I would never advocate using drugs to keep up academically, if that even really works long term. However, the position I hear articulated all around me from the vast majority of people I meet is basically “Life is short, and nothing is worth working that hard.” Too often that stance leads to mediocrity and the exact same disappointment with one’s life as Zach is feeling, only without the accomplishments Zach must have.
Many CCer’s also seem to feel that one shouldn’t strive for elite school admission because if one fails, then the effort will be a waste and the disappointment will be too great. I don’t agree. For kids like my son, who thought he might want to be a politician, it seemed to be an important stepping stone since connections and prestige matter in politics. In the end, regardless of admissions outcome, the student will have reaped the rewards of putting his best effort into his academic endeavors. That brings various benefits. including learning more than you would have otherwise, which is never a waste. Putting greater dedication into EC’s because of the same goal of elite admission also produces a positive net effect from higher achievement and more time spent helping others–also not a waste. The hours the student did not spend watching TV, talking and posting pictures on social media, and just hanging out are probably not going to be regretted too much.
I highly doubt the majority of elite school students just stumble into attending through relaxed brilliance. They had to be deliberate about their goal and work very hard to succeed. Life is risky. More often than not it will be the case that once you reach a goal, it won’t be what you imagined it would be or feel worth what you gave up to achieve it. Maybe that is the way life always is–disappointing. Most things you desire aren’t that great once you get them. The new car loses its luster in a few months, the new house ceases to be exciting when you realize the builder skimped on the roof which is now leaking, and the promotion at work brings a raise, but also longer hours and higher stress.
Welcome to the disillusionment of adulthood, Zach.
I noticed something in the article. He mentioned the girl committing suicide during his first week, but he failed to mention she was suicidal before she stepped foot on campus.
I decided not to comment on the reference to the young woman who committed suicide in my first post, but I find the author’s reference to her to be a cheap shot, as well as disrespectful to her memory. By all accounts, she was an extraordinarily accomplished person, though she had struggled with suicidal thoughts in the past. She jumped from a dorm window (the dorm my son lived in freshman year) the first night of freshman orientation week, only hours after her parents had dropped her off. It was truly tragic, but can hardly be blamed on Columbia. And my recollection, in talking with my son in the days after it happened, is that the students were very supportive of one another and the school was proactive in reaching out to the students and making counseling and other resources available. In any event, the tragedy of her death has no place in a “why Columbia sucks” article.
lol…looks like a Columbia student couldn’t handle his school work boo hoo hoo (sarcasm intended here). I honestly want to smack this kid in the face and say, “Welcome to the world, biatch.” I go to UChicago, which is really similar to Columbia, and there comes a point where you just have to suck it up and grind out.
I do think many successful students define their success by metrics other than attaining ivy league (or their equivalents) admission though. I worked hard to achieve what I did in high school because I wanted to achieve those goals. I wanted to be a leader in student publications and science olympiad and my varsity team. I did the same in college, and I’m doing the same thing in grad school. In fact in grad school I’ve had professors tell me not to “waste my time” with my grad school’s student government and all the various committees I served on as a result of my work there because my future employers won’t care that much about it - particularly in comparison to my research. Guess what? I still did it anyway because I enjoy it.
OK. Read the article. Haven’t yet read any of the replies. I have five reactions:
(1) I’m tempted to say,
You’re right. Your entire article “proves” that the admissions process is terribly flawed because such a sloppy thinker as you got admitted, someone who can’t differentiate anecdote, bias, fantasy, and emotion from critical thinking. If this is a mirror of your mind, how the H did you get admitted?
(2) Yes, there’s a certain percentage of snobbery and cynicism among some students on Ivy League campuses – and at other Elite schools as well. Welcome to the World. A student will or may encounter it. It’s not “the whole campus” unless you don’t bother to get out of your dorm much.
(3) Mr. Anecdote, yours has not been the experience of three current students at Columbia whom I know well, as they were my own students. Nor has it been replicated by sons and daughters of friends at other Ivy League schools, nor my own daughter.
(4) I hope lots and lots and lots of juniors and seniors in high school read your article and get turned off so that there will be many fewer applications. Fewer applications is a good thing.
(5) You don’t sound terribly mature. (See #1) And I make that observation not only because of the emotional tirade you’ve treated us to, but mostly because you seem fixated on social aspects of a campus (as in high school) and not the intellectual experience which Columbia thought you were seeking when they admitted you.
Maybe his point should be taken seriously instead of laughed away with ad hominem attacks on his character that have little to do with the point of the article. . .
Yes the article comes off as somewhat pretentious and whiny, but I don’t believe that should necessarily subtract from the validity of the author’s point.
I think it is worth noting that the author of this article was extremely depressed at one point and was so depressed he had to leave school for a semester.
Here is an interview with the author of the article back in 2014 that was published by Columbia’s student newspaper. I think it sheds a bit of additional light on the subject:
I’m not “laughing him away.” I’m taking him very seriously. That is the point. I’m evaluating his words. His words reveal something about his character, particularly from the point of view of those of us with a wider knowledge base than his. He himself is not only Mr. Anecdote but Mr. Ad Hominem, regarding an entire student body. Good job on slandering “most” of the school (his words) and then, lacking any credibility, damning with faint praise during a small portion of it.
Again, I repeat. No bleepin’ thing about the academic experience except for how sorry we should feel for him that (every Ivy League school) is composed of students who are already highly intelligent and accomplished.
This has been highlighted a couple of times, but I wanted to mention it again, to make a cautionary point.
Yes, students at Ivy League schools work hard, and most of them worked hard in high school. But most of them didn’t have to work all that hard to get top grades in high school. They worked hard on a broad array of activities, many of them outside the school. A student who really has to average two all-nighters a week in high school probably does not have what it takes, academically, to do well at an Ivy League school.
But here, I think you have to define what it means to “do well at an Ivy League school.” It doesn’t just mean getting good grades. It means getting good grades and contributing significantly to other campus activities and organizations. The one element of the critique that I agree with to some extent is that there can be too much pressure to get super-involved in multiple activities, and sometimes students get overbooked and overstressed.
So, if a student at an Ivy League school has to do an all-nighter to finish his paper, it’s not because he’s been working on it for weeks and is overloaded with other work. It’s because earlier in the week was the acappella jamboree in which he was singing, and the Glee Club concert and rehearsals, and a dinner for the Sustainable Food Project, etc.
I don’t really think this lad was using his brain incredibly properly in this article. If he hates it so much, why the heck didn’t he transfer? Common sense isn’t so common anymore, I guess.
All the MORE reason to question the accuracy of his impressions. Clinical depression distorts perception so that “everything” (just about) is perceived with heightened negativity.
The article is a good case study for psychiatrists and other doctors in training. Amazingly unreliable description of “Going to an Ivy League School.”
It’s information all right, just for the wrong audience.
In this article, he doesn’t seem to hate Columbia so much:
“Don’t get me wrong: college is awesome. I still plan on graduating. Columbia has given me so many opportunities that I’m grateful for. I love the education I’m getting. It’s like getting force-fed your favorite food—I’m learning a bunch of *** I would never otherwise take the time to learn, from Hellenic Greek society to quantum physics. Living in New York City is tight, the food good, the times chaotic. Being a young person in a community full of friends and peers yields some memorable—and impulsive—experiences. Plus, a college degree is an incredibly useful resource, and would mean a lot to my family.”
This is the absolutely ONE area which I do think needs more exposure. (The topic in general, not the author in isolation.) I know there’s been some press about it over the last 10 years, but i.m.o. precious little progress on the issue as it relates to college students. The only time it seems to come into focus is after a suicide. Come on, colleges! I think your responsibility is greater than this, as is the responsibility of the rest of us adults.
Several years ago there was a landmark case at Stanford that I became somewhat involved in, on the sidelines. I say “landmark” because she was such a typical contradiction of the happy-on-the-outside-dying-on-the-inside high-social-profile student – “typical,” often, of the syndrome of Depression. I contacted the friends of the suicide victim and urged them to bring college Depression out of the closet and gave them some specific ideas for that. They were struggling to come up with some idea to “memorialize” her. I told them – among other things --that they should get Stanford to open up a Drop-In Center on campus where students with a public facade could feel safe enough to begin to reveal a more realistic self-image among confidants – that that was the best Memorial they could give to herr. In my opinion - judging by all of the student reactions to her suicide – she clearly felt there was nowhere to turn on campus – that she couldn’t ‘let others down,’ so to speak.
^possibly the fact that drugs were such a focus of his (more than once) in the article underscores for me that self-medication as an end-run around depression is part of the subtext of the article.
This speaks more to making the wrong choice than to the failings of the school. Many kids all along the college spectrum from community college to the Ivy’s change their mind. That’s what transfers are for. You would hope, though, that kids applying to highly selective schools (or any, for that matter) have done their homework and at least have an idea of the culture, evaluate their personality and choose wisely.
It always amazes me with the plethora of choices in this country in terms of higher education, that anyone complains.