Why do you have to use smilies in every fucking post? It’s fucking annoying as hell. Are you not capable of saying what you need to say without having to have a smiley face at the end?
Yes? I’m not sure what this question means. I went there because I wanted a rigorous education and because I was hoping the reputation would help me start a successful career. I imagine that’s true for most people who choose these schools. It’s easy to say you don’t buy into elitist bullshit but it’s a lot harder when you’ve got an admissions letter in your hand.
In the classroom, it wasn’t much different than my public school education. But it was a fantastic irony to study social work at an Ivy League school. What a trip, that the system created us to try to change the system that created us. I learned so much about established institutions, privilege, power, cultural and ideological conflict - in textbooks, yes, but more often in just watching what was happening around me.
Was it worth it? I still don’t know. I think my greatest mistake was honestly believing I couldn’t get a better education anywhere else. In a way I feel proud, and in another way I feel like a damned idiot.
Hippy, you’re right. I did work hard and am not ashamed of having attended a snooty pants university. I also went to a shitacular high school (think “Boyz in the Hood” – no really, that was my school) and am proud of that too. I don’t purposely avoid using the “S” word due to other people’s insecurities. As I said earlier, the reactions are generally positive, with a few knuckleheads here and there who ask me if I think I’m something, or defensively insist they could have gone there too. Great, insecure douche, that is terrific. Slightly less annoying is when they’re not outright hostile, but expect me to be able to build a space ship from scratch on the spot. Mainly harmless, sure, but annoying.
But anyway, yeah, I don’t dance around it for the handful of douches; honestly, I am trying to head off the 10 minute Q&A that frequently follows. “Did you know Chelsea Clinton?” “Is everyone there a genius?” “Are you a genius?” “Do nerds know how to party?” People, for the last time, the answer to all of these questions is no.
Edit: Also, like olives, I must keep it real. A huge part of me when I was accepted said, “Excellent. I get to be rich after I graduate!” Might have worked had I not majored in English. :smack:
Bah, past the edit window.
Another edit: I realize olives didn’t say “rich;” she said “successful career.” When I was 17, though, the two terms were synonymous, largely because growing up poor and in a poor neighborhood you’re told repeatedly, from the day you walk into pre-school, that college, especially a name brand one, was a golden ticket. With that in mind, high school was devoted entirely to doing what I believed was necessary to get into a name brand school, which would then lead to a good (i.e. high-paying) job after graduated, which, of course, equated happiness. I asked the Stanford admissions officer point blank what, exactly, she wanted to see on an application, then I emulated that. I was happy with and proud of myself when I got in and got out. Regrettably, I treated high school and college as a means to an end rather a learning experience, under that mindset, but what are we gonna do.
So in answer to your question “Why go there?” a huge part of my reason is because I was told I was supposed to if I wanted to be happy. I am happy, but for different reasons entirely.
MOL-College IS a means to an end! And most successful people ARE rich! (or at least upper-middle class).
Huh? Could you explain what your standard of success is?
My standard-Make enough money, at the job they want/were trained for, to live in a neighborhood they feel safe in, and have enough disposable income for basic luxuries. (cable TV, internet, vacations, nice car)
Help me understand this line of reasoning, please…college means success and success means money so in order to be successful one must attend college, but only if they then in turn make money, and then that money is spent on a nice car and cable tv because that also means success? So basically, if I have no interest in cable tv or a nice car, I shouldn’t bother going to college?
Someone should probably tell all those poor human service workers who live in impoverished, urban, “dangerous” neighborhoods and use public transportation that they aren’t successful.
FloatyGimpy, if you have a problem with another poster, take it to the Pit, don’t go off-topic in MPSIMS with your sniping.
Thanks,
twickster, MPSIMS moderator
Good for you! Still, it’s not brain surgery…
So one of the best things I learned in grad school was Albert Hirschmann’s concept of exit, voice, and loyalty. When things go tits up in organizations, people in the organization have the option of raising voice (think letters to management, protests, riots, etc.), exiting (think quitting, going on extended strike, refusing to communicate with those in the organizations), or loyalty - sort of voice, but with the added component of “sticking it out” to see it get better.
At any point when you are in an organization, you can exit. Drop out, transfer, whatever. But you didn’t, I didn’t, Mean Old Lady didn’t, and so on. So it must have done something good for us, or we’re kind of dumb for sticking it out.
I guess my biggest takeaway from studying education - and organizational behavior - at Harvard for seven years is that it isn’t that different from most universities, 90% of the time. Good to great faculty, dedicated students, challenging curricula, fancy buildings. As a higher ed researcher I visit a lot of campuses and once you’re in the door in classrooms or labs or offices, they look pretty much the same. People are doing the same things.
I will grant that that 10% variance is pretty amazing. It’s the classmates you encounter. In my time as a student, I counted as my classmates the following: a Masai warrior who is pegged to be the next prime minister of Kenya, the secretary of education in the Philippines, Oprah Magazine’s editor, and a trustee of Brown University. Pretty amazing individuals. And then there was the constant stream of world-famous figures on campus. It got to the point that I really didn’t give much attention if the Clintons were in town, because it was pretty much every three months or so. I regularly saw people like Cornel West and David Gergen around campus. I even saw Rivers Cuomo from Weezer in the yard once.
But I certainly wasn’t in a eating club, or whatever elite Harvard undergrads join that was in The Social Network. The grad experience is wholly different than undergrad, and I saw my tenure at Harvard as much as a job as I saw it as an enlightening educational experience. So maybe that’s why it doesn’t hold that great a mystique for me. And as others have noted, for all of its gravitas and reputation, you can throw a rock and hit a Harvard graduate in the Boston metroplex pretty easily.
Let me also let you in on something. Harvard has the extension school, which was right outside of my old office at the grad school of education. It’s an open enrollment institution. And yes, that means you can earn a degree or a credential at Harvard even if you had horrible SAT scores, or slept halfway through high school. (I admit to not knowing a whole lot about the extension school, besides the fact that it’s open enrollment.)
I admit my master’s degree was probably greatly influenced by the reputation of Harvard and what it would do for me professionally. But when I re-enrolled for my doctorate, I was there primarily because of the terrific relationships I had with so many of the faculty and staff there. In my speciality, I might have been better served going to a UCLA or Michigan or Penn State - and being in my field at Harvard meant that I didn’t have as robust connections through alumni and the like, but I absolutely thought it was the best choice considering the care I received. I got my fair amount of bullshit too, but that’s grad school, ain’t it?
I guess my thought is that graduate school is a different ball of wax. There are amazing researchers and theorists everywhere. One of my favorite, most admired researchers that I think has changed my subspecialty in profound ways is at CSU-Sacramento. I also know of plenty of bullshit artists that were Harvard educated (my university hired someone who became famous because she faked a shitload of her research). So I guess I’m not particularly impressed or unimpressed with most colleges I hear, at least in the U.S. I suppose when I meet a Cambridge or Oxford grad I am pretty impressed, but not so much that I can’t have a normal conversation and detect if the Oxbridge person is cool, a dick, or whatever. Point being, however I take that person aside from their human interaction with me is pretty much my deal and not theirs.
Heh. Well, that sentence tells me where you didn’t go, anyway. And yeah, after reading this thread, I feel rather more validated that I tell people I went to school in Boston. (Mostly, honestly, now that I live on the West Coast, because it comes up when I tell people I moved here because I got tired of Northeast winters. If someone asks me point-blank about my college, I’ll usually go ahead and tell them. If they just ask “where I went to school,” I’ll usually tell them my graduate school, both because it’s a little more relevant to my current life and because it’s less likely to lead to passive-aggressive digs.)
I have a joke, though!
A college student in Cambridge, MA gets into line at the grocery store express line with a whole grocery cart full of food. The old lady behind him says, “Okay, sonny, what’s the problem? You go to Harvard and can’t count, or MIT and can’t read?”
Oh, sure. I didn’t mean to imply that it wasn’t positive in many ways. I enjoyed my time there quite a bit. I learned a lot of great social worky stuff and had the chance to be with people who shared my values. In some ways going there restored my faith in humanity. But it was my fellow students who really made the biggest impression on me. They humbled me every day. And I think that’s one big advantage of going to a prestigious school - you really will be influenced by some exceptional people.
And I guess that’s my point, olives. Any conversation I have about Harvard quickly moves to a discussion about the incredible peers I met there. So it doesn’t stay about me very long, and I like sharing that aspect with folks. I guess I understand why it would be uncomfortable if the discussion is “me me me” but if it’s about “amazing classmates” it’s much easier, even enjoyable.
(And I don’t mean to imply that the only school with amazing peers is Harvard.)
This is it in a nutshell for me. If I actually want to have a discussion about the specific place where I went to school, then I say, “When I was at Northwestern…” I mean, if I’m talking about a college friend or something, I say “one of my Northwestern friends,” not “one of my Chicago school friends,” because that would sound idiotic.
But when I don’t want to specifically talk about NU, which is usually, and instead I just want to talk about some aspect of college life or living in the Chicago area, I say I went to school in Chicago and avoid all that stuff.
This is probably a lot of people’s definition, but there are some careers that may not pay well, but are rewarding and sought after, and therefore pretty competitive and tough to break into. If you have a Harvard education and connections, those can open a lot of doors for you. I’m sure I’m not alone here when I say I consider a fulfilling career whose pay scale is fine, but not stellar, to be successful.
MOL-Your example fulfills everything except the “luxuries” part.
Zombies went to school in Boston.
There was an article about this phenomenon in Slate back in May: People Still Say They “Went to College in Boston,” Meaning Harvard? Please Stop Doing This.
The Yale Alumni Magazine asked folks to comment on the article, and published a sidebar here: Sometimes, it’s hard to say “Yale”
A friend of mine was a legal secretary. One day she and an attorney were talking about how they were at Harvard at the same time but never knew each other. My friend’s boss, who had not previously known my friend was a Harvard grad, got her reassigned because–it’s all we can figure out–she didn’t want a secretary who had a degree from a better college than she did (attorney went to Smith). Up until that point everything had been fine between them.