OT: The Disadvantages of an Elite Education

[equalizer]

I think this article makes an elite education even more desirable. I mean who want to to drive a Honda when you can drive an M5? Someone is going to get 150K in debt to get two degrees from Yale to become a low paid assistant at the Met? And take the B train from Jersey? Are you nuts?

Maybe the prof couldn’t believe how much he was paying the plumber?

“You can live comfortably in the United States as a schoolteacher, or a community organizer, or a civil rights lawyer, or an artist—that is, by any reasonable definition of comfort. You have to live in an ordinary house instead of an apartment in Manhattan or a mansion in L.A.; you have to drive a Honda instead of a BMW or a Hummer; you have to vacation in Florida instead of Barbados or Paris, but what are such losses when set against the opportunity to do work you believe in, work you’re suited for, work you love, every day of your life?
Yet it is precisely that opportunity that an elite education takes away. How can I be a schoolteacher—wouldn’t that be a waste of my expensive education? Wouldn’t I be squandering the opportunities my parents worked so hard to provide? What will my friends think? How will I face my classmates at our 20th reunion, when they’re all rich lawyers or important people in New York? And the question that lies behind all these: Isn’t it beneath me? So a whole universe of possibility closes, and you miss your true calling.”

The Disadvantages of an Elite Education

[AK]

So much in that article is sadly true. I say this as a graduate of, and an employee of, elite/elitist universities.

[AK]

So much in that article is sadly true. I say this as a graduate of, and an employee of, elite/elitist universities.

[AK]

So much in that article is sadly true. I say this as a graduate of, and an employee of, elite/elitist universities.

[AK]

So much in that article is sadly true. I say this as a graduate of, and an employee of, elite/elitist universities.

[AK]

So much in that article is sadly true. I say this as a graduate of, and an employee of, elite/elitist universities.

[NotCranky]

I agree with the author about the inefficiencies of higher education. Any high school dropout could have made the same points in five poorly constructed sentences or less. It leaves more time for really important things, like becoming a sanitation engineer… and beer.

[NotCranky]

I agree with the author about the inefficiencies of higher education. Any high school dropout could have made the same points in five poorly constructed sentences or less. It leaves more time for really important things, like becoming a sanitation engineer… and beer.

[NotCranky]

I agree with the author about the inefficiencies of higher education. Any high school dropout could have made the same points in five poorly constructed sentences or less. It leaves more time for really important things, like becoming a sanitation engineer… and beer.

[NotCranky]

I agree with the author about the inefficiencies of higher education. Any high school dropout could have made the same points in five poorly constructed sentences or less. It leaves more time for really important things, like becoming a sanitation engineer… and beer.

[NotCranky]

I agree with the author about the inefficiencies of higher education. Any high school dropout could have made the same points in five poorly constructed sentences or less. It leaves more time for really important things, like becoming a sanitation engineer… and beer.

[garysears]

I thought this was a very good article. As I read it I was able draw parallels to my own experience. The criticism of the culture at elite schools is a dead on critique of the culture at my school, though I don’t see my education as having been particularly elite.

My early “success” in grades fed on itself and, more than a source of personal pride, my ability to get grades and meet expectations became a large part of how I viewed my self worth. Early momentum translated into an expectation for further quantifiable excellence in high school. I jumped through all the hoops expected and my resume opened the doors I hoped.

But unrealized at the time, I see now that I allowed my ego to grow unchecked based largely on an above average ability to take multiple choice tests and also as a result of having developed a short term memory well suited to test taking.

I think feelings of intellectual superiority are really the same as feelings of moral superiority since the individual who deems himself superior in most any regard isn’t likely to define careful boundaries.

Anyway, it turned out I wasn’t as prepared for the college experience as I thought, or one might have predicted based on my standardized test scores. It was earth shattering to only be average.

I guess I said all that to say I really enjoyed the article and it resonated.

[garysears]

I thought this was a very good article. As I read it I was able draw parallels to my own experience. The criticism of the culture at elite schools is a dead on critique of the culture at my school, though I don’t see my education as having been particularly elite.

My early “success” in grades fed on itself and, more than a source of personal pride, my ability to get grades and meet expectations became a large part of how I viewed my self worth. Early momentum translated into an expectation for further quantifiable excellence in high school. I jumped through all the hoops expected and my resume opened the doors I hoped.

But unrealized at the time, I see now that I allowed my ego to grow unchecked based largely on an above average ability to take multiple choice tests and also as a result of having developed a short term memory well suited to test taking.

I think feelings of intellectual superiority are really the same as feelings of moral superiority since the individual who deems himself superior in most any regard isn’t likely to define careful boundaries.

Anyway, it turned out I wasn’t as prepared for the college experience as I thought, or one might have predicted based on my standardized test scores. It was earth shattering to only be average.

I guess I said all that to say I really enjoyed the article and it resonated.

[garysears]

I thought this was a very good article. As I read it I was able draw parallels to my own experience. The criticism of the culture at elite schools is a dead on critique of the culture at my school, though I don’t see my education as having been particularly elite.

My early “success” in grades fed on itself and, more than a source of personal pride, my ability to get grades and meet expectations became a large part of how I viewed my self worth. Early momentum translated into an expectation for further quantifiable excellence in high school. I jumped through all the hoops expected and my resume opened the doors I hoped.

But unrealized at the time, I see now that I allowed my ego to grow unchecked based largely on an above average ability to take multiple choice tests and also as a result of having developed a short term memory well suited to test taking.

I think feelings of intellectual superiority are really the same as feelings of moral superiority since the individual who deems himself superior in most any regard isn’t likely to define careful boundaries.

Anyway, it turned out I wasn’t as prepared for the college experience as I thought, or one might have predicted based on my standardized test scores. It was earth shattering to only be average.

I guess I said all that to say I really enjoyed the article and it resonated.

[garysears]

I thought this was a very good article. As I read it I was able draw parallels to my own experience. The criticism of the culture at elite schools is a dead on critique of the culture at my school, though I don’t see my education as having been particularly elite.

My early “success” in grades fed on itself and, more than a source of personal pride, my ability to get grades and meet expectations became a large part of how I viewed my self worth. Early momentum translated into an expectation for further quantifiable excellence in high school. I jumped through all the hoops expected and my resume opened the doors I hoped.

But unrealized at the time, I see now that I allowed my ego to grow unchecked based largely on an above average ability to take multiple choice tests and also as a result of having developed a short term memory well suited to test taking.

I think feelings of intellectual superiority are really the same as feelings of moral superiority since the individual who deems himself superior in most any regard isn’t likely to define careful boundaries.

Anyway, it turned out I wasn’t as prepared for the college experience as I thought, or one might have predicted based on my standardized test scores. It was earth shattering to only be average.

I guess I said all that to say I really enjoyed the article and it resonated.

[Author]

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