<p>I've decided to stop posting on this board. It was becoming a bit too time-consuming for me, and as much as I enjoy arguing and "stirring the pot", I found myself becoming a bit too emotionally invested in some debates here!</p>
<p>I more or less stand by everything I've written. But I'm a bit of a contrarian, so if this were a board where everyone bashed UNC Chapel Hill, I would be a staunch defender of it!</p>
<p>Some of you have wondered why I have been so critical of UNC Chapel Hill, in particular of its sex balance and lack of prestige.</p>
<p>Both of these have to do with my biography, probably. Being slightly older than the average student here, I tended to hang out with juniors and seniors when I was a freshman, so I have seen a few classes with many friends of mine graduate. </p>
<p>In many cases, I've seen them get very disillusioned with UNC Chapel Hill after graduating. Those who had put in the work, and made connections, and done internships, and got to know professors, did very well. But many of my friends, especially those from North Carolina, and including a couple of Morehead scholars, had always thought that UNC Chapel Hill was an extremely prestigious place and that its name alone would open doors. You can see this attitude on this board sometimes.</p>
<p>And those friends got a bit of a nasty shock when they moved to New York or Seattle, say, and found that UNC Chapel is not, in a lot cases, an especially respected name, certainly not on a par with Yale or Berkeley. Of course those people should have known better, but the pro-propaganda and pro-Morehead propaganda did them no favors.</p>
<p>As for the sex balance issue, I've seen lots of straight female friends suffer at the hands of this. Body image issues, crash diets and guilt-ridden slutty attempts to get a guy's attention have hurt many of my straight friends. Again, though this is not unique to UNC Chapel Hill, I think that denying that there is an issue does nobody any favors. Telling girls that they need to 'stand out' and do certain kinds of things to attract a man doesn't change the fact that, no matter what you do, with a shortage of men it is harder to stand out.</p>
<p>Openly acknowledging the problem can help girls understand why they are having a hard time on the dating scene, and appreciate that it is not their fault, and that they are not necessarily dumb, or ugly, or boring. The denialism you sometimes see about this issue sometimes slides into an ugly "blame the victim" mentality: do the men at UNC Chapel Hill treat you badly? You must not respect yourself or stand out enough! This helps nobody.</p>
<p>Anyway, I don't expect you to agree with me. But I'm by no means unique in holding the views I do. In person, many people at Carolina agree with me, though perhaps not as vehemently.</p>