The Disadvantages of an Elite Education (2008) • Hacker News Board

Re: The Disadvantages of an Elite Education (2008)

#81

Post by Mz » Fri, Dec 23, 2016, 5:36 AM UTC

gnicholas wrote: post #75

Mz wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I know, my scholarship was not portable. It was specifically for one university and when I failed to attend, no, I did not get to keep my scholarship. No one gave me an extra kicker. I turned my scholarship down for personal reasons, not because I was bought out by some competing school.

At the time when I was in the NMS pipeline, if you listed a school that you wanted to attend when you took the PSAT/NMSQT, that school would give you the scholarship if you became a finalist. The best idea was to say "undecided" and to maintain the ability to designate any school once committed. My older brother learned this the hard way—he listed a school (October of junior year) that he decided (April of senior yea…

I am 51. Age 17 was long ago and far away. I have no idea how it worked.

Re: The Disadvantages of an Elite Education (2008)

#82

Post by gragas » Fri, Dec 23, 2016, 5:39 AM UTC

nickonline wrote: post #77

gragas wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always wondered what it'd be like to go to Stanford and then just end up at Facebook or Google, alongside many state-school graduates. Would it be a massive let down? Sure, you might have learned more at Stanford than at your peers' state schools, but you are only using as much of your education as your peers are using.

'just'?

How is it not "just" ending up at Facebook or Google when you could've BS'd your way through high school, gone to a mediocre state school, and landed a new-grad position at one of those companies? Stanford or X State University, suddenly all of those years mean nothing and new graduates of both schools come to the same starting blocks, only this time at a massive software company where tens of thousands of others follow suit.

Sounds like a let down to me.

Re: The Disadvantages of an Elite Education (2008)

#83

Post by sidek » Fri, Dec 23, 2016, 5:39 AM UTC

dibstern wrote: post #14

These aren't the disadvantages of an elite education, it's the disadvantages of not having sufficient breadth of experiences with people from a sufficient breadth of social-economic backgrounds. Get your kids to do extracurriculars where they'll meet kids from lower-income households. It'll make them able to relate to them and understand them better.

Yup. I go to an ivy and many of my best friends are construction workers or service workers who will likely never attend college. It's because I wasn't sheltered (nor particularly wealthy as a kid).

And when you're there, talk to people. Not just ones who will help you climb the social ladder in whatever elite clubs and orgs you want to join. People of all stripes. It's a much more diverse group in every way than the author describes.

Honestly it sounds like the author was elitist and sheltered as a kid. And now they've realised this, but have decided to blame it on their university rather than deal with the fact that it was their own personal fault.

Re: The Disadvantages of an Elite Education (2008)

#84

Post by Mz » Fri, Dec 23, 2016, 5:42 AM UTC

yummyfajitas wrote: post #46

Mz wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brits also are much more okay with embracing the idea that there are separate classes. Americans like to think we are better than that and (like to imagine that we) treat all people in some idealized egalitarian fashion. In practice, it is a lot, lot harder to treat everyone equally well and try to ignore class divides than to have protocols in place for bridging the gap between people explicitly of different classes…

It's entertaining how far we in the states go in denying we have classes. Some years back a blogger tried to cook up a taxonomy of our class system. Since we don't have words to describe them he adopted archaic Indian terms instead. Brahmins are the NY/CA elite, Vaisyas are the Trump voting worker caste, etc. https://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2007/05/castes... Other writers have recognized and described i…

Mz is not for a caste system. I am homeless and the top woman on hn.

Viva the difficult American social non system.

Re: The Disadvantages of an Elite Education (2008)

#85

Post by ovibos » Fri, Dec 23, 2016, 5:43 AM UTC

SmooL wrote: post #52

I would think that it goes without saying that higher education is not the 'be all end all' in overall 'life' education. While I don't believe the author is directly incorrect in his claims of of university behavior/culture, I feel like most of the 'disadvantages' he lists are of his own decisions, whereas for a lot of people they are forced. 'Yet it is precisely that opportunity that an elite education takes away. H…

Sure, but I think that the self imposed barriers the author talks about may be more common in ivy league graduates.

Re: The Disadvantages of an Elite Education (2008)

#86

Post by stanfordkid » Fri, Dec 23, 2016, 5:44 AM UTC

dlo wrote: post #62

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hm. I went to Stanford. Famous for diverse, risk-taking non-mediocre graduates. I guess its the exception that proves the rule?

I went to Stanford, and I disagree. Sure, there are exceptions, but most fellow alumni I know are very boring. For example, many live in San Francisco, work for Facebook or Google, and do little of note besides the following: - have an "interesting" hobby - work out at the gym - hang out with friends at the bar or club - work on their career - start a "start-up" - travel - ... other very self-serving pursuits Most re…

Frankly, I'd be disappointed if mob justice prevailed in the case that you highlight above. Stanford hired a (presumably) competent lawyer to investigate the case and found the accused's case to be more compelling.

Nothing I have seen in the case indicates anything beyond a large amount of awkwardness and lack of comfort. Most of the evidence that she was actually discriminated against with regards to tenure is entirely circumstantial.

Having been intimately involved with these systems while at Stanford I have seen how cunningly many intelligent people at these institutions co-opt and leverage the prevalently liberal political attitudes towards race and gender issues for personal motivations, interests and grievances.

In fact I served as a residence assistant and witnessed someone who is now a very prominent politician wrongly accuse one of our students of racial discrimination. Having known the accused student ... I knew for a fact that no discrimination was involved. The student that made the accusation instantly leveraged the incident on several public forums to build political and social capital. His entire persona was based around "fighting racial oppression" -- even when said oppression was constructed purely for personal gain.

Re: The Disadvantages of an Elite Education (2008)

#87

Post by phamilton » Fri, Dec 23, 2016, 5:47 AM UTC

kalid wrote: post #78

Much of this resonated with me. One of the biggest lessons of my Ivy-league education was, paradoxically, that it wasn't sufficient (or even necessary). At least not for the goals I wanted. If you want access to the elite Wall St. or consulting jobs, then yes, you need it. Once you're in, it's almost impossible to be kicked out. Finish, interview, and you're on the path. But I had longstanding doubts about the state…

> "Roughly, what do you think 2^512 to be?"

Instantly I spit out "a 4 followed by 153 zeros"

Now... looking it up it's actually more like a 13 followed by 153 zeros.

Re: The Disadvantages of an Elite Education (2008)

#88

Post by danharaj » Fri, Dec 23, 2016, 5:48 AM UTC

kalid wrote: post #78

Much of this resonated with me. One of the biggest lessons of my Ivy-league education was, paradoxically, that it wasn't sufficient (or even necessary). At least not for the goals I wanted. If you want access to the elite Wall St. or consulting jobs, then yes, you need it. Once you're in, it's almost impossible to be kicked out. Finish, interview, and you're on the path. But I had longstanding doubts about the state…

The link you provided seems to omit the fact that i^i is multi-valued, which is a consequence of a fundamental property of the logarithm.

Re: The Disadvantages of an Elite Education (2008)

#89

Post by danharaj » Fri, Dec 23, 2016, 5:51 AM UTC

smallnamespace wrote: post #58

yummyfajitas wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's entertaining how far we in the states go in denying we have classes. Some years back a blogger tried to cook up a taxonomy of our class system. Since we don't have words to describe them he adopted archaic Indian terms instead. Brahmins are the NY/CA elite, Vaisyas are the Trump voting worker caste, etc. https://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2007/05/castes... Other writers have recognized and described i…

The fear of recognizing a caste system is that once you use words to describe something, the words themselves become a tool to reinforce and then codify that system. I mean, India itself seems to be a prototypical example of that.

On the contrary, without the words to describe such structures, they remain hidden from discourse and direct criticism. This protects the implicit structures by rendering them unassailable by democratic processes.

Re: The Disadvantages of an Elite Education (2008)

#90

Post by wyager » Fri, Dec 23, 2016, 6:04 AM UTC

dlo wrote: post #62

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hm. I went to Stanford. Famous for diverse, risk-taking non-mediocre graduates. I guess its the exception that proves the rule?

I went to Stanford, and I disagree. Sure, there are exceptions, but most fellow alumni I know are very boring. For example, many live in San Francisco, work for Facebook or Google, and do little of note besides the following: - have an "interesting" hobby - work out at the gym - hang out with friends at the bar or club - work on their career - start a "start-up" - travel - ... other very self-serving pursuits Most re…

> and do little of note besides the following:

What do you think the average person in the world does? 99.9% of people are even more boring than the person you described. It's hard to find people who are more interesting than that.

> other very self-serving pursuits

There's no relationship between boringness and self-centeredness. It sounds like you might be incorrectly conflating "boring" with your own definition of "meaningless" (in a moral sense). I don't think charity work is likely to be less boring than any "self-serving" interest.