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

Why do Ivy League students self-sabotage?

movingthelimit.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 145 posts

Re: Why do Ivy League students self-sabotage?

#61

Post by badrequest »

searealist wrote: post #46
atdt wrote: post #43

A large portion of the student body at every American college is "drowning themselves in pleasure and mindlessness". The simple, naturalistic explanation is that when Harvard students abandon themselves to partying and procrastination, it is for the same reason that students at Boston University or Colorado State do it: i.e., they're young, horny, and on the loose for the first time in life, and their mental circuitr…

You honestly believe that people who get into Harvard don't have more self-discipline on average that those who don't?

Not the GP, but emphatically and obviously yes. There's the "reads a new book once per week" type of discipline that the average ivy leaguer tends to have, and there's the "wakes up at 4AM to go to the job they don't like despite how much their back hurts" discipline that the working class are obligated to develop.

Re: Why do Ivy League students self-sabotage?

#62

Post by Animats »

Yale has a 97% graduation rate. This can't be a big phenomenon there. Although many take more than four years.

Now, there are good schools where a sizable fraction don't make it. UC Santa Barbara, California's finest party school, has about an 88% graduation rate, and only 72% finish in four years. Further down the food chain, there are the schools which admit almost everybody but flunk out half the freshman class.

Re: Why do Ivy League students self-sabotage?

#63

Post by bluepod4 »

rapsey wrote: post #24
Swizec wrote: post #4

Another common reason for self-sabotage that the article doesn’t mention is ego. Failure sucks, especially when it’s because you just aren’t good enough. But if you self-sabotage, at least you were right. You thought you’d fail and you did fail. Ego wins! And who knows, maybe if you actually tried, you wouldn’t have failed! You weren’t not good enough after all, you just didn’t try. You totally could’ve done it if yo…

You misunderstand, the entire article is about ego it is just not framed as such. They have a debilitating ego problem preventing them from doing anything that migh result in a hit to it.

You misunderstand. This “article” is just a blog post. The musings of an inexperienced college student.

Re: Why do Ivy League students self-sabotage?

#64

Post by phoenixreader »

The article was extremely on point. We didn't dare to try. Life is much too complicated, and many retreat to the safety of the familiar. I agree with others this problem is not at all unique to Ivy League. Instead, it is rather the futility of trying, the absence of a visible goal, and the lack of direction in life that, perhaps, made an Ivy League student feel for the first time in his life that maybe there is some meaning in the non-pursuit of happiness after all.

Re: Why do Ivy League students self-sabotage?

#65

Post by yardstick »

searealist wrote: post #46
atdt wrote: post #43

A large portion of the student body at every American college is "drowning themselves in pleasure and mindlessness". The simple, naturalistic explanation is that when Harvard students abandon themselves to partying and procrastination, it is for the same reason that students at Boston University or Colorado State do it: i.e., they're young, horny, and on the loose for the first time in life, and their mental circuitr…

You honestly believe that people who get into Harvard don't have more self-discipline on average that those who don't?

It’s my understanding that a lot of people who could make the cut for Harvard etc but do not due to resource constraints (limited student numbers, limited finances).

These people then go on to other universities. So yes I believe you’ll find all levels of self-discipline across all the universities.

Re: Why do Ivy League students self-sabotage?

#66

Post by [deleted] »

ipaddr wrote: post #50
epicureanideal wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like we really need some top universities, maybe new ones, to increase acceptance 10X or more, back to the level where they’d accept people who would’ve been accepted in 1970 with the same scores.

Add more ivy league schools to the point where they are common? Increase the size of existing schools so they accept more? Raise the value of suny schools by advertising? Luring top teachers? Syndicate top teachers content to virtual campuses branded by the Ivy League? Ban foreign students? Employers want a ranked list. Parents want a ranked list. Schools ranked high want a rank list of the best schools. How do you g…

[deleted]

Re: Why do Ivy League students self-sabotage?

#67

Post by brazzy »

weatherlite wrote: post #23

Ordinary folk self sabotage as well, you don't have to be an over achieving ivy league student to be that way. No one likes failure and many people understand their societal worth is bound to their status/career and not to who they are as a person; hence the status anxiety and the (sometimes) self sabotaging behavior.

Absolutely. My cousin did this (not in the USA). He studied political science and spent almost 10 years "working" on his master thesis. It was always "almost done", then he decided that the topic had become obsolete and he had to start over.

His problem was that finding a job with a political science degree is hard. He could become unemployed, a failure. But as long as he didn't graduate, he was still a student, and respectable.

Re: Why do Ivy League students self-sabotage?

#68

Post by ddenisen »

One issue that I didn't see mentioned in the article or any of the comments so far, is that all these kids who got into Ivy league schools saw themselves as overachievers / received lots of praise relative to their peers while in high school. But once you get into a top school, everyone there is like that and you are no longer special, you are just average compared to your peers.

You might have been then top student in your city/state, but when you are suddenly surrounded by top students from your _entire country_ it is statistically unlikely that you would be the best. That ought to be demoralizing to a lot of young adults whose entire sense of self-worth has been riding on being the best at academia/sports/whatever.

Re: Why do Ivy League students self-sabotage?

#69

Post by hong_kong »

enufstuff wrote: post #57

> One of my friends would always say (after poor grades or job rejections) "I wasn't even trying." By his logic, if he didn't try, then he didn't really fail, because the true extent of his abilities remained untested. He would often play videos games rather than study, just so he could have a plausible excuse for failure. It would be an existential threat for him to do his absolute best but come up short. I knew som…

I don't think it's intelligence but the sudden shock that these kids struggle with.

Most ivy league kids will have succeeded in ~everything before college, and likely internalized the belief of their talent / status as top of class etc. When you put these kids into a single room, by definition only a small minority can be the smartest kid in the room / acing everything. The rest need to accept the change in status for the first time in their lives - also the first time they're away from their support network - and I guess some take this particularly badly and fail to adapt.

Re: Why do Ivy League students self-sabotage?

#70

Post by LASR »

I’m a Canadian immigrant. I didn’t have recognizable highschool credentials. So had to go through a local college 1st year program. I had a 4.0 GPA when I applied to a Canadian university for second-year transfer program. I applied to only one school, and one program with no backups. Got in and graduated with a 4.0.

During my internships at Microsoft, I met a ton of Ivy kids. I was very intimidated and clearly went through imposter syndrome.

There was a touch of elitism which I think was their downfall. Every kid from my university got a return offer. But there were so many Ivy kids who didn’t. And it seemed like they didn’t even care, but only after they’d already knew they were not coming back. Most of those kids didn’t really make it big in my opinion, now 12 years later.

Clearly, humility isn’t a skill they teach in schools. And in many cases, especially when you’re a noob in the industry, lack of it reveals an inner Dunning-Kruger that make one unattractive.

I’ve recruited many Ivy kids over the years. There is a bimodal distribution. There are ones that are truly very smart - these tend to be humble too. Then there are those who flaunt - almost always there is no substance with these kids.

Once you’re in the industry, nobody gives a shit which university you went to or what your grades were.

Post reply on HN