Are Stanford Students Just (Really Excellent) Sheep?

> People hire college graduates because they have demonstrated that they can be given a list of work, and a criteria for how their work will be judged, and complete the work. That's it.

One of my professors (Dr. Mazumdar, NMT) had a saying about complexity theory: "A computer science degree will never get you a job, but it may keep you from getting fired."

Probably up until 1968.

"And there is nothing wrong with conforming. There is nothing wrong with wearing fashionable status symbols. There is nothing wrong with climbing hierarchies, nothing wrong with pleading for a comfortable life, or listening to what your friends think is cool. There really isn't. These are all suitable ways of enjoying your life."

There are important contextual distinctions that need to be addressed here. There is nothing wrong? That's as foolish as saying conformity isn't wrong. Right or wrong, it's not about the morality of it. It's about the message you're sending about yourself and your abilities.

A sheep needs to be guided, everyday and everywhere. If you're the kind of person that needs to be shown what's cool/interesting/important/not important/funny/stupid then ultimately you have no leadership abilities and I would never hire you for anything useful. It not only speaks volumes about your leadership abilities, but also about your self-confidence. You don't value your own personal views enough to act on them. You don't look/act/create with the belief that YOU know what you're doing.

If, at the end of the day, you find you're not very useful as your own body, then conforming is ultimately the best thing to do. I personally feel that anyone that tries to stop conforming and just act and be according to their own personality 100% won't fail though. You'll find your niche, and you'll dominate it.

You know you can say what you want, but I'm living for a year in a country where alcohol is illegal and quite frankly I think it's a detriment. Why? because alcohol helps fuel the rhythms of the week, where people are "on" during work days and "off" during the weekend. How? by making it acceptable to not be mentally in a state to do work outside of work hours.

Here the weekend means nothing. People work 6-7 days per week, and are always on. They lose the rhythm. Religion fills the void a bit with friday prayers an excuse to work less, but really.

You should be more grateful for what you've got... you benefit from a society that doesn't expect you to be on 7 days per week.

> A criticism that has sometimes been levelled at Stanford is that once you are admitted you can coast your way to graduation.

This is an odd criticism. While I was at Stanford, the school administrators were extremely concerned with a ubiquitous problem on campus called "Stanford Duck Syndrome": looking serene and peaceful above the surface, but underneath the water, paddling as hard as possible to keep from sinking.

You could say I was an academically-inclined kid. I started high school a year early. And during that year, I passed AP Calculus with the maximum score of 5. I studied for the SAT for a week, took it only once, and if I recall correctly scored in the 98th percentile. And finally, I matriculated at Stanford at age 16.

But still, Stanford was by a large margin the most difficult thing I'd ever done up to that point. And it would not be a huge stretch to include everything I've done ever since.

I've come to understand since graduating that, for many other institutions, the professor applies a curve to an exam in response to the overall performance of the class being poor. At Stanford, it is expressed at the start that the exam will be curved -- because the professors intend to make it so difficult that they are confident that, in their classroom of highly motivated, intelligent students, only a small handful will be able to get As; it is intended to be a way to differentiate the very top students.

Let me give you a sense of what this feels like. I was taking the freshman physics series with the world champion in physics. Blake Ross, one of the guys behind Firefox, was attending while I was there. Even while I was learning how to swim at Avery Aquatic Center, I saw Don Knuth finishing up lap swimming....