a very witty tongue-in-cheek post by 2 UG's

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Chicago ✅
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<p>copied from the April 3 Maroon
Think</a> we?ve got it bad? Princetonagrees - The Chicago Maroon</p>

<p>"Think we’ve got it bad? Princeton agrees
A response to The Daily Princetonian’s 2000 assertion of misery at the U of C</p>

<p>By Alex Aciman, Emmett Rensin
Published: April 3rd, 2009 </p>

<p>In the waning hours of finals week, long after our reading period had ended, we came across a long-infamous article in The Daily Princetonian, Princeton’s student newspaper, that confirmed our deepest, most profound fears that fun does, in fact, come here to die. The March 2000, titled “Think We’ve Got It Bad? U. Chicago Has It Worse,” detailed how the students at that Ivy League university are “spoiled” in comparison to the students here at the U of C.</p>

<p>The Princetonian’s goal, it seems, is to show through comparison how we are essentially victims of a self-inflicted misery. The editorial reiterated several times that our two-day reading period appears meager and thin beside their generous nine-day stretch. The column also mentions that Princeton has a designated midterms week while our university’s midterms period is an untamed slot of six weeks during which any number of exams and papers can be assigned. After carefully chronicling those and other ways in which our experience is more difficult than the one had at Princeton, the Princetonian concludes that the best possible course of action for Princeton students is to avoid in every way possible emulating the life we at the U of C have. “Let us not share the same fate,” it finishes.</p>

<p>What can it possibly say of our lives if they are held up by Ivy League newspapers as exemplars of what hell is really like? There is a tendency among the student body here to lightly prod at the idea of fun crawling through our quads to take its final breath, but in some respect we regard it as a sort of self-deprecating exaggeration. Yet the image of the University of Chicago as an oppressive gulag wallowing in its own miserable self-loathing has been picked up on by other schools as something very real. Has our sad mantra become a self-fulfilling prophecy? Have all our witty house T-shirts about squirrels and oral sex killed all the fun without our knowing?</p>

<p>In an attempt to defend ourselves and our way of life, we could easily say that our challenging academic careers—which are perhaps even more frustrating than the charge of Sisyphus and more painstaking than the tortures of Prometheus—will, if nothing else, make us wiser, sharper, better, and greater intellectual masters of our modern world than any other group of adolescents. However, Princeton isn’t exactly known for the shallow incompetence of its students. In fact, by all accounts, Princeton graduates—despite their “spoiling”—seem to do very well in the academic realm. And even if we were in some way superior, the promise of a negligible intellectual edge hardly seems to justify such wildly different levels of comfort and happiness. So what good does it do to attend an institution so Germanic in its rigor, discouraging in its reputation, and miserable in its meteorological conditions?</p>

<p>What the Princetonian fails to mention is the special quality that our system here at the U of C gives each student. Aside from the promise of a bright (if equally stressful) future and tremendous work ethic, the University of Chicago instills in its every student an appreciation for all that is small, overlooked, and often taken for granted. Where else will students celebrate two days without classes to write papers and study relentlessly for exams after a weeks-long sub-zero period? At what other school will students line up by the hundreds for a free, mediocre breakfast of omelet-egg-substitute and rejected-meat sausages to eat for the first time in days and briefly relax before returning to work at 1 a.m.? At what institution but this would a man happily declare I only have to read 300 pages this week? For what other student body is the first thought upon seeing a potential sexual mate at a party, Well, they do at least appear to be the gender that I’m seeking? To whom else would making it through a term without a trip home to maintain a semblance of mental stability seem like an accomplishment? Where else would the common retort At least you’re better off than those kids in Africa seem like an assertion subject to vigorous debate?</p>

<p>The answer is nowhere, and certainly not at Princeton.</p>

<p>This acute appreciation for the small and the unacknowledged joys of the day-to-day existence is the wonderful gift that the University of Chicago imparts on us. It is the sublime icing on our miserable cake. Or better yet, everything that does not inspire tears to well in our gentle eyes is our icing. It is this capacity to love all that could be loved—and even some that should, by all reasonable measure, be hated—that will serve us best in life, and carry us through a world replete with frustrations in a state of near-constant bliss.</p>

<p>After all, where else could one walk outside to fresh, 34-degree morning and marvel, Ah! Today is a warm day. God has smiled on the University of Chicago."</p>

<p>Alexander Aciman and Emmett Rensin are first-years in the College.</p>

<p>Aah. I only wish my Son had liked Chicago more!</p>

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<p>Great article. My daughter is first-year in the College. My wife and I had to smile when we received our first “its a really warm day, its 30 degrees today” phone call this winter.</p>

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<p>I don’t know why, but I didn’t really like the article. I’m most likely attending Chicago next year, but still, I feel the need to express that I don’t really like the sentiment/self-pity attitude in the piece. </p>

<p>I’ve just never understood why Chicago tries to publicly hold on so much to this image it has. I understand it’s one thing saying you’ve got an intenseley rigorous curriculum, hardworking students, etc. But it goes too far when you provide examples of how students are miserable, but learn to “cope” with it. </p>

<p>I mean, the point of learning, as many Chicago students say, is to love and learn. To understand the value in the small and see the intellectual possibilities. I think we all agree on that. But I hate it when Chicago students start talking about the “depression, overload, stress, 1 AM nights, sleepless days.” Sometimes I just don’t think it gives off a healthy attitude towards learning. </p>

<p>In short, what I’m trying to say is that I dont think this article made any Harvard, Yale, or Princeton student second guess there decision NOT to attend Chicago. I don’t the article really helped Chicago in that respect.</p>

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<p>This article is absolutely amazing. It reveals a lot about the higher echelon institutes of higher education like HYP and it further differentiates HYP league from Chicago. For some sort of reasons, I can relate to the article very well. I appreciate the education I am having. Several students from my school just came back from Paraguay and said that many children didn’t even have the chance to go to school, and ironically, a school was just one block away from where they live.</p>

<p>The more I read about Chicago, the more I love the school because students there seem so appreciative of the education they are having!</p>

<p>Be thankful of what we have. The Princetonians who wrote that article were not only naive, but they exemplified the taking-education-for-granted attitude at the upper echelon of American post-secondary institutes. They also reminded me of my Harvard interviewer, who was a complete jerk. He was a recruited athlete at Harvard who looked at me like I was some sort of inferior species. He was cocky, as if he was some sort of higher power or the commander of the entire universe or something; he was like Hally in “Master Harold… and the Boys” by Athol Fugard. (So glad that I did not get accepted there.)</p>

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<p>ilovepeople, note the sardonic/humorous tone.</p>

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<p>I really enjoyed the article. There is nothing quite like hardworking to the point of mental breakdown. And “carry us through a world replete with frustrations in a state of near-constant bliss”? Yes please.</p>

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<p>FBlalaland isn’t too bad at satire either… god i hope that was satire.</p>

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<p>Oh dear, ilovepeople, it’s a joke! What they’re saying in the piece and what the “fun comes to die” slogan conveys isn’t self-pity, it’s humor. Or a better word from the OP, it’s wit.</p>

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<p>But there IS truth behind the wit, as all UC students well know.</p>

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<p>True, menloparkmom. And ilovepeople is probably right, that it won’t make many princetonians wish they were at chicago. </p>

<p>As a parent who’s footing the bills, I sometimes feel a sneaky bit good, thinking of all the chicago students working harder and learning more than students with long reading periods and house parties. But I feel even better about it when I hear about them also having fun.</p>

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<p>University of Chicago kids are the ones who walked two miles to school, uphill, both ways. Or at least that’s what they tell others.</p>

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<p>^^In the snow.</p>

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<p>or even worse, the mud. Ask anybody on campus: today, with the gray sky and rains, was just GROSS.</p>