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The Disadvantages of an Elite Education

theamericanscholar.org

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Re: The Disadvantages of an Elite Education

#21

Post by yef »

nostrademons wrote: post #20
yef wrote: post #18

My education taught me to believe that people who didn’t go to an Ivy League or equivalent school weren’t worth talking to, regardless of their class. I didn't go to an ivy league school, but is this generally accepted as true? Is this other people's experience, or is the author's opinion more of an outlier?

It's true but incomplete, in the way that so many written articles on the web are. If you explicitly went up to an Ivy League or top liberal arts student with the above quote, most of them would be disgusted. It's not like people walk around campus all day talking about how everyone else is inferior to them. Someone like that would probably be considered an antisocial boor. But the point about not having anything to…

I dunno. Something doesn't quite add up to me. There are certain topics that all people like to talk about, regardless of how they think. Knowing those topics reveals certain tricks to talking to different people. "Ask the expert", where you compliment someone on their skill or knowledge (plumbing, say) and then ask them for more details, showing genuine interest as they talk. People who have kids or pets are also pretty easy to talk to, because they're proud and love to talk about them. Humor, sports, and local news also tend to break the ice.

So I'm truly curious what's at work behind this inability or unwillingness to talk to "the masses", as it were.

Re: The Disadvantages of an Elite Education

#22

Post by whacked_new »

cperciva wrote: post #9
swombat wrote: post #6

The problem begins when students are encouraged to forget this truth, when academic excellence becomes excellence in some absolute sense, when “better at X” becomes simply “better.” Interesting... I found the opposite. I went to Oxford University (as elite as it gets), with a head big as a balloon, and clearly thinking myself better than everyone. Four years in the presence of people whose intellect crushed me like a…

Oxford taught me that I'm a better computer scientist than I am a mathematician (or at least, that I'm better at algorithms than at algebraic number theory), but it didn't teach me humility. I realized that intelligence has nothing to do with being a better person when I came up against the apparent contradiction that all of the fascinating people I enjoyed talking to were far less intelligent than myself. :-)

How do far less intelligent people fascinate you? Is it because they know something that you don't, and/or are able to see things in ways that are new to you? Or perhaps they are less concerned about evaluating the level (in anything) of the other party?

If I was sitting next to Tiger Woods I would probably talk very little about golf, knowing that we share little in common in that area and would make for a very one-way conversation. Perhaps, then, it would appear that I have interesting things to say, although the whole time I am a golf idiot (or sports idiot, or math idiot, whatever).

Or is it something different?

Re: The Disadvantages of an Elite Education

#24

Post by mattchew »

I second the "surprisingly good" comment. I have one friend who managed to get into the Ivy League and come out with a law degree. A lot of what was said in the article reminds me of him.

Having excessively high expectations for his kids (or, you could say, excessively narrow) is the worst of it. I want to tell him, you have three kids, odds are they are not all going to be Ivy League scholars. But he can't imagine any other future for them. Going to be rough on him and his kids alike, I'm afraid.

Re: The Disadvantages of an Elite Education

#25

Post by coglethorpe »

One thing I've learned is that there are many people like the plumber mentioned in the article that do better than many Ivy League grads financially. I know one person who has a two-year degree, worked as an electrician, and built his business to where he's one of the wealthiest people I personally know. Another sold his junk yard (which made him good money for years) for over a million. According to the book "The Millionaire Mind" there's plenty of folks like that and just as many graduates of big schools who live paycheck to paycheck to show how "rich" they are.

Re: The Disadvantages of an Elite Education

#26

Post by nostrademons »

yef wrote: post #21
nostrademons wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's true but incomplete, in the way that so many written articles on the web are. If you explicitly went up to an Ivy League or top liberal arts student with the above quote, most of them would be disgusted. It's not like people walk around campus all day talking about how everyone else is inferior to them. Someone like that would probably be considered an antisocial boor. But the point about not having anything to…

I dunno. Something doesn't quite add up to me. There are certain topics that all people like to talk about, regardless of how they think. Knowing those topics reveals certain tricks to talking to different people. "Ask the expert", where you compliment someone on their skill or knowledge (plumbing, say) and then ask them for more details, showing genuine interest as they talk. People who have kids or pets are also pr…

I think many people at Ivy League colleges don't know how to talk about those topics, or aren't interested in them. ;-)

I certainly didn't when I went to college, though I try to practice when I get a chance now. And I remember many of my classmates expressing an uncomfortableness with smalltalk when I got to freshman orientation. "I'd rather talk about God or philosophy or Plato or quantum physics than the weather or sports results," I heard many people say.

Remember there's a bit of selection bias at work here: people who like to learn about and talk about academic things tend to do well in academics, which is how they got into Ivy League colleges in the first place.

Re: The Disadvantages of an Elite Education

#27

Post by davi »

For the "searchers" there are other, better schools than those of the Ivy League. I still wish I had gone to one of them.

Less seriously, but maybe relatedly: Steve Jobs dropped out of Reed; Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard.

Re: The Disadvantages of an Elite Education

#28

Post by mechanical_fish »

whacked_new wrote: post #22
cperciva wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oxford taught me that I'm a better computer scientist than I am a mathematician (or at least, that I'm better at algorithms than at algebraic number theory), but it didn't teach me humility. I realized that intelligence has nothing to do with being a better person when I came up against the apparent contradiction that all of the fascinating people I enjoyed talking to were far less intelligent than myself. :-)

How do far less intelligent people fascinate you? Is it because they know something that you don't, and/or are able to see things in ways that are new to you? Or perhaps they are less concerned about evaluating the level (in anything) of the other party? If I was sitting next to Tiger Woods I would probably talk very little about golf, knowing that we share little in common in that area and would make for a very one-…

If I was sitting next to Tiger Woods I would probably talk very little about golf...

If I sat next to Tiger Woods I would talk about the weather and the menu for a minute or two, but then I'd certainly introduce the topic of golf and see what happened. It could be that Tiger loves nothing more than to talk about golf. He is freakishly obsessed with golf, after all.

The result might turn out to be a "one-way conversation". So what? People really like to talk about the things they love. If you listen intently and ask questions that indicate you're following along, they'll love you for it, even if the questions are basic.

The secret is to be alert for signs that your conversation partner is trying to change the subject. If I ask Tiger about golf and he responds with a few quick sentences and then asks about the music that's playing on the radio it's probably time to talk about something else.

Re: The Disadvantages of an Elite Education

#29

Post by bocajuniors »

swombat wrote: post #6

The problem begins when students are encouraged to forget this truth, when academic excellence becomes excellence in some absolute sense, when “better at X” becomes simply “better.” Interesting... I found the opposite. I went to Oxford University (as elite as it gets), with a head big as a balloon, and clearly thinking myself better than everyone. Four years in the presence of people whose intellect crushed me like a…

a couple of years ago i saw an academic ranking of british universities.sheffield was the best with oxford and cambridge around 20th place. so maybe you're right that oxford is different from yale

Re: The Disadvantages of an Elite Education

#30

Post by Frocer »

I agree with many things said in this article, but there are many plus sides of "elite" education that shouldn't be overlooked.

For instance, I am going to generalize here, but most people I know coming out of these "elite" schools are more driven. My only explanation is that drive is what got them into these school in the first place. And being surrounded by driven and smart people who aren't afraid to challenge conventional wisdom is by far the biggest advantage in my opinion

Disclaimer: I went to a public university for a year before I transferred to an Ivy League school.

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