<p>My sister-in-law, who is a big deal academic in a very esoteric field (although at a public university, not an Ivy or anything like it, out of deliberate choice), has been happily married for 30 years to a man who services and repairs refrigeration systems at Mom-and-Pop grocery stores. A friend of ours who graduated summa cum laude from one Ivy and near the top of her class at the law school of another, is a top criminal defense attorney and sometimes law professor, and has been married nearly as long to an actual plumber.</p>
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<p>Certainly didn’t mean to insult anyone. I was responding to your question of why these STEM classes need to be so hard. Everyone can certainly use deep thinking skills. I guess I could’ve calibrated those words differently :). First of all, in the context of this thread we are talking about hard STEM classes only, and so the “deep thinking” training is directed at preparing the students for future research level work in the STEM fields. </p>
<p>Let me try again with an example. Most (as in 99+%) high school students, including those who are good at math, will never achieve a proficiency level that enables them to qualify for the AIME test, let alone qualifying for the USAMO test and be invited to MOSP training. Yet many of our brightest mathematicians who are making new contributions in math took this path in their youth. The continuous exposure to this level of math helped them hone their analytical, logical and problem solving skills for the rigor in their collegiate and research career. Were their training, classes and tests hard? Absolutely. Are they beyond the comprehension of an average BWRK? Of course. Do most people want or need to go through this? No. Am I denigrating the 99+% of the people who can’t and won’t do USAMO? Why would I do this to myself? Some of the hard and difficult to understand concepts in STEM have very little application beyond their respective fields. Are there similarly hard to understand and grasp concepts in philosophy? You bet.</p>
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<p>You’re giving me flashbacks to all the arcane math I used to enjoy in my nerd days :-)</p>
<p>Excellent post, PCP.</p>
<p>Made me think of a friend of son’s who graduated in physics, and now in grad school in philosophy. If he joins a think tank, he may well be one of those who changes lives.</p>
<p>It was actually the classes requiring papers that seemed to give our son the most challenge in getting a good grade. Science and math classes kept him very busy and weren’t easy by any means. The writing standards at his school were extremely high and it was rare to get a flat out A on a paper.</p>
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That’s true, and it can be frustrating because nobody, even the professor, can really explain to you exactly what you need to do to get that A. I suspect this might be particularly annoying if you have a mindset that is focused on solving problems and getting a correct answer.</p>
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<p>Few are at the level. What’s even harder is to explain the hardest thing in simpler, easier to understand terms.</p>
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<p>That’s why languages/humanities are harder than math/sciences. Many conflicts lead to the use of technologies because that’s an easier option.</p>
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<p>Annasdad: He taught at Ivy League schools but, as far as I can tell, wasn’t tenured anywhere and has left academia to be a free-lance writer. He is questioning the whole system and he’s not feeling too kindly toward it. I found the following a very interesting article but have only posted a few excerpts.</p>
<p>[Faulty</a> Towers: The Crisis in Higher Education | The Nation](<a href=“http://www.thenation.com/article/160410/faulty-towers?page=0,3]Faulty”>http://www.thenation.com/article/160410/faulty-towers?page=0,3)</p>
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<p>In Disadvantages of an Elite Education, he argues students are too pre-professional and not developing a passion for ideas or a life of the mind. IMHO the end result of passion for ideas and life of the mind is commonly the pursuit of a PhD and since there aren’t enough tenure track positions for the ones we already have… that’s a problem. We can’t really afford to pay many more philosophers in this country. I think Yale does as good a job as possible of training philosophizing doctors, lawyers, investment bankers.</p>
<p>re the comparison of Yale with Cleveland State. Yes, Yale coddles students. In the same way an upper middle class suburban public or science/math public magnet coddles students compared to an inner city school in a low tax district. The problem doesn’t seem to me the coddling.</p>
<p>[The</a> Disadvantages of an Elite Education | Bleacher Report](<a href=“The Disadvantages of an Elite Education | News, Scores, Highlights, Stats, and Rumors | Bleacher Report”>The Disadvantages of an Elite Education | News, Scores, Highlights, Stats, and Rumors | Bleacher Report)
I thought this writer had an interesting response</p>
<p>Bookworm: That is awesome and I hope your friend’s son does change the world for the better. I am all for geniuses who improve our lives. However, not being one, not having fathered one, and not knowing any, I just want to point out that people who are not quite so intellectual are just as likely, if not more likely, to change the world for good or ill since we have elected politicians and not philosopher kings. Moreover, often it is the merely clever entrepreneur who exploits the brilliant invention or discovery. </p>
<p>Alh - I liked the article you posted in response to the Yale’s professor, but it ended on an odd note. Neither Gates nor Jobs would be examples of people formed by elite educations since they abandoned their elite educations to take risks, something elite educations discourage according to the “Disadvantages . . .” Moreover, Jobs was lauded for his sense of aesthetics - a combination of art and science - and he credited LSD for expanding his consciousness. He seemed like a unique combination of business man / hippie / intellectual which is not produced by elite universities. </p>
<p>The not being able to talk to plumber issue was absurd and reflects more about the author’s personality than elite education. Some degree of empathy and confidence enables one to talk to anyone. Although overstated, he did have some points worth considering about increasing conformity through the pursuit of financial security. There may be an argument that the failure of the elite institutions to teach values as well as skills leads to the Jeff Skillings of the world - people who measure success in money and acquisition and who will stoop to conquer. Someone steeped in Dickens or Fielding as well as numbers might be less likely to do so.</p>
<p>Regarding Jobs, the WSJ had a fascinating piece on his background this week. His biological dad is Iranian, a PhD from Wisconsin in Political Science. Eighty-years-old now and manages a 400 person casino staff in Reno. His biological mom was a grad student at Wisconsin in speech pathology. Apparently, Jobs reunited with his biological mom and his biological sister who shared the same biological parents. Here’s what really intrigues me – Job’s sister is the very fine novelist, Mona Simpson. Made me really appreciate how sometimes artistry really is genetic. I consider Jobs to be primarily a designer, not a technical guy. More of a sociologist/designer.</p>
<p>The adoptive parents who raised him were not college educated. His dad was a machinist, his mom a secretary. I believe he went to UC Davis? Anyway, I have a sense that had he been raised in an uber-academic family and gone to Stanford or an Ivy he might well have not accomplished the things he did. </p>
<p>I think going to an elite school was worthwhile for my kid but like any pathway there are opportunity costs of choosing it.</p>
<p>Sewhappy - nice post. 
There should be some marking of the occasion where we agree on CC!</p>
<p>I would add to SJ’s talents that he was a great communicator and salesperson, convincing many to take risks with him.</p>
<p>There are no prescriptions limiting a successful entrepreneur!!</p>
<p>p.s. His biological dad is Syrian no biggie!</p>
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<p>Of course, which tells me that he is “clunky” in how he perceives other people, and therefore I need to take his observations with a grain of salt. Because a man with that attitude is not going to really “see” his students for what they are, but lump them all into his preconceived notion of that Un-Intellectual Yale Student.</p>
<p>oops . . . my attention to detail seems to be deserting me of late. Indeed, Jobs’ biological dad is Syrian.</p>
<p>I am not even sure it is true he “can’t talk to a plumber” I think that was just an deliberately provocative lead into the essay… an attention grabber and it sure got people’s attention. It doesn’t make sense on so many levels. I didn’t even do more than glance at the first paragraph when it first appeared because several HYP profs I know do their own plumbing; my HVAC repairman (owner of a small business) had a kid at HYP who would be joining the family business after graduation; at a recent HYP faculty dinner party there was a suggestion that it would be great for kids to learn a trade after a BA/BS and before a PhD so they would actually have a marketable skill set and a heated discussion followed about what type of union rules might come into play trying to implement this plan.</p>
<p>I think the almost inevitable result of an elite education is the ability to look at the world from many very different points of view. Sometimes this may result in a sort of paralysis imho but it doesn’t produce graduates who can’t talk to plumbers.</p>
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<p>Most of the excruciatingly hard tests I’ve had generally were made up of 3-6 problems, each one with a different difficulty. Or, each problem had parts (a, b, c, etc) with ramping difficulty. People that could do the homework generally scored in the 60s, people that struggled with the homework would wind up a little lower. People that were able to really understand the homework tended to be 80%+. Generally the best exams aren’t time-limited. I know lots of professors that will do a strategy like have the TA take the exam, then double the time they took for how long the students get (This is for upper-level classes where it’s likely even the TA may still struggle with some of the more difficult concepts.).</p>
<p>I think not letting students get a perfect is also a good way of reminding you that, no matter how hard you try, mistakes/accidents are inevitable. This is a very valuable lesson in engineering. ;)</p>
<p>Not being able to talk to the plumber (as if, what, the plumber has two heads or something?) is a result of his parents not raising him correctly, and really has little to do with elite education. One wonders, if he cannot talk to the plumber, how he managed to interact with any secretaries, janitors, cafeteria staff, support staff, etc. at these colleges. One gets the sense that he would treat those people as invisible. I don’t know about the rest of you, but when interviewing people for jobs, I <em>always</em> notice how they treat / interact with a receptionist, waiter, etc.</p>
<p>^^I think he is making it up. For exactly the reasons you point out.</p>
<p>The kids from elite colleges I know would probably be somewhat in awe around a plumber.</p>
<p>The whole thing is weird–Deresiewisz was apparently well-liked by students at Yale, which would not have been the case if he were some kind of aloof unrelatable character. And he’s simultaneously saying that Ivy students are too elite to talk to ordinary people, but are also careerist, but are also anti-intellectual and lazy. He’s really throwing a lot of different things out there–all of which certainly apply to some people at Yale, and probably just about every other college.</p>
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That’s a good point. My son impresses his friends by knowing how to go to the grocery store, buy a steak, and then cook it.</p>