<p>Here's something that happened to me yesterday that I think is quintessential U of C:</p>
<p>I was with some friends in the house lounge who were playing uber-retro Super Mario 2, half-watching them and half-working on a take-home midterm of essay questions.</p>
<p>I got to one question that I found particularly frustrating, because it seemed to me a question in the vein of "Why do things fall down?" or "Why are french fries greasy?" I read it out loud to my housemates and joked that if any of them wanted to do my midterm for me, they were more than welcome.</p>
<p>All of a sudden three couch potatoes who were transfixed by Super Mario turned into three scholars, who started churning out idea after idea for me to use in my essay. What makes it even funnier is that none of them were sociology concentrators (it was a sociology midterm).</p>
<p>"Guys," I said. "I wasn't actually looking for help. It was just kinda a rhetorical question."</p>
<p>"That's so UChicago" is a pretty common phrase around here. Some people hate hearing it and say it's too pretentious. You hear it all the time when stuff like the above happens, though. Lots of conversations morph from something very non-intellectual (like, video games) and somehow end with Marx, Durkheim, such-and-such country's political history, and the Bible.</p>
<p>I say that all the time.
Of course, I'm still in high school, and not everybody here in Texas is an U-Chicago enthusiast (because they aren't obsessed with it, as I am). So I usually get the blank stare or confused look...</p>
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"That's so UChicago" is a pretty common phrase around here. Some people hate hearing it and say it's too pretentious. You hear it all the time when stuff like the above happens, though.
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<p>I'm one of the people who hate hearing that phrase, but not because it's too pretentious. People usually say "That's so UChicago" to describe the common mode of conversation between students at UChicago: long hours of mind-numbing drivel punctuated by moments of "intellectualism" (read: name-dropping p_ssing contests.)</p>
<p>I would much rather prefer an environment more uniformly intellectual--by which I mean having depth, not necessarily name-checking every HUM/SOSC author possible. Some would argue that this sort of situation is simply not sustainable, but I beg to differ, as I have lived it for 4 years: Exeter.</p>
<p>Cesare, the situation you describe with the name-checking is not really the situation I'm describing. My friends were just helping me out on my homework and were not regurgitating names and titles to prove to me that they are competent students.</p>
<p>Chicagoboy, I didn't know what a social science was before I came here. I've read Durkheim and I still don't get a lot of it. It's okay if you don't know about it now, and it will be okay if it doesn't all make sense even after you've read it-- I promise.</p>
<p>To be honest, I really don't think that many UChicago kids do the "intellectual" 24/7. Some do, a higher concentration here than elsewhere, I'm guessing. Overall, though, we're just as likely to talk about shopping, watch YouTube videos, and go to parties as anybody you know.</p>
<p>Where I DO see the difference is that people can slip into academic mode wherever and whenever (like the Shakira song!) I'm used to being in a situation where I had to suppress my inclinations to talk about school for fear of getting dirty looks. Instead, "Aristotle is teh ****, yo" is a comment that most UChicago students can get and relate to. And follow up on.</p>
<p>Current students: any tips on minimising exposure to "long hours of mind-numbing drivel punctuated by moments of 'intellectualism'" in favour of something a bit more meaningful and authentic? Or is this an inflated problem? Pretence is a pet peeve of mine.</p>
<p>There are plenty of authentic intellectuals here, and they're not very hard to find, especially within the math department. In my opinion, to estimate, I'd say that about 10% of students here are intellectual, and about 50% are pseudo-intellectual.</p>
<p>My friend and I were passing notes in AP Euro yesterday. Now normal people might pass notes about things going on in their lives, but my friend and I? No, of course not. Our note-passing conversation began as a debate about Adam Smith and capitalism (which we're learning about in Euro) and moved over Kant, Newton, Galileo, DaVinci, Einstein, molecular biology, e. e. cummings, Edgar Allen Poe, and Monty Python before the end of class. And our transitions were even smooth enough that you could trace our train of thought back to Smith from Monty Python fairly easily. </p>
<p>At lunch, a semi-normal friend of ours found the sheets we had been passing notes on and read them. He then decided that we are officially the weirdest people he's ever met. =P</p>
<p>la montagne,
Sounds like our dinner table discussions. Everything leads to Monty Python at some point. Perfectly normal to the people in this house!</p>
<p>SCO, I think there are some people here who know they are pretty smart and will do what they can to let you know that. I don't like that personality quality either, but I don't think it's that widespread. My general advice would be to avoid philosophy majors, but as I write that five or six awesome, "unpretensious" philosophy majors come to mind, so I can't say that :-)</p>
<p>Phuriku, I guess it depends how you define pseudo-intellectual. Some students are more dogged in intellectual pursuits than others, but I think that everybody I've met enjoys what they do in school and most don't have inflated egos.</p>
<p>If i don't really do much of the discussion outside of class, but would rather just joke around with my friends and talk about plans for the weekend, will I not fit in? Surely I can't be the only one...</p>
<p>Phuriku has mentioned that he knows people who distinctly don't like talking about school (how sad!) so I'm sure they are here.</p>
<p>It's not like I talk about school 24/7, in fact most of the time I'm not talking about it. But if I'm working on something that really excites me, then ya, I'll talk about it, and I get excited pretty easily :-). </p>
<p>For me in particular, I chose this school because I felt it was where I would be most comfortable bringing up schooly things outside of the classroom. I promise you that I'm not some kind of intellectual superhero, and I question the extent of my own intellectual capabilities pretty often, so it's not like I will make it my mission to make you feel inferior by name-checking authors I haven't read and I assume you haven't either. At the same time, though, I like talking about what I'm doing in class, what ideas I have for essays, good readings I've done, bad readings, annoying readings, and I understand that most people don't like talking about school at all.</p>
<p>Conversations aren't usually about academicy things, but they can turn in that direction very easily. (Kind of like when I was hanging in the lounge, we were playing Super Mario and talking about totally stupid, mindless things, and had I not vented my frustration we would have continued to talk about stupid, mindless things and I would have liked it just the same). As long as you don't want to shiver every time somebody mentions school, I think you'll be okay.</p>
<p>Yeah I wish more people at my school were into discussing random/philosophical things, since conversations usually end up being superficial junk. I just go home and vent on facebook notes most of the time. Discussing anything and everything is what sounds so great about Chicago.</p>
<p>Name-dropping conversations (or conversations referring to famous people's ideas without naming who those people are) should not be considered intellectual. Such conversations usually just consist of regurgitated knowledge being spewed back and forth. True intellectuality is original thinking on the spot, even if it's said in the most inarticulate, ghetto way possible (not saying that ghetto is inarticulate... just giving a hypothetical example here). It could also arise in very ordinary conversations (linking a video game to Aristotle is not intellectual... that's just forced thinking influenced by the culture you were raised in. the fact that this is even considered "intellectual" [whereas linking a video game to hip hop is not] is an insult to people whose educational cultures are different).</p>
<p>Hm. I'm not sure I agree. There's a very strange divide between "intellectual" and "intelligent," and I think what you just described may fall more under the latter than the former. See, when I think "intellectual," I think learned, but not necessarily smart. An intellectual is someone who knows a lot, and wants to show it. They probably think a lot, too, but not necessarily; it mostly has to do with how much they know and how often they use it. On the other hand, an intelligent person could be anyone; he doesn't have to have learned anything in school so long as he knows enough to think coherently, creatively, and open-mindedly. I feel like you're describing an intelligent person rather than an intellectual person. I can't imagine calling anyone who behaved in a ghetto way necessarily "intellectual," but I could definitely see one of them being extremely intelligent.</p>
<p>But that's just my opinion about the distinction between the two words. Anyone else?</p>
<p>Second, making a connection between aristotle and Super mario is not spewing regurgitated knowledge, its making connections that may or may not be meaningful in context, but that make sense on a higher level to those engaging in conversation. </p>
<p>On a total aside, you seem very resentful of something sanjenferrer. Are you "insulted" by UChicago's supposed intellectual atmosphere?</p>
<p>To me, "intellectual" is the confusion between work and play. My friends playing Super Mario were "intellectual" because they transitioned from obvious play to "work" without even noticing it. It didn't matter what they said, but that they made academic work for themselves where they didn't have to is key.</p>
<p>The vast majority of students (I hesitate to say all, because I'm sure there are students here for the wrong reasons) to come to Chicago even though they know they're going to be working harder than they have to. They don't have to come here if they don't want to, and maybe part of what bugs me about the initiative to increase applications is that we've seen that not a lot of students want to come here. It's good that people have figured out for themselves that this is not the place for them, and the importance of prestige and rank is not overtaking that.</p>