with a diploma.
IME people who were once in the Marines are like this.
Not only do they take the opportunity to bring it up at every. possible. opportunity., they also tend to proclaim it loudly on all t-shirts, sweatshirts, backpacks, duffle bags, bumper stickers, license plate holders, etc, etc, etc, ad nauseum ad nauseum. As though the rest of the world gives a fuck.
People who serve in the other branches do this to a lesser degree, but ex-Marines are horrible about it.
I have to giggle at this, because, IME, yes they do. Even at casual get-togethers, where everyone in attendance was either a Marine, married to or begat by a Marine, it is mentioned at every opportunity.
They’re generally more civilized than old rodeo cowboys, but I get rather tired of the words “In MY Marine Corps . . .”
I identified another Doper as a fellow former student of my (very small, rural, liberal arts school) based on one thing he said. I suspect that every college has it’s own culture, and the smaller the college, the more its students will be able to recognize each other.
I went to an ivy league college, although one a bit less well known than Harvard. At first, when people asked, I’d just say “Oh, I went to school in New England.” But that doesn’t discourage anyone from continuing to ask away, so now, if it comes up, I just say “I went to Brown,” and leave it at that.
I live in the Midwest, in a small town centered around a large public university. I dislike telling people where I went to school because all of a sudden I feel like I’m different from them, or that they see me as different. I think if I lived in a larger city, I would be less sensitive about it.
Also, I was a legacy for what it’s worth.
I’ve worked with a lot of graduates from the Ivy Leagues and other elite schools. Since we are more or less in our peer group, we just say where we went and don’t have to be particularly coy about it.
Although we did have one happy hour where a bunch of us were drunk and talking shit. Our new Consultant starts showing off his Cornell ring. So one of the Directors (a Rutgers grad) is like “Hey, I may not have gone to Cornell, but I’m still your boss”. So I chime in (also a Director) “Guys!! I realize I didn’t get a chance to study poetry or whatever in the Ivy League or attend a women’s basketball powerhouse like Rutgers while I was studying engineering and getting my MBA at two of the top schools in those respective disciplines…”
Anyway, we were having a bit of fun with it because we are all friends. It’s incredibly pretentious to “drop the H bomb” and most people would be like “wow…great…” anyway.
Although for some reason it does seem like Cornell grads are as dopey and pompous as Andy from The Office (who graduated from Cornell).
Ex Marines, IMHO are the worst. All of them act like they stormed the beaches at Iwo Jima single handedly even though most of the ones I know never served in actual combat. So as far as I’m concerned, you basically joined a big fraternity that let you play with guns for a few years.
Two of the Moms in my son’s day care class got graduate degrees from Harvard, and both were just like this- ALMOST (not quite) embarrassed to mention they went to Harvard, preferring to say they went to school “in Boston.”
Conan O’Brien said he’s always been reluctant to admit it. He said after he lost his first screen writing gig he hated filling out the unemployment forms because they’d always remind him he was the “unemployed HARVARD grad.”
Yep, I remember doing an internship where the manager always made sure to start any order with “oh, Hah-vud boy…” :rolleyes:
Conan did the pre-commencement day speech for the class of 2000 (commencement day usually gets some big shot, while the day before is more casual and usually humorous. We got Lani Guinier, big laffs), where he said, "you’re in for a lifetime of “And you went to Harvard?” Accidentally give the wrong amount of change in a transaction and it’s, “And you went to Harvard?” Ask the guy at the hardware store how these jumper cables work and hear, “And you went to Harvard?” Forget just once that your underwear goes inside your pants and it’s “and you went to Harvard.” Get your head stuck in your niece’s dollhouse because you wanted to see what it was like to be a giant and it’s “Uncle Conan, you went to Harvard!?”
Which is why, if you’re smart, you never tell anyone.