They demolished Big Harrington? I’d have thought I’d have noticed. And really, there are worse places to be than the Blocker basement.
On the other hand, the place isn’t exactly liberal/fine arts friendly. If you’re an engineering, business, science or Ag major of some kind, it’s pretty great. If you’re not, then it can be sort of a trial, I gather. (wouldn’t know personally; CS graduate 1996 here)
Oh lord. I keep my eye on a discussion board for students who are freaking about college admissions. This general topic (who is best, what makes a place best, what should you count in ranking college, and how much weight should you put on each factor) provides the fodder for probably 60% of the threads there.
Most of the things that go into worldwide rankings give very short shrift to things that might tap into undergraduate “quality” (a pretty squishy concept in itself). Which is why this is such great debate fodder, I guess.
wolfman, for the record, I was perfectly satisfied with your first answer. 
Harvard is, arguably, the second finest university in the whole of Cambridge, Massachusetts.
I agree. The Cambridge School Of Culinary Arts produces some very well-rounded chefs.
I was talking about the other #150. 
I attended undergrad at Korea University. I’m assuming you’re talking about A&M?
I have degrees from 2 colleges on the list, and interned at a 3rd. I feel very edumacated.
Yeah.
Are they so concerned about students getting into American schools that they teach the TOEFL?
Seems to me that any money spent doing that would be better spent fortifying and building your own country’s graduate schools.
My school isn’t on the list but was generally agreed, in Japan, to be better than it’s competitor Waseda, which is #158 on the list.
Personally I’m quite happy with my choice for college. I learned a foreign language, the history of a different nation, etc. and it was a nice campus with some good teachers. Going to a foreign nation to study will probably be of more worth to most people than getting into a more highly ranked school–unless they’re looking to get into research.
(The name, International Christian University, is a bit of a misnomer. Outside of having a chapel on campus and requiring you to take one introduction to Christianity class, there was zip to do with religion in the curiculum. The area was nice as well.)
As I’ve mentioned before, I’m kind of obsessive about how wonderful University of Michigan is. I had very high expectations–wanted to attend since I was 9 years old. What blew me away about the place was how much diversity takes center stage in the curriculum–living in a town with a single black kid and a dude with a Latino-sounding last name, I was starving to learn about other cultures.
We have 50,000 students, so the statistical probability of meeting someone you like among your peers is quite high. Classroom sessions (at least in my humanities courses) have always been incredibly dynamic.
I didn’t realize what a great education I got in Spanish per se until I started chatting with other Spanish majors in other schools. They told me their education had focused predominantly on grammar, and that they’d sort of sometimes read books, but that they were rare and quite difficult to read. They weren’t familiar with things that I would consider basic and fundamental to the understanding of Latin American culture, such as, um, Hernán Cortés.
My Spanish language education focused almost entirely on literature and how it reflects issues like politics, economy, history and collective memory. Hell, I had a whole class on Federico García Lorca, another on modern surrealist Argentinean literature, and another on the socialist movement of Salvador Allende and the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile. I also had a course in which we read The Pedagogy of the Oppressed in Spanish, parallel to actually going out to the farm and actually teaching English to migrant populations in my home state.
I didn’t realize it at the time, but I got a damn good Spanish education. Any deficiencies I may have in speaking (and I do, I do) stem directly from my reluctance to participate in class for several years–and of course, the fact that there’s really only one way to completely and thoroughly learn a language.
Classes at U of M have always been incredibly engaging and just downright fun to me. I get to learn about all sorts of shit I normally wouldn’t. The approach is ‘‘interdisciplinary’’ in a lot of cases–one philosophy course I took earned me a Race and Ethnicity credit.
And then there is the stuff you can learn outside of class–the campus is saturated with opportunities to learn new shit. Attend this lecture with Noam Chomsky, participate in this cross-cultural discussion about foreign policy in Afghanistan, go learn to salsa dance, whatever. There’s never a lack of opportunity in research, education, or entertainment. My graduation commencement address was delivered by former President Bill Clinton for chrissake. Michigan is the fucking bomb.
I admit one thing that may have skewed my perception is my particular program–the Residential College, which cuts class sizes down to about 12 and contains a comprehensive language immersion program that includes a 5-hour language proficiency exam you must pass in order to graduate. We also had our own classrooms, theater, art studios, and music practice rooms, built right into the dorm. A bunch of damn hippies, we were.
But I’ve heard some arrogant-ass freshman RC students talking about how they’re worried the regular LSA language classes won’t be enough of a ‘‘challenge’’ now that they’ve completed the RC requirements. :rolleyes: The truth is, the general LSA language courses are just as good–we have a whole building full of classrooms for language students. It is called, fittingly, the Modern Language Building.
Maybe I’m naive. Maybe every college is like this. If it is, I don’t see how people can ever bitch about going to school.
Well, they want to be a “global” school, whatever the hell that means. Nowadays being fluent in English is a huge plus in Korea if you’re looking for a job. The ironic part is that the KU library keeps all its English language books in a seperate room that you’re not allowed to browse and can only borrow books from through a written request. :rolleyes: Doesn’t seem too global to me.
I amen this - exactly what I was going to say. I’d add “best” is going to be location centered too. A school in a Major world city (London, DC, NYC) just offers an astounding number of life and internship opportunities that a school, in say State College PA or Lincoln NE, isn’t going to be able to offer. OTOH does that matter if someone grew up in the Bronx and has a major that doesn’t need an internship? Nope. But in cases that it does, I can the greatest medical research Uni on earth ranked low because the Communication, Design, Political Science and fashion Majors can’t get placed