The Disadvantages of An Elite Education - A Mod Needs to Highlight This

<p>Interesting article denoting </p>

<p>The</a> Disadvantages of an Elite Education: an article by William Deresiewicz about how universities should exist to make minds, not careers | The American Scholar</p>

<p>A sad truth, but our best universities have forgotten that the reason they exist is to make minds, not careers. </p>

<p>"What happens when busyness and sociability leave no room for solitude? The ability to </p>

<p>engage in introspection, I put it to my students that day, is the essential precondition for </p>

<p>living an intellectual life, and the essential precondition for introspection is solitude. They </p>

<p>took this in for a second, and then one of them said, with a dawning sense of </p>

<p>self-awareness, “So are you saying that we’re all just, like, really excellent sheep?” Well, I </p>

<p>don’t know. But I do know that the life of the mind is lived one mind at a time: one </p>

<p>solitary, skeptical, resistant mind at a time. The best place to cultivate it is not within an </p>

<p>educational system whose real purpose is to reproduce the class system."</p>

<p>Let’s all skip college and get jobs in the circus!</p>

<p>Previous threads…</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/540598-disadvantages-elite-education.html?highlight=Disadvantages+Elite+Education[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/540598-disadvantages-elite-education.html?highlight=Disadvantages+Elite+Education&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/526528-disadvantages-elite-education.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/526528-disadvantages-elite-education.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/yale-university/657286-interesting-read.html?highlight=Disadvantages+Elite+Education[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/yale-university/657286-interesting-read.html?highlight=Disadvantages+Elite+Education&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Yawn. .</p>

<p>Actually the way elite admissions are often described seems to bode against the Candidate who leaves time in their life for introspection.</p>

<p>If you believe the article, then why are you trying to transfer to Brown, Cornell, GT and Duke??</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/633587-transfer-chances-brown-cornell-gtown-sfs-duke.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/633587-transfer-chances-brown-cornell-gtown-sfs-duke.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>This Mod sees no need to highlight.</p>

<p>I think the title is a bit of an overkill. Highlighting? Really? </p>

<p>Reading that article doesn’t make me any less thrilled at having a shot at one of the best colleges in the world. Everyone’s experiences at yale won’t be the same. Sure there will always be a few who hated it and a few who weren’t so thrilled, but it ultimately comes down to what YOU make of it. If you really want to have the best college experience it’s your responsibility to hunt down things that spark your interest and keep you involved in the college. If someone decides to mope around their room all day and do nothing but studying, obviously they’re not going to have such a great time. Just don’t walk in on the first day and expect everything to go wrong or for your college to pull miracles out of their sleeves. Go forth with an optimistic attitude and don’t let someone else’s blog or paper shape your opinions.</p>

<p>Shrinkrap beat me to finding the previous submissions of this article, one of which was to this very Yale Forum. One person’s opinion, and quite possibly an erroneous opinion. Worth discussing if you are still in doubt about where to enroll after receiving multiple offers of admission. </p>

<p>Good luck to all of you still waiting for admission news.</p>

<p>^ I spend WAY too much time here…</p>

<p>maybe introspection and all this crap isn’t necessary. transcendentalism has only created a generation of hippies and dead people. maybe college is supposed to get you ready for a career? maybe that’s why you go to college?</p>

<p>This…‘article’…has been posted before.</p>

<p>The long and short is that what this guy says about people who go to Ivy league schools is about as valid as saying people that go to vocational schools are ignorant wastes of space only worthy to perform menial tasks and stay out of sight when not in use as tools.</p>

<p>It’s stupid/inaccurate/a comfortable reality for someone that assumes their worldview is correct/incredibly detrimental in the long to a society because it encourages psychological stratification of that society, and poorly written to boot.</p>

<p>This article is stupid. The sterotypes need to stop.</p>

<p>Wow that article was so great. I just sent in an application withdraw because of it.</p>

<p>Please sticky this!!</p>

<p>^lol, loving the sarcasm, Mal</p>

<p>Omg did you hear robots are replacing alumni interviews? Read the article on the forums!</p>

<p>It’s sad that posters above are “hating” against this article. The article is not outright bashing elite schools with no basis, it’s just the experiences and conclusions of one professor at Yale. I don’t think you should “highlight” this article (what does that even mean?), but give it some respect, because the writer has a lot more experience than you do. Some interesting points I found while skimming:</p>

<p>“The elite like to think of themselves as belonging to a meritocracy, but that’s true only up to a point. Getting through the gate is very difficult, but once you’re in, there’s almost nothing you can do to get kicked out.”</p>

<p>“There’s a reason elite schools speak of training leaders, not thinkers—holders of power, not its critics. An independent mind is independent of all allegiances, and elite schools, which get a large percentage of their budget from alumni giving, are strongly invested in fostering institutional loyalty.”</p>

<p>“Being an intellectual means thinking your way toward a vision of the good society and then trying to realize that vision by speaking truth to power. It means going into spiritual exile. It means foreswearing your allegiance, in lonely freedom, to God, to country, and to Yale.”</p>

<p>100% agreed.</p>

<p>"it’s just the experiences and conclusions of one professor at Yale. "
"because the writer has a lot more experience than you do. "</p>

<p>Ahhhh, age = experience (and valid experience), does it?</p>

<p><3 Liberal Trash </p>

<p>“Graduates of elite schools are not more valuable than stupid people, or talentless people, or even lazy people”</p>

<p>Except those people depend on them for survival…</p>

<p>No2: I did not say “age = experience” did I? I said he was a professor at Yale (according to the article, for 10 years), and he made conclusions based on his experience. Fact? No. Conclusions? Yes. So you should respect his view, because it most certainly has some truth in it.</p>

<p>“The disadvantages of an Elite Education”</p>

<p>That is probably the most self-indulgent title I’ve ever seen.</p>