<p>I think it's unfortunate to focus on the beginning of the essay so much. </p>
<p>Deresiewicz, who doesn't particularly have an "old money" name, strikes me as a disillusioned idealist. I think the last two paragraphs are far more illustrative of his point than his inability to speak with a plumber:</p>
<p>"What happens when busyness and sociability leave no room for solitude? The ability to engage in introspection, I put it to my students that day, is the essential precondition for living an intellectual life, and the essential precondition for introspection is solitude. They took this in for a second, and then one of them said, with a dawning sense of self-awareness, “So are you saying that we’re all just, like, really excellent sheep?” Well, I don’t know. But I do know that the life of the mind is lived one mind at a time: one solitary, skeptical, resistant mind at a time. The best place to cultivate it is not within an educational system whose real purpose is to reproduce the class system.</p>
<p>The world that produced John Kerry and George Bush is indeed giving us our next generation of leaders. The kid who’s loading up on AP courses junior year or editing three campus publications while double-majoring, the kid whom everyone wants at their college or law school but no one wants in their classroom, the kid who doesn’t have a minute to breathe, let alone think, will soon be running a corporation or an institution or a government. She will have many achievements but little experience, great success but no vision. The disadvantage of an elite education is that it’s given us the elite we have, and the elite we’re going to have."</p>
<p>"whenever i'm in really old, important places like this, I get the same feeling i get whenever I walk up the steps of the Harvard Library and I think about all the great men who have walked there before."</p>
<p>So you think this attitude is loathsome -- worthy of throwing up in your mouth.</p>
<p>If you had an opportunity to visit, say, the Lincoln Bedroom, you wouldn't think about the great men who've been there before you? You'd say, well, whatever, it's just a room?</p>
<p>
[quote]
Well, I don’t know. But I do know that the life of the mind is lived one mind at a time: one solitary, skeptical, resistant mind at a time.
[/quote]
Oh. come on! It's a class. They're supposed to talk! Maybe he can write himself out of a job.<br>
Socrates needed Plato as much as Plato needed Socrates. Confucius needed his disciples as much as his disciples needed him; otherwise we would not have the Analects.
Yes, you need some solitude to form your ideas but you need others to sharpen them and to tell them whether your ideas make sense or they're just a lot of hooey. Just as the author needed to write this article. Why did he write it anyway?<br>
Only connect.</p>
<p>"I think the point was that he dropped the Harvard Library name in a completely different context."</p>
<p>If that was the point, then is the message of the story that you can't mention Harvard or make comparisons to Harvard at all, because it will make other people want to vomit? The post didn't say that the speaker did this constantly -- just the one time was apparently disgustingly pretentious.</p>
<p>If a University of Michigan happens to be visiting a location that reminds him of Michigan, he can mention the similarity without inducing vomiting, right?</p>
<p>Again it is one persons view and doesn't negate the experience of all the parents who have kids at Harvard or who attended there themselves. I'm not trying to dig up dirt - I just think this is a fascinating statement and study of our society and culture and class. I'm intrigued by it because it is so beyond my realm of existence and yet I am greatly affected by it because these schools, after all, tend to produce our countries leaders, not just in politics but in corporations. </p>
<p>Here is an excerpt:
"The problem is that a large, and socially dominant, proportion of our student body (and I am extrapolating here from Harvard to the rest of the Ivy League) was elitist and privileged well before it ever came here. They grew up in places like Westchester, went to school at places like Exeter, and spent high school summers driving one of their father's BMWs around places like Cape Cod. Of course a person with a background like that will wind up thinking and acting entitled. It'd happen to them at any college: the only difference at the Ivy League is, they reach critical mass here thanks to their built-in admissions advantages and subsume the rest of the student body. The subsequent failure of Harvard classrooms to produce a real liberal education is solely because Harvard has filled them with people who are incurious.*</p>
<p>Deriesiewicz has identified the right phenomenon -- his description of it as "entitled mediocrity" is absolutely perfect, and I'm going to start using that phrase -- but it's not, as he argues, an intellectual or institutional problem. It's a social problem. And you cannot sensibly analyze an Ivy League school until you recognize that fact."</p>
<p>I do not think that elite institutions draw the intellectually incurious. In fact, they try their damnedest to create diversity in order to expose their students to different experiences, viewpoints and to make them think. I know because I was once an exotic import at my college (not HYP) and, without meaning to, often challenged Americans' preconceived ideas about politics, gender, and a whole host of topics.</p>
<p>Deresiewicz is truly parochial. But that's because he has never taught at an institution where most of the student body comes from the same geographical area. That is the experience of the majority of students and the faculty who teach them.</p>
<p>I also should report that what the excerpt describes is not my S's experience at all. The class profile for Harvard is currently being updated, but according to my somewhat vague recollection, the class of '11 comprised 9% African-Americans, 9% Hispanics, 21% Asian-Americans, 10% internationals. A significant percentage had full rides and an even greater percentage had some sort of financial aid. "Entitled mediocrity?"</p>
<p>"Harvard has filled them with people who are incurious."</p>
<p>Wow. I really like this author's writing style, but I'm wondering if we went to different schools. Incurious is the LAST way I would describe Harvard students. I'm quite sympathetic to the notion that a lot of them are sheltered, and even classist (they think that their lifestyle is the best way to live), I think they're extremely interested in learning about the world and about other people, even if they aren't interested in altering the way they live. Where does the author think the curious people are hiding? Where do they go to school?</p>
<p>On a related note: While classism is a lot more distasteful when it's practiced by the people who have most of the power and money in the country, and who supposedly have had their minds broadened, I do think it's relevant to note that superiority complexes run in many directions. The plumber doesn't necessarily want to talk to the Wall Street Harvard grad, or know how, or care. He may have a lot of purely social contempt for the Harvard grad for being effeminate, or un-American, or Godless, or ignorant about everything that matters, like running water. Putting the relative power of groups to the side, most people in most American subcultures think that their subculture is best, and look down on people who don't "get it." That's not a specialty of rich people, educated people, or anybody else.</p>
<p>The Harvard student does make a point I've been making: that elitism is bred into students before they set foot on campus. </p>
<p>As for lack of curiosity, it's been my experience that people are curious about certain things and incurious about others. I'll bet anything that was excites my S's curiosity may be very different from what excites the author's. When either Deresiewicz or the Harvard student talk about intellectual curiosity, I doubt very much they have the same issues in mind as my S or his friends
(channeling C.P. Snow here).</p>
<p>"The problem is that a large, and socially dominant, proportion of our student body (and I am extrapolating here from Harvard to the rest of the Ivy League) was elitist and privileged well before it ever came here. They grew up in places like Westchester, went to school at places like Exeter, and spent high school summers driving one of their father's BMWs around places like Cape Cod."</p>
<p>I can only speak for a non-HYP school experience 20 years later, but yeah, we certainly had very well-to-do kids from prominent families who went to Exeter, summered at Cape Cod, had more money than God and all of that -- but they weren't "socially dominant" at the school. They just were what they were, and if you were interested in befriending them, great, and if you weren't, that was just fine too. Is the HYP experience appreciably different? BTW, how would these students *have all this social power if others didn't "let" them have it?</p>
<p>BTW, there's nothing inherently wrong with growing up in Westchester, going to Exeter, driving a BMW or having a family who likes to visit Cape Cod. It feels that those pursuits / places are being judged. There's nothing <em>inherently</em> better about going to a public school, driving a Ford, or having a family who visits Branson, MO during the summer. I'm uncomfortable that the worth of human beings is being analyzed by what they do / consume rather than who they are as people.</p>
<p>Hanna said:
[quote]
I do think it's relevant to note that superiority complexes run in many directions. The plumber doesn't necessarily want to talk to the Wall Street Harvard grad, or know how, or care. He may have a lot of purely social contempt for the Harvard grad for being effeminate, or un-American, or Godless, or ignorant about everything that matters, like running water. Putting the relative power of groups to the side, most people in most American subcultures think that their subculture is best, and look down on people who don't "get it." That's not a specialty of rich people, educated people, or anybody else.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>That's an excellent point. It's always funny to me when some kid (invariably from the NE) says "but every student would always want to attend Harvard if only he could get in / afford it"! Well, that's not true at all. Plenty of kids who are at West Podunk State wouldn't consider Harvard a <em>desirable</em> or <em>interesting</em> place to be, even if a coupon for a free ride was dropped out of the sky onto their laps. They're happy with what they know and what they perceive as a more down-to-earth culture and don't have a desire to be among what they might perceive (rightly or wrongly) as "snobs." And there's nothing wrong with that feeling, IMO. Different strokes for different folks.</p>
<p>There are too many issues mixed up here.<br>
Entitled mediocrity. "entitled" is a social issue. "mediocrity" is an intellectual one. There is no obvious or logical connection between social entitlement and intellectual mediocrity. There is no reason to believe that students from less affluent backgrounds are going to be more intellectually curious than those whose families drive BMWs, live in affluent suburbs and can afford boarding schools.
Exeter is not known to be striving to turn out intellectual mediocrities; it has aggressively gone after academic stars and is famous for its Harkness style that encourages intellectual exploration.<br>
The danger in having too many people from the same background is that they tend to have the same experiences and are thus less likely to examine their preconceived ideas. But that is far from unique to elite institutions. In fact, these institutions have made a point of cultivating diversity. This is not something that your local community college can do with its limited catchment area. And as I said in an earlier post, many flagship universities, especially in the South, attract the local elite far more than the top colleges. Children of these local elites not only are socially dominant on campus, but, because of their limited experience, tend to have the same outlook. I also agree with Hanna that the overwhelming majority of American college students go to college to prepare for a career rather than to live the "life of the mind." They study nursing, business, accounting, and other career-oriented majors.
As for intellectual curiosity, as I wrote, most people are curious about something and not necessarily about others.
Some math science students may not be interested in 19th century British literature (though some are!). I'll bet Deresiewicz is not interested in what the Poincarre conjecture is about or about why his faucet is leaking (maybe that's why he can't have a conversation with his plumber?). Few people are trule polymaths. It does not make them intellectually mediocre.</p>
<p>First of all, I hope you get this response; it's my first time attempting this and i'm not particularly "computer-savvy"! Thank you for giving me the "other side of the story" concerning the advantages/realities of an Ivy degree, whichI knew existed! As the father of 3 daughters, the oldest of which was recently accepted to Yale, i'm trying to do my most diligent research on the subject so i can counsel/assist her with a most important decision. I'm an attorney in New York who makes a "comfortable" living but I'm not wealthy and so the decision to go to Yale is not a "no-brainer." Thankfully (for me!) my daughter is keeping an open mind and waiting to hear about potential scholarship offers from other fine schools (like UVA, UNC and WASH U to name a few) before she makes her choice. That being said, unless one of those schools "bowls her over" with a lucrative offer, my guess is that she will be hard-pressed to say no to Yale! Your thoughts and/or opinions would be most appreciated. This is not an easy time for us though it should be, I only want her to be happy! (sounds so cliche but it's true)</p>
<p>
[quote]
"Our best universities have forgotten that the reason they exist is to make minds, not careers"</p>
<p>Only somebody who had the luxury of an elite upbringing would make that statement. Middle and lower class kids know that the purpose of an education is that they can have a better life than their parents, so they don't have to have the same struggles their parents did.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Not true at all. My family had less than an highschool diploma, and I grew up very poor. I went to college to learn something, major in something that interested me and that had absolutely no direct link to a job or anything practical. Naive perhaps, but all I knew is that just"getting an education" would be better that my parents, who made do without one. It all turned out fine. </p>
<p>At the school I teach, I see tons and tons and tons of kids from underpriviledged backgrounds there to get an education, not job training or a specific career. The exception are those from particular immigrant families - whether they are priviledged or underpriviledged- who, by way of cultural upbringing and the fact that they made sacrifices to get into their new country, strongly value education that has a more direct link, less risky path to a career.</p>
<p>rlinks59: These are all fine schools. If your daughter feels most comfortable with Yale, she should go there. The article that was posted is total garbage. Yale is an excellent school and most kids are down to earth just like any other school.</p>
<p>After reading the article I would like to give cudo's to Elite education which took the author mind set to those great heights that could think and analyze and produce an article like that.</p>
<p>Do you think all education can do such a thing? It is a probability game. Top schools will produce more such students than the state schools.</p>
<p>Pick your school based on would it be better to be in a situation where you can analyze what is going on in your surrounding or in a state where you cannot even decipher the surroundings.</p>
<p>"Only somebody who had the luxury of an elite upbringing would make that statement. Middle and lower class kids know that the purpose of an education is that they can have a better life than their parents, so they don't have to have the same struggles their parents did."</p>
<p>I'm only on page one (though As think I've seen this article or thread before), but I lead to pull this out. I am sure there are others in my situation, and who will comment in this. I mr not denying there are different perspectives about the purpose of education, but I have problem with the word "know". My H and I came from barely middle class Black families, and I can assure you we appreciate where we "come from". For our parents, and for us, the hope was indeed to live better than those before us. But now, it seems clear that living "better" is probably not going to happen for our kids. They would be fortunate if it was just "as good as". What does that mean about the purpose of THEIR education?</p>
<p>"After reading the article I would like to give cudo's to Elite education which took the author mind set to those great heights that could think and analyze and produce an article like that." - sarcasm? Perhaps you should read the perspectives of others who discussed the article.</p>