<p><a href="http://essay.blogs.nytimes.com/%5B/url%5D">http://essay.blogs.nytimes.com/</a></p>
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In July, the magazine published "What's the Matter With College," an essay by the historian Rick Perlstein, online and invited college students to respond. Some 600 did. The winning essay and four runners-up appear below; you can search hundreds of additional entries using the tools in the righthand column of this page.
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<p>I haven't read any of the runners-up, but it's hard to imagine they could annoy me more than the prompt essay and the winning response did.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, both used as their touchstones institutions that I care a lot about and know a fair amount about. The prompt essay was based on the University of Chicago, which both my children attend, and the published response used as its frame a Yale literary theory survey class, something that for a semester long ago was the center of my existence.</p>
<p>I recognized nothing about my own college experience, and that of my children, in either essay. The first seemed consumed by nostalgia for something that never existed, or at least was hardly universal experience after, say, the 50s. He never say a foreign film before he went to college? Holy moley! A young woman has a 15-minute conversation with her father? There goes Western Civilization down the tubes! What dizzying, solipsistic leaps that essay has. (I saw an interesting discussion of it among Chicago students, some of whom the author interviewed without including them in the article. The basic themes were (1) what's he talking about?, (2) he wanted to make a point and was furiously prompting interviewees to make it for him, and (3) he forgot to mention what [jerks] both he and some of his favored interviewees are. One of the author's classmates chimed in to say he didn't recognize the description of the author's undergraduate years, either.)</p>
<p>The response essay, however, was far worse: It paired enormous sophistication about how to structure an essay, and how to write sentences, with an almost total lack of anything to say. The ratio of style to substance was nearly infinite. Plus, the author brags about his utter failure to pay attention to what people were trying to teach him -- something that bothers me no end. There were people like that around when I was at Yale, too. But they were a distinct minority, and pretty universally despised except by each other.</p>
<p>The New York Times does not have a great track record picking the Voice of a Generation. Does anyone remember Joyce Maynard? Does anyone remember anything she actually said?</p>
<p>I totally agree with you JHS. I read them yesterday and I just kept looking at the Yale one wondering WTH he was trying to say. I mean SPIT IT OUT or shut up. (I also didn't like his picture, the bored, spoiled look on his face.)</p>
<p>The Chicago one struck me as someone's wishful thinking.</p>
<p>In both cases I couldn't even figure out why they were in the NY Times Magazine.</p>
<p>The student essay's use of quotes from Fred Jameson also got my goat -- irrationally, since the quotes were perfectly apt in the essay. Jameson, a visiting professor my sophomore year, gave one of the best single lectures I heard in college, about Marxian literary theory and science fiction, for the very class that Handler mocks. That lecture "gave" me two authors I have enjoyed for the past 30 years: Ursula LeGuin and Philip K. Dick (on whose cultural importance Jameson was waaay ahead of the curve). And the following semester Jameson gave me a tutorial on Marx for no reason other than I asked. It's too bad Handler had his earphones on. If he had bothered to pay attention, he might actually have learned something.</p>
<p>I met a few guys (and professors) that reminded me of the Yalie. It's part of the reason I ended up in a more hands on major and became an architect. (Though there are plenty of architects that talk like that too!) But really, if you don't like literary theory - pick a different class instead of wearing your earphones and complaining.</p>
<p>It was a dark and stormy night....</p>
<p>I read the first essay the same way as described here: the author had points to make about "this generation" (though fuzzy ones, at best), and then contorted students' voices to make those points.</p>
<p>And the Yale kid--well if he were mine, I'd feel like I'd wasted my tuition dollars, that's for sure.</p>
<p>I should (if I had the time) go online to read the other essays; surely there must have been loads of bright, creative voices that, for whatever reason, did not fit the slot NYT had already shaped to put them in.</p>
<p>Hmm, I read the essay, I felt it was very well written... I am assuming the message was about how this generation is like the past one, just a different representation.. eh. I thought it was well written and I can see where most would be annoyed by his anecdote in the beginning... but what do you guys have to say about the actual meat of the essay (if there is any meat)?</p>
<p>I just thought the winning essay was pretentious -- very 20-something and let's hope the author outgrows it. </p>
<p>OTOH, I really liked the essay by the film student at USC... funny and probably very true-to-life.</p>
<p>Those kids need to get out of their bubble a bit more often. Crikey.</p>
<p>I don't know what Postmodernism is either ;). Jonathan Franzen, anyone?</p>
<p>I wish the colleges would get out of their bubbles. Some of the prompts my kid has sound like they came out of a Barbara Walters special (akin to "if you were a tree, what kind of a tree would you be?") I can't for the life of me figure out what the point of some of these questions is. Sure, ask what a kid will contribute to a college, what makes him/her unique, what experiences have been important to him/her, who or what influenced them,etc. But I look at some of these questions, as a grown adult who knows herself pretty darn well, and I can't imagine how I would answer them. I mean if someone asked me on a job application what kitchen appliance best defined me (the type of question being asked), I'd feel I was being made fun of.</p>
<p>I also thought the winning essay was boring pretentious pseudo-literary theory babble. I kept wondering what exactly was the POINT. Makes me wonder about the judging.</p>
<p>Take a look at the first runner-up essay. The author is a marvelous writer and has something important to say, both to the spoiled Yalie and the whiny oldster.</p>
<p>(The first couple of paragraphs are a bit confusing; keep reading as it ends magnificently.)</p>
<p>JHS, you made a mistake by not reading the runners up -- I agree with returning student that "Two Years Are Better than Four" ... and the best essay of the lot is Frankie Thomas' "University Days" (though I hope that it represents an exaggeration for the sake of humor... its just a fun read).</p>
<p>As to the rest: My d. applied to U. of Chicago. but through the application process I think we were both put off by an air of pretentiousness that pervaded the marketing materials and the "Uncommon Application" as well. My d. dealt with the application by simply ignoring the "uncommon" essay prompts, and writing her own irreverent and humorous answer. (She was accepted, so apparently the Chicago ad com is capable of appreciating essays that do not fall in the category of intellectual-one-upmanship.) </p>
<p>I am sure that Chicago attracts its share of down-to-earth students, but obviously some buy into the whole "more-intellectual-than-thou" mystique, and clearly that Perlstein is one of them. He seems to ridicule and demean the interests and accomplishments of students who are happy with their college experience, more comfortable with the melancholy whining of the disenchanted. It's too bad that he lacks the creativity to appreciate the joy experienced by anthropology major "specializing in food culture" who supplements her studies by sampling the fare of "exotic new ethnic restaurants". (Alaz, it isn't jazz, so it doesn't count as important in Perlstein's world).</p>