<p>"It is possible that today's more driven students are actually more knowledgeable than my generations."</p>
<p>Well, maybe, but what do they actually do with their time? If they are in the library all the time, there may not be as much "intellectual" interaction with other students as there was in the past. Anyway, I'm not sure it's "knowledge" that makes a person "intellectual" anyway--I think it's more curiosity about and interest in many different things--and I'm not sure the "driven" student--especially the heavily careerist one--is as likely to exhibit that kind of curiosity.</p>
<p>I think there are a lot of assumptions being made. From the author of the piece in the Crimson, to everybody else about what "intellectual" means, or where intellectuals are, or what intellectuals do. Also I think there are the same assumptions being made about career-oriented kids . It's as if to some of you "intellectual" is at one end of the scale and "career-oriented" is at the other. That bio and engineering majors can't be intellectual and that all bio and econ and engineering majors are "career-oriented". Would that be for education majors, too? What about computer science? What about International Affairs? Or Political Science? Are those majors as suspect? More suspect? Less suspect? </p>
<p>I think everybody is talking and no one is listening. </p>
<p>I do agree that a school can have a pre-professional feel to it. I also feel that a school can have an intellectual vibe to it. I just don't think that the two are mutually exclusive, especially when you bring it down to the individual level.</p>
<p>There is an intellectual vibe when my D gets together with her friends and talks about religion and its place in the world (something she'd never consider as a career). There is a pre-professional vibe when she does her volunteer work and choses the Med (Regional Teaching Hospital) as the place to do it (thinking of her med school app). So, where does that put her school ? And where does that put her? I don't think knowing she's a bio/chemistry pre-med tells you all that you think it tells you about her intellectual curiousity. I find that view very simplistic, almost child-like. "You can't be this 'cuz you're that." Nah. I think I'll be both. ;)</p>
<p>I think the distinction between an intellectual atmosphere and being an intellectual is useful here.</p>
<p>Is being an intellectual a state of being or a performative act?
It's much better being in the library reading Kant and having less time to interact with others than spending that time talking about Kant without having read him no? The second sounds like a recipe for pseudo-intellectualism to me.</p>
<p>Crossposted with Curmudgeon. I agree.<br>
Cur, your D at least has a serious EC! When my S is involved in his EC, he is neither intellectual nor career-driven, but plain sophomoric.</p>
<p>The question of what is an intellectual is not a minor one here. Like curmudgeon's daughter, my son's primary major would no doubt be suspect to the likes of Lucy Caldwell (and at least one poster). He would find it rather laughable, however, to be informed he cannot be a computer science and math major and still be an intellectual. </p>
<p>I am currently plodding through a long and detailed (too detailed) biography of Charles Darwin (Janet Browne). Her description of what was going on in the best universities in England and Scotland in the first third of the 19th century would be a good antidote for those who think "philosopher" and "intellectual" has always been something separate from applied scientist.</p>
<p>Closer to home, Ben Franklin would have been suspect to the likes of Caldwell, as he hailed from a very modest background and was fearless about expressing his dislike of Latin and Greek scholars, the epitome of the educated man at the time. Franklin was convinced that the road to progress--intellectual, scientific, practical--required embracing a new approach to education, and in fact a new definition of what it meant to be educated.</p>
<p>marite: perfect point about pseudo-intellectualism.</p>
<p>(And for those about to jump to the defense of Latin and Greek: my son took Latin through AP Vergil, several years of ancient Greek in middle and high school, and I studied ancient Greek for three years in college while earning my first undergrad. degree (in history). I guess Ben would not approve.)</p>
Probably depends on which 10 seconds of conversation Lucy overhears. I think the desire to pigeon hole people and places and to see things only in black and white gets absurd, especially in matters such as "intellectualism."</p>
<p>And doesn't pseudo-intellectualism boil down to the old fashioned "navel gazing" and pomposity? </p>
<p>My problem with heavy emphasis on cores and cores alone (no offense corranged, don't mean you or Chicago or anything in particular but biases of author) is why is Kant more "intellectual" than kids attending a lecture of Michael Polan speaking about Omnivore's Dilemma? This happened at S's school, sponsored by Environmental Club and the kids ski-lifted to the top of Mt. Jiminy the next weekend to look at the wind turbines, also courtesy of Environmental Club. Was their active excusion less worthy of Harvard than if they were sitting around their student center debating the fine points of Critique of Pure Reason. Not.</p>
<p>I don't think it matters whether the student is in the library reading Kant or doing physics problems--he may be very smart, and may be very knowledgeable about his field of focus, but it's interaction with other people and broad curiosity and interest that creates an "intellectual atmosphere." Perhaps another way of getting at this is to ask whether the students of today are more focused on their narrow fields of interests than students of the past. I hope it's not too controversial to say that people with broad interests are more fun to talk to than people with very limited interests, unless you are in the same limited field. Could the current focus on "passion" mean that some students are passionate about only one thing, and not that interested in anything else? Could you test this thesis by seeing what percentage of students indicate a preference for a major before enrolling in college?</p>
<p>So let's hear some helpful descriptors or defintions about these terms. I found accurate and amusing the lament of a poster (or an article or a TV show , whatever) who was a prof that a reasonable test of a specific class' intellectualism would be "what kind of questions" he would receive . Sometimes before the class : is this material going to be on the test? To after the class: Do we have know all 5 reasons why, or is 3 out of 5 good enough? As compared to "I didn't understand why Hadrian had all those young scribes around. Can you direct me to another source book that might clear that up?" ;)</p>
<p>
[quote]
Could you test this thesis by seeing what percentage of students indicate a preference for a major before enrolling in college?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Unlikely. Aside from the fact that some schools ask everyone to do this, a lot of those students who are so sure of what they want at that point will change their minds entirely, like my former hallmate whose high school passion was political science but who ended up discovering, loving, and eventually majoring in mechanical engineering.</p>
<p>I'd actually heard that one compliment/criticism (depending on your perspective) of this generation of college students was that they were LESS focused on one particular thing.</p>
<p>I don't know, Hunt. I've run into a lot of people who have "broad curiosity" and multiple "interests" but who are actually quite ignorant about those subjects in which they profess an interest. Lot of interests, lots of ignorance.</p>
<p>There must be some middle ground between living in the library stacks and spending 6 hours a day at the coffee shop trading unfounded theories and groundless beliefs with others who are equally ignorant.</p>
<p>I don't agree that having a good idea of one's strengths and interests at the beginning of college means a student is narrow. Students with no well-formed idea of what their major will be might be true intellectuals with so many interests they can't choose, or they might not be. I don't think one can draw a conclusion on that basis.</p>
<p>
[quote]
the author makes (at least) one fatal assumption, IMO. She ASSUMES that H used to be more intellectual (however that word is defined), but yet there is absolutely zero evidence to support that assertion.
[/quote]
I had the same thought. In fact I think Harvard has always had a fairly large contingent of not particularly intellectual people - if by that you mean people who discuss ideas outside of the classroom. Some were the trust fund kids, others were smart and perhaps even brilliant in their fields, but didn't seem to have much conversation. My husband's roommates spent most of their free time reading comic books and listening to progressive rock. Occasionally they'd sneak onto the Arpanet and play MIT's computer games. They were nice guys, but I had gone to Harvard expecting that everyone would be discussing exciting things over lunch. The talkers did exist - they just weren't as much in evidence as I had expected. The best (or at least most fun) moments often were ones where some bit of pop culture would be informed by ideas we'd picked up in classes.</p>
<p>Hunt: So there is a distinction between being an intellectual and a school having an intellectual atmosphere. QED.</p>
<p>If your passion is Shakespeare, your eyes may glaze when someone says cohomology. But if your passion is cohomology (don't ask ME what it is, ask my S), are your eyes permitted to glaze over when someone starts a discussion on the Twelfth Night without your being labelled anti-intellectual?
People with broad interests may be more fun to talk to, but are they more intellectual than those who pursue their intellectual passion to the utmost? Or are they merely shallow? Is an intellectual atmosphere the same as having a lot of cocktail party chatter? </p>
<p>I just saw an ad for a lecture about How to Talk about Books without having read them. Maybe I should amble over....</p>
<p>I still wonder about whether there are some fundamental differences between students who get into Harvard (and similar schools) today, and those who did so decades ago. The kid who gets in today takes the hardest possible high school classes, including calculus (probably in junior year), a bunch of APs, etc., and gets As in all of them. He also gets very high scores on the SAT, and has very impressive ECs. I can tell you that many of the Ivy League students of past decades were not like this--they had high scores, top grades, and good ECs, but they did not have to be truly outstanding in all their high school classes to get As--in fact, they didn't have to work that hard in high school at all. They didn't have anything like the impressive EC resumes of students today. I think a student has to be more driven and focused today to get into an Ivy League school--and as a result, I just wonder whether the mix of personality types has changed.</p>
<p>
[quote]
intellectualism a.the doctrine that knowledge is wholly or chiefly derived from pure reason.
b.the belief that reason is the final principle of reality.
[/quote]
By a show of hands, how many of us are using this definition? <looks around="" room=""></looks></p>
<p>"People with broad interests may be more fun to talk to, but are they more intellectual than those who pursue their intellectual passion to the utmost?"</p>
<p>Um, yes? In my opinion, somebody who really is an intellectual will not find his eyes glazing over at any topic (at first, at least). I mean, Bobby Fischer may be the greatest chess mind that ever lived, but does that make him an intellectual? To put this another way, a person can be a genius without being an intellectual. To me, anyway, being an intellectual has to do with your attitude toward ideas and knowledge--it does not necessarily have to do with how smart, accomplished, or knowledgeable you are. An intellectual is somebody who is interested in everything; a pseudo-intellectual is somebody who is only interested in hearing himself talk about everything.</p>
<p>LOL. Bar knowledge. Knowldege you can use at a bar. Cliff Clavin (for you Bostonians and those of us who were cheers fans) was a master at it. The episode where he was explaining DNA was one of my favorites.</p>
<p>As for a definition of intellectual (as opposed to intellectualism), here's the one I like:
"a person who places a high value on or pursues things of interest to the intellect or the more complex forms and fields of knowledge, as aesthetic or philosophical matters, esp. on an abstract and general level."</p>
<p>re: post 76 The problem is that none of us are using any definition (I'm not suggesting that one).</p>
<p>As I briefly alluded to in an earlier post, being an intellectual in early 19th C England meant literally getting your hands dirty: establishing the foundations of the study of natural history, including botany, geology, zoology, human physiology. Great minds were not sitting around discussing what previous great minds thought about things. They were out discovering new things.</p>