<p>Some of you will soon begin your first year at Caltech. This seems as good a time as any to share some advice. I do not claim special authority; many who visit these boards are wiser than I am. I offer the thoughts for what they are worth.</p>
<p>I hope to generate enough strong feelings to drive a substantive discussion about what one should get out of Caltech and how to do it. I will be pleased if my fellow Techers admonish, reproach and disagree with me, for as George Bernard Shaw put it, "A man never tells you anything until you contradict him." And, as Joseph Joubert said, "It is better to debate a question without settling it than to settle a question without debating it."</p>
<p>Still, much of my advice will be wildly uncontroversial; you will be able to tell by the lack of sharp objects directed my way after some of it. I will mix broad and sweeping ideas with small and concrete suggestions. The advice comes in no particular order.</p>
<ol>
<li>Know why you are doing this. Sit down and think about why you are coming to Caltech. Maybe your main reason is related to any of the following:</li>
</ol>
<p>(a) your desire for a good income;
(b) your parents' ambitions;
(c) the location;
(d) the desire for a prestigious diploma;
(e) the desire to get into a good graduate school.</p>
<p>If any of these is really a main reason for your choice, try to see if you can arrange to take a year off before enrolling, during which you might rethink your decision. Most students admitted to Caltech can get an education in an equally nice location, at a school of similar or higher prestige, with less effort, a higher expected income, and a higher probability of getting into graduate school — all at the same time! So if you made a decision based on the above factors, chances are that you made the wrong decision.</p>
<p>Essentially the one good reason for coming to Caltech is that you love science (and, in particular, pure and theoretical science) to a fairly extreme degree — sufficiently extreme, at least, that you would be willing to give up important things in your life to devote yourself to it for a time. You have to enjoy certain kinds of pain, be willing to give up a lot of immediate pleasure, and your taste for being challenged must be quite strong. The opportunity for this kind of devotion and growth is the one main thing Caltech offers which very few others places do.</p>
<p>If you view a Caltech education as a kind of intellectual apprenticeship (in the uncuddly sense) or boot camp, you will find the experience rewarding, even if it does not treat you particularly well. If you come primarily because of (a)-(e), you will probably feel cheated — and rightly so, because that's not primarily what we sell.</p>
<p>To put it differently, coming for reasons (a)-(e) is like joining the Marines to lose a little weight or joining the Catholic priesthood as an opportunity to practice your public speaking.</p>
<p>So, my first piece of advice is: do it for the right reason or don't do it.</p>
<p>Well, having decided in the sense of signed the forms isn't the same as decided in the sense of "must go through with". But it was meant to be mostly character building. The rest of the advice is more explicitly targeted at people who are coming.</p>
<p>I am, on the other hand, happy that people are already keeping me honest.</p>
<ol>
<li>Do not mention your SAT scores or your high school academic accomplishments, intentionally or in passing. Maybe this should be clear, but a striking number of frosh seem not to realize what a bad idea this is. If your accomplishments really are more impressive than the norm, a nontrivial number of people will find you intimidating or worse. If they are fairly ordinary (for example, lots of 800's), people will laugh at your pretension. Neither outcome is good. </li>
</ol>
<p>I remember one frosh who would hold forth at rotation about things that happened at the International Mule-Breeding* Olympiad, with no apparent idea of what effect this had on others. Beware. On a related note, do not talk about how impressive other people are, either honestly or tongue-in-cheek. You are not doing them any favors. </p>
<p>I do not mean to suggest that academic excellence or relative merit are not important at Caltech. On the contrary, Caltech is one of the few remaining places which unabashedly declares these things to be important. But frosh camp, rotation, and social events in general are not the times to estimate or advertise where you (or others) measure up academically. There</a> will be time for that. </p>
<p>Realizing that the reasons why you should be esteemed socially and why you should be esteemed academically are separate will do you untold amounts of good.</p>
<p>"Most students admitted to Caltech can get an education in an equally nice location, at a school of similar or higher prestige, with less effort, a higher expected income, and a higher probability of getting into graduate school all at the same time!"</p>
<p>
[quote]
"Most students admitted to Caltech can get an education in an equally nice location, at a school of similar or higher prestige, with less effort, a higher expected income, and a higher probability of getting into graduate school — all at the same time!"</p>
<p>Ben, </p>
<p>Please name name(s) of those school(s).
[/quote]
</p>
<p>It depends, of course, on your particular tastes --- since "equally nice location" means different things to different people. For those who don't mind cold, Harvard and MIT. Stanford if you like Cailfornia. Princeton, perhaps. None of those schools will make you work anywhre near as hard as you would at Caltech, but they do offer more prestige and often more income for less work.</p>
<p>I think most of them would certainly agree that the typical School X student (where X isn't Caltech) works less than the typical Caltech student, assuming they know a little about Caltech.</p>
<p>Of course, there is a little implicit hyperbole in my advice. I never claimed that these other places were strictly better on every practical dimension. If your goal is a Nobel prize or a similar level of acheivement in theoretical science, Caltech would probably be a better bet. If you just love learning for learning's sake, too. My main claim is that a pure leisure and income maximizer would find it quite suboptimal to come to Caltech, which should be obvious but perhaps is not.</p>
<p>I think what Ben is trying to say is that the ratio of leisure and income to the amount of work completed is lower at Caltech than, say Harvard or Stanford. But that's only because there is much more work involved in Caltech. That is, you still have great chances at grad schools and jobs with nice incomes by graduating from Caltech, but the "price" in terms of hard work is higher.</p>
<p>Thank you soooo much for the post about the wrong time to discuss accomplishments. That's always the first piece of advice I want to give new students.</p>
<p>Basically, Caltech would suit people who find learning, in it of itself, to be fun. I actually think that the more material they cover at Caltech, the more bang I'm getting for my buck in terms of education. Of course, there's a chance I might be eating my words in a couple months ;-)!</p>
<p>Ben, judging from (#12) your using the word ‘bet’ and your admission of ‘which should be obvious but perhaps is not’, you were obviously becoming ‘softer’ or ‘more cautious’ the way you express your opinion. It was a gutty move. I wouldn’t consider what all you have said about Caltech totally mythical, otherwise I’ll be making the same mistake. However, from what I gathered, the trait many people find most disgusting or even offensive among Caltech students is their egoism. You may not have purposely downplayed those (a) – (e) reasons or the schools you named, but worse you did it sub-conscientiously. In the best interest of Caltech, which I’ll soon be a member of, it is high time to exercise restraint by stop propagating this sort of unsubstantiated opinions. To me, laying emphasis on one’s entitlement of opinion is a polite way to trash it. Regardless of our screen names, we are all being stereotyped and viewed as representative of Caltech. Shake off the supremacy, Caltech needs no hype to stand out as what it is. Please don’t get me wrong, I truly admire your generosity in sharing your Caltech experience. Keep up the good work! </p>
<p>The more you know, the more you know you don't know. - Aristotle</p>
<p>Karen... could you please clarify your post?</p>
<p>
[quote]
"However, from what I gathered, the trait many people find most disgusting or even offensive among Caltech students is their egoism."</p>
<p>"You may not have purposely downplayed those (a) – (e) reasons or the schools you named, but worse you did it sub-conscientiously."</p>
<p>"In the best interest of Caltech, which I’ll soon be a member of, it is high time to exercise restraint by stop propagating this sort of unsubstantiated opinions."</p>
<p>
[/quote]
</p>
<p>a) Uhhh... if anything, Caltech was the least egotistical school that I visited.</p>
<p>b) I seriously doubt that Ben Golub is "downplaying" the characteristics he listed. For one, he's not attempting to imply that if these characteristics DO NOT fit you, then Caltech is the best place for you. There are obviously more variables in picking the perfect college. He's just saying that if you value any of those characterstics that Caltech is probably not the best place for you.<br>
Secondly, I think Ben is pretty aware of his "sub-conscientious" opinions (did you mean subconcious?). </p>
<p>c) I've never known Ben not to have good reasons behind his opinions (although I can't claim that I know him incredibly well). To say that his opinions (or anyone else's for that matter) are unsubstantiated is insulting and judgmental. It's perfectly reasonable to ask someone for the basis behind their opinions--it is not reasonable to assume that there is no basis. </p>
<p>Finally, maybe I am biased or wrong... but I have never noticed an air of supremacy around Caltech or the people posting in this forum. </p>
<p>If I misunderstood your post, I apologize... I simply find your words a tad more controversial than Ben's.</p>
<p>
[quote]
You may not have purposely downplayed those (a) – (e) reasons or the schools you named, but worse you did it sub-conscientiously.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I did it quite intentionally. I think those are bad reasons to go to Caltech, especially if they aren't combined with a love of learning and pure science significantly stronger than any of (a)-(e). I would encourage you to spend a year here and then tell me how many students who are primarily concerned with (a)-(e) seem happy and fulfilled to you.</p>
<p>On a related note, I personally think that reasons (a)-(e) are modestly contemptible. But that is a question of taste. (And, of course, this paragraph is intended almost purely to provoke you.)</p>
<p>As for downplaying other schools -- I'm not sure what that word means for you. It's an uncontroversial fact that Caltech is more demanding than any of its top 10 peers. No other school requires an equally rigorous core curriculum, and the average student at every other top school takes much less math and science than the average student at Caltech. As for value judgments, I leave those to the reader. I think harder is better; some disagree.</p>
<p>"it is high time to exercise restraint by stop propagating this sort of unsubstantiated opinions."
Did you really just call Ben's opinions unsubstantiated? You must think quite highly of yourself.</p>