Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

What is it like to be poor at an Ivy League school?

bostonglobe.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 154 posts

Re: What is it like to be poor at an Ivy League school?

#21

Post by mc32 »

stegosaurus wrote: post #9

I attended an elite UK university having had a poor upbringing. This article reads painfully to me. I don't have the words to describe why, but I can try. The closest I can come is to say that this idea of inclusiveness is terminally broken. It's a sort of bandage over a huge chasm of differences. For a poor person to become wealthy requires them to discard their baggage. Change the accent, the clothes, the pop cultu…

I dunno. I went to a state uni and worked my way thru school. Yeah I get it, there were times your feel out of place. People able to go to nice places during holidays, etc. But my god, I didn't feel inferior just because I could not afford those things. Sure there were times dates consisted of taking a trip on mass transit somewhere you have never been just to see what's there.

But hell, you're going to school so you can make a better living in the future and afford some comfort later. I think the issue is you have to feel sure of yourself and not let peer envy infiltrate your thinking.

I also had no misgivings about asking for professor time --that's what they were there for.

I think you feel out of place if you somehow believe you must conform to the in crowd. I never liked joining formal groups etc. It's antithetical to me, even when I agree or have commonality with a group because ultimately it's you against the world and no ones going to help.

Re: What is it like to be poor at an Ivy League school?

#22

Post by HarryHirsch »

impendia wrote: post #12
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #11

This resonated with me - a poor farm kid from Iowa going to Stanford. I had my student loan plus zilch. Other students were off to Hawaii for vacation. Me, I had to bum a place to stay over breaks when the dorms were closed. I never asked questions; never used any tutors or talked to a professor; never studied in groups. It was a lonely life.

> I never asked questions; never used any tutors or talked to a professor; I am a professor (albeit at a non-elite university). How do I persuade students such as yourself to ask questions, to use tutors, to show up to office hours, and to talk to me?

25 years ago, at my university, the first thing in the first lecture the professor said was to form study groups. Those who didn't would feel the loneliness and pressure too overwhelming and would drop out. This was over on the old continent, not in America.

This is asking the students to show initiative, I don't know how well that would work with contemporary American kids.

Re: What is it like to be poor at an Ivy League school?

#23

Post by stegosaurus »

mc32 wrote: post #21
stegosaurus wrote: post #9

I attended an elite UK university having had a poor upbringing. This article reads painfully to me. I don't have the words to describe why, but I can try. The closest I can come is to say that this idea of inclusiveness is terminally broken. It's a sort of bandage over a huge chasm of differences. For a poor person to become wealthy requires them to discard their baggage. Change the accent, the clothes, the pop cultu…

I dunno. I went to a state uni and worked my way thru school. Yeah I get it, there were times your feel out of place. People able to go to nice places during holidays, etc. But my god, I didn't feel inferior just because I could not afford those things. Sure there were times dates consisted of taking a trip on mass transit somewhere you have never been just to see what's there. But hell, you're going to school so you…

Ah, but you see, that's my point.

It's not inferiority, or lack of confidence. I didn't 'feel' out of place. I was out of place - the whole thing was out of place.

The article seems to focus on the 'bad', as if there's an injustice perpetrated against poor students.

But it doesn't work like that. The people just inhabit different worlds, the mutual understanding is limited, it requires effort rather than being automatic.

I would draw an analogy with being an immigrant. There's no real conspiracy, you're just different. Learning the local language, the customs, etc, will help you succeed. But in performing this act of assimilation, you lose a part of what was there before. The ones you left behind are different now.

I agree that not asking for professor time is just odd. I had no problem at all competing intellectually in my chosen field. It was just everything surrounding that.

Re: What is it like to be poor at an Ivy League school?

#24

Post by EliRivers »

impendia wrote: post #12
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #11

This resonated with me - a poor farm kid from Iowa going to Stanford. I had my student loan plus zilch. Other students were off to Hawaii for vacation. Me, I had to bum a place to stay over breaks when the dorms were closed. I never asked questions; never used any tutors or talked to a professor; never studied in groups. It was a lonely life.

> I never asked questions; never used any tutors or talked to a professor; I am a professor (albeit at a non-elite university). How do I persuade students such as yourself to ask questions, to use tutors, to show up to office hours, and to talk to me?

Make it explicit. Stand at the front, where you usually do (I presume), and say in a big loud voice that you are aware that many of the students in front of you are used to doing everything themselves, without help and without asking for help. And that this does not carry over and here the rules are different and they are now expected to ask questions and seek to discuss, even if they already understand, because an academic tutorial is not just extra lecture time, but a socratic expansion of understanding that every - EVERY - student benefits from, and leaves knowing more than they did when they went in.

You might (will) have to say it more than once, and very explicitly, because they are used to hearing well-meaning similar statements that they have learned to ignore. But just say it, explicitly. They're not stupid; just conditioned. Breaking through that conditioning is hard, so hard. The rich kids see your office-hours as a right (and, as I expect you know, see extensions on deadlines and arguing their grades up and being entitled to second chances as a right), the poor kids don't really believe they exist. Breaking that conditioning is possible, so long as you can see it to hit it.

Re: What is it like to be poor at an Ivy League school?

#25

Post by rhino369 »

mc32 wrote: post #21
stegosaurus wrote: post #9

I attended an elite UK university having had a poor upbringing. This article reads painfully to me. I don't have the words to describe why, but I can try. The closest I can come is to say that this idea of inclusiveness is terminally broken. It's a sort of bandage over a huge chasm of differences. For a poor person to become wealthy requires them to discard their baggage. Change the accent, the clothes, the pop cultu…

I dunno. I went to a state uni and worked my way thru school. Yeah I get it, there were times your feel out of place. People able to go to nice places during holidays, etc. But my god, I didn't feel inferior just because I could not afford those things. Sure there were times dates consisted of taking a trip on mass transit somewhere you have never been just to see what's there. But hell, you're going to school so you…

State university will have a lot more middle class people. And this whole issue isn't just money but also class. A broke middle class person fits in better than a child of a the lower class.

I imagine it is even worse in the UK where there is a much more rigid social structure.

Re: What is it like to be poor at an Ivy League school?

#26

Post by [deleted] »

stegosaurus wrote: post #9

I attended an elite UK university having had a poor upbringing. This article reads painfully to me. I don't have the words to describe why, but I can try. The closest I can come is to say that this idea of inclusiveness is terminally broken. It's a sort of bandage over a huge chasm of differences. For a poor person to become wealthy requires them to discard their baggage. Change the accent, the clothes, the pop cultu…

[deleted]

Re: What is it like to be poor at an Ivy League school?

#27

Post by jheriko »

stegosaurus wrote: post #9

I attended an elite UK university having had a poor upbringing. This article reads painfully to me. I don't have the words to describe why, but I can try. The closest I can come is to say that this idea of inclusiveness is terminally broken. It's a sort of bandage over a huge chasm of differences. For a poor person to become wealthy requires them to discard their baggage. Change the accent, the clothes, the pop cultu…

Its hard to take the article very seriously from the title, but it does make for a slightly cringeworthy read.

As someone from a very poor background (actual poor - starving in africa poor, not US overprivileged 'I can eat for free out of bins' poor, but this is all relative...) I can sympathise somewhat too.

I agree with the point made here in this comment- personally, I never felt like I had the kind of disadvantages described in this article, and I'm sure its partly because I pass very well for an upper middle-class man thanks to a spiffing british accent I inherited from my mother - and partly down to a tremendous effort socially. I've always presented my background as exotic and interesting rather than woeful and sympathy-worthy.

All that being said, I am now doing quite well and earn a considerable amount of money, but still always find myself broke at the end of the month... its shameful.

A very rich man once said to me that if you act like a rich person eventually you would find yourself to be rich... I think there is an element of truth in that.

Re: What is it like to be poor at an Ivy League school?

#28

Post by yitchelle »

stegosaurus wrote: post #9

I attended an elite UK university having had a poor upbringing. This article reads painfully to me. I don't have the words to describe why, but I can try. The closest I can come is to say that this idea of inclusiveness is terminally broken. It's a sort of bandage over a huge chasm of differences. For a poor person to become wealthy requires them to discard their baggage. Change the accent, the clothes, the pop cultu…

> For a poor person to become wealthy requires them to discard their baggage. Change the accent, the clothes, the pop culture references, the 'back home...' stories. Avoid the discussions about parents. The list goes on.

I feel terribly sad that I read this statement. Sure, you would want to discard your baggage have a better life for yourself and your family, and increasing your financial wealth will help you get there. However, it should not be the other way around. Becoming wealthy should not because of what you are discarding. Changing does not always means discarding.

Re: What is it like to be poor at an Ivy League school?

#30

Post by spiritplumber »

dsp1234 wrote: post #20
stegosaurus wrote: post #9

I attended an elite UK university having had a poor upbringing. This article reads painfully to me. I don't have the words to describe why, but I can try. The closest I can come is to say that this idea of inclusiveness is terminally broken. It's a sort of bandage over a huge chasm of differences. For a poor person to become wealthy requires them to discard their baggage. Change the accent, the clothes, the pop cultu…

I too also grew up poor, but find myself in a position where I have a very nice job, and I also have a hard time articulating to other's how warped I feel about money/status/etc. The best I've ever found is John Cheese's Cracked articles on the topic which I felt were almost like he was writing from inside of my head. http://www.cracked.com/blog/the-5-stupidest-habits-you-devel... http://www.cracked.com/blog/the-5-st…

"The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.

Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.

But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.

This was the Captain Samuel Vimes 'Boots' theory of socioeconomic unfairness."

Good shoes will save you money if you can put in the initial investment :)

Post reply on HN