61–70 of 96 posts
Indeed I do. MIT grads are automatically understood as smart. I can often convince people after a few minutes of conversation, but I do not always get those minutes.
I wouldn't say I've felt inferior. I've occasionally felt significant regret over my collegiate decision. But then I remember that most such people wind up paying $200k more than I did to go to college. Going to an MIT or Harvard might have gotten me somewhat better connections and opportunities, but it is difficult to see those as adding up to that large of a difference.
Rarely do most people who go to top schools pay full price. Only those from extremely wealthy families do. All (yes, all) the top schools are need-blind, meaning they don't look at your financial situation when deciding whether to accept you. A few of them (Stanford, Harvard I think) are offering completely free tuition if your parents make less than $100k. For other situations, you typically would get around 75% of…
The fact that you have to state that shows there is an issue with information.
I scored really high my SAT/ACT (and again on my GRE I scored perfect in 2 of the 3 categories - in English I was weaker). But I didn't grow up with friends/family who went to top schools, and growing up in eastern kentucky, my public school didn't let me know that I should be applying to "good" schools.
I think that many computer geeks grow up having a hard time fitting in at school, so they don't think that they have what it takes to go to the elite schools - especially if that geeks grows up poor in a rural setting.
It doesn't matter at all where you went to college, or even if you went to college. Sure, graduating from Harvard offers some short-term advantages, but if you're motivated you can take the lead. Consider how much time in college is wasted studying minutia for a competitive exam that has no impact on learning. Consider how much of college is often spent stressing about stupid deadlines that really don't matter or faw…
i think it depends on the department. some smaller departments at top schools are fairly elitist in their admissions, mostly since they're based so heavily on recommendation letters. if you didn't go to a top undergrad institution, chances are they don't know who your letter writers are and might not give as much weight to your letters or application. just speculation, tho :)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Having lived in both the US and the UK, I'd observe that the prestige of one's university counts for MUCH more in the UK. To an American it is unbelieveable how much Brits focus on where they went to school (at all levels) rather than their abilities--and they are correct to do so, because other Brits use schools and universities as vital credentials. It's an aspect of the class system in the UK which doesn't exist i…
Yes, Brits may put more focus on which university you go to, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing. In the UK, getting into Oxbridge is nowhere near as difficult as getting into Harvard, Yale, Princeton. There are 24,000 undergraduate spots at Oxbridge for 60 million Brits, compared to 17,000 spots at HYP for 300 million Americans. Also, the application criteria at Oxbridge is far simpler. It is based entirely on ac…
From what your saying, that makes Oxbridge rather attractive for many people on this site, who were never interested in being "well-rounded" just for the sake of university admission.
I hardly goto an inferior college(UNC-Chapel Hill). But I am studying what is considered an inferior major (communications). I love it! When I tell my friend of my major, they roll their eyes in disbelief. But then I tell them of all my classes with the basketball players and they are quickly envying me:) That aside, I am studying rhetorical studies and truly enjoy it!
I hardly goto an inferior college(UNC-Chapel Hill). But I am studying what is considered an inferior major (communications). I love it! When I tell my friend of my major, they roll their eyes in disbelief. But then I tell them of all my classes with the basketball players and they are quickly envying me:) That aside, I am studying rhetorical studies and truly enjoy it!
Here is the comment you're referring to: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=645316 I want to add that even if you personally don't feel inferior about it, you'll probably still feel something when you know someone else is judging you for it. And of course, sometimes it doesn't even matter how you feel. You are at a disadvantage regardless. As I said in the other thread, college degrees today are titles of nobility b…
You're not here to fish for acceptance by pleasing people in random positions of prestige. If you feel inferior, the quest is to learn to ignore it and find your own worth yourself. Then nothing can make you feel like crap because you know better anyway. Nobody needs to feel like crap because he didn't go to institution X, Y, or Z. (And because of many other things as well.)
You also don't need each and every possible advantage to yourself as if you couldn't make it otherwise. You just need enough and if you know enough to be able to help people, you'll surely get them.
It never ends. Even at a "Name Brand" school you're still looking up at Harvard-Princeton-Yale. If you're there, you're looking up at the Rhodes scholars, valedictorians, and the "stars" of each department. You have to remember that once you go to some top-rated school, you're suddenly in an environment where everyone goes to that school, and it stops being special. Set goals that will get you to a place where you ca…
Oxbridge > Red brick university (old) > ex-Polytechnic
This could be changed of course, but the things that the Oxbridge and red bricks do so well is the networking. The societies, the sticking together, the essence of "you must be thoroughly decent and clever because I experienced that system and you did too", except the entry requirement was not smarts but whether you could afford to fund yourself through and could get through the entry requirements.
I say it could be changed because I see similar power of networks in smaller social nets. For example I see cyclists online have a great bond with other cyclists and a very strong bias towards other cyclists... to the degree of giving work to cyclists based on no other criteria than those people appearing to be qualified (but many thousands of others are) and exist in the pre-requisite community (belong to a cycling community).
So the class system can be thought of as exclusive social networks. The education itself is not the measure here, it's whether you are in the network or not.
Why this opens it to change is that the network they are in has to be exclusive, and so would a replacement, but it changes by you working with those you went to college with to build your own networks and positively discriminate towards each other. To the degree that if you have 2 candidates in front of you and 1 is MIT and one is you opt for your college or fellow institute over MIT.
Basically... you do have means to weaken the influence class system by discriminating positively towards your social network. Just standing by and bitching that you (not the poster, but general "you") don't belong to the advantaged network isn't going to help you, and you can't become a member of that network... you can just build a new network and make it strong.
I've perhaps over-simplified a hell of a lot of this post... it's early and I'm hungover.
I usually try not to compare myself to others too much (too many variables in life experiences make such comparisons difficult anyway). But if anything, I feel superior for having accomplished what I have with graduating from a "no-name-brand" school.
I am motivated to try harder at work because I feel like I'm fighting for all smaller school graduates in a company full of Stanford, Berkeley, MIT, Illinois, Harvard, CMU, and Michigan grads. I also ensure that everybody knows where I came from with a huge Razorback flag on my wall.
I go to a "name brand" college (Carnegie Mellon, you can disagree if you'd like) and there are LOTS of CS majors who don't know anything. Likewise I've worked with people from state schools who know exactly what they're doing. Anyone who associates eliteness with where an undergrad degree was obtained is wrong. The only plus side to name-brand colleges is well known professors, but most of learning is self-motivation…
That was my impression of ECE at Purdue University (a top 10 graduate school at the time, unsure of undergrad ranking). Most undergrads were incapable of functioning as engineers. I taught two different senior-level courses while I was there. The top students were excellent, as you would expect. The rest hobbled along. I had seniors who couldn't approximate the gain of an op-amp or make a common-emitter amplifier. Not one of the senior design students bothered to simulate their circuits before building them (and frying them). They had no idea how to test a circuit once they built it.
I actually credit the undergrads' ineptitude to the curriculum. Purdue has lots of classroom instruction but very few labs. I had approximately double the number of labs as an undergrad at the University of Arkansas. Even the worst students were capable of building and testing a circuit, whereas the Purdue students would expect the TA to do their testing for them.