The article provides no source and so I don’t know how authentic it is. But if it is correct, economics is the most popular major in every Ivy League school except Cornell. So I do not find it disturbing at at all three out of five students in a biased sample at The College tweet may be an Economics major in 2 years. A lot of people change their minds about major after a couple of years.
Besides, @JBStillFlying you know The College is never the biggest source of hire for Wall Street. It is GSB/Booth that has been the most fertile ground for Wall Street recruitment in the last 50 years.
If I divide the number of econ major with all the declared major college students, I come up with 25.7%. That is in line with the Maroon article 2 years ago. It is a fairly big number but hardly alarming.
They can get the major numbers from each college’s enrollment stats or degrees awarded by major; for instance, Yale shows that for the 2016/17 school year, out of 1,343 college grads, 150 graduated with a BA/BS in Econ, 123 in Poly Sci, and 106 in History. I believe those are, indeed, the three most popular majors, in total comprising 28% of the Yale graduating class. In contrast, econ alone at UChicago comprises nearly 26% (based on declared majors).
^ Addendum to #44: Spring 2017 and Spring 2018 Statistical Reports show between 18 - 19% of the UChicago College graduating in Economics so perhaps more begin with that major than end up there; or perhaps the major is increasing rapidly in popularity.
“Besides, @JBStillFlying you know The College is never the biggest source of hire for Wall Street. It is GSB/Booth that has been the most fertile ground for Wall Street recruitment in the last 50 years.”
True. The question is whether Wall Street is one of the biggest employers for the College. Financial services and similar accounted for 1/3 of industry outcomes for the class of 2017, according to the career placement report for that year.
College grad, if they are not going to PhD programs, will just follow the money. In my days most of my engineering friends went to EE/CS but few went to mechanical or civil engineering. But it seems nowadays mechanical engineering and civil engineering jobs are getting a whole lot more lucrative and so college grads are shifting into those fields.
Financial service jobs pay and so it is hardly surprising more college grads go there. Of course, there is big difference to work for Bridgewater or AQR versus retail banking at JP Morgan. But students will go where the money is.
@CU123 The Manhattan Project was essentially named for Columbia University. The research began on the island of Manhattan cough at Columbia University and was essentially organized in entirety at Columbia University. The first Uranium atom to be split during the World War II effort by the Allies (and the first on North American soil) was achieved at Columbia University by Enrico Fermi who nearly refused to move to UChicago. Columbia and UChicago probably played a bigger role than Princeton, and Berkeley but it’s very close.
@JHS When I say entire sections are empty I mean like 75% of the stadium. Have you seen Harvard Stadium or Franklin Field during Ivy League match ups? It’s a joke.
@85bears46@marlowe1@CU123 Are evidently sufferers of HYPS Derangement Syndrome and of course UChicago Boosterism Syndrome. You’re so triggered by the clear cut facts about UChicago’s true status that you come up with all sorts of conspiracy theories about who I am and what my intentions are. I think any non-partisan and informed human being would find the exaggerations made about UChicago on this page to be absolutely ridiculous.
^ Newsflash, @EliteCulture331 - so far 100% of your posts have been on a site for a school that you have no affiliation with. Not sure if it’s good or bad news, but you seem far more obsessed with UChicago than other posters are obsessed with other schools (take a look at where everyone else is posting to get an idea of that). Your case of UCDS has been full blown from the beginning. I dare say you had a strong case even before joining CC (assuming you didn’t switch over from a previous identity/avatar). Extraordinary either way you look at it. What is it about UChicago that bugs you so much? Doubt it’s the uppity refusal to cowtow to the Ivy’s.
Not to repeat from the UCDS thread (anyone interested should check it out five pages back) but you are demonstrating your symptoms within the framework of this discussion, which began with a gratuitously aggressive intervention to an entirely misperceived posting by the OP, in which you refused to recognize any form of mild correction and simply used that as an occasion to trot out the old canards about boosterism and imagined comparisons being made by us Chicagoans to all those far more prestigious schools which you happily boasted of as part of your personal resume. I am content to let any sane and attentive reader decide on the basis of your postings (and spare the pop psychology) whether there’s an agenda at work there. I consider this thread (and the other) to be Exhibit A.
@JBStillFlying@marlowe1 100% of my posts are on two UChicago-related threads because I created the account after reading the nonsense written in the UChicago forum (specifically the Stanford claim). I’m sure moving forward I will post on other topics .
I think both sides in this thread have merit. There are some that take potshots at Chicago without fully understanding what an interesting and unique place it is. And there are Chicago affiliates that are truly insufferable as they project an obvious chip on their shoulder because they or their child isn’t at an Ivy or Stanford.
At this point in the Fall sports season, maybe the UChicago shouldn’t aspire to be the Stanford of D3 sports, but maybe the Notre Dame, Northwestern or UMich of D3 sports. :-bd
From the Atomic Heritage Foundationa and verified by multiple other sources.
“The Manhattan Project was the code name for America’s atomic bomb development efforts during World War II. Its name originated from the fact that it was part of the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers and organized under the Manhattan Engineer District (MED) in New York City. The MED encompassed all of the far-reaching labs and installations scattered throughout the country.”
@CU123 MED was the initial HQ for the effort before much of the early research took place at Columbia. Columbia stands out as the organizing ground for the eventual involvement of several universities in many different locales. The project was moved from Manhattan because NYC was believed to be too vulnerable a location to conduct such confidential and high-risk research.
Two articles - both explain the importance of the project’s initial location in Manhattan and the contribution of Columbia towards the effort earning the name “The Manhattan Project”.
MODERATOR’S NOTE:
May I remind users that the rules of the forum require that they engage is civil discourse when participating; name calling cas no place here. Several posts deleted.
Additionally, let’s move away from off-topic discussion and certainly from debating those OT posts - all violate the forum rules.
Regarding the D1 “athlete-first” viewpoint referred to in Post #50, I think there’s merit to that even when looking at HYPS. The admissions standards (ACT/SAT and subject tests, for instance) are lower than for other applicants - everyone who knows about this process agrees on that. How does it work at a D3? My impression is that D1 is more about the athletics over academics, and D3 the reverse. Someone is welcome to correct or clarify.
As for academics, UChicago athletes are required to take the same Core curriculum as everyone else - perhaps they take 3 vs. 4 or 5 courses during the quarter their sport kicks into high gear. But anyone can take a minimum full load of 3 courses and many who are not athletes do just that for a variety of reasons. “Honors” is hard to get and requires an enormous commitment - it’s not just what you take if you are a non-athlete. In contrast, at least 30 years ago, Duke football players had a list of courses they were supposed to use in selecting their course of study (my husband overheard two of them talking in the bathroom). My guess is that there are set majors as well.
No doubt there are D1 chemist-athletes or equivalent. One of our friends’ kids has been doing her D1 sport at MIT for a few years now and I highly doubt that her materials engineering major has a special list. But she was also recruited during her freshman class orientation, oddly enough, just due to the particular sport! She didn’t have a separate application process or standards than anyone else trying to get into MIT. I suspect her situation is unusual. We also know someone playing a D1 sport for HYPS and her application standards conformed to the one summarized in my first paragraph Also, her course load is definitely lighter than a typical UChicago first year’s. She’s definitely there to play her sport and benefit from the prestige of her school, although she’s also very smart and absolutely earned her spot as much on the freshman class roster as on the team’s.
@JBStillFlying Whether student athletes are athletics or academics focused depends entirely on the culture and quality of the school they attend. A D1 tennis player at Columbia or Yale competing with schools like Stanford and UVA will still have to fulfill the Core Curriculum or Directed Studies regardless of their athletic obligations.
The whole point of the Ivy League, snooty as it may sound, is to essentially quarantine America’s oldest and most esteemed universities from the perils of sports-based admissions and to maintain the highest level of academic performance. Ivy League football teams are barred from competing in the postseason despite being the progenitors of the American game of football.
HYPS shouldn’t be grouped together when it comes to athletics. Athletes in the Ivy League are competing for the most part in the D1 subdivision and rarely pursue professional sports careers.
@2022uchi , just curious as to why you conclude in post #51 that a defence of Chicago values in the long debate about those values as against ivy values means “having a chip on your shoulder”. Even if that was actually so, why do you believe that attitude could only be explained by having a child rejected by an ivy? Isn’t it possible to simply not like the ivy model, or at least not like it sufficiently to prefer it to the Chicago model? Many of the ivy crowd, God knows, do not like Chicago. From what I know of the people on this board who might be called Chicago boosters the motivation you suggest applies not at all. Surely you admit there could be actual reasons for preferring the culture and model of education of a school that is not HYSP. Or does doing that make one insufferable? Your moniker suggests you ought to be open at least to a debate.
The vast majority of athletes at Stanford aren’t pursuing professional sports careers, either. Obviously, some are, and a lot more than you would find at Harvard or Yale, but it’s still a small percentage of the athletes and a negligible percentage of the student body. Meanwhile, a friend’s child who went to Harvard as a recruited athlete in a sport where Harvard matters – this kid was and remains a potential Olympian – had just about as intense an athletic experience at Harvard as Stanford might have provided. The kid was an athlete first, no question about it. But got a great education, too, and friends who were not athletes, and really appreciated that.
Re: Economics majors at Chicago. The registrar’s page on the university website has links to quarterly reports with very detailed information about undergraduate majors. It’s generally true that 25% of the student body has economics as a major, but that includes second and third majors. (I think math and economics combinations are especially popular, in either order.) The IPEDs data you see on College Navigator and elsewhere only report first majors, so its easy to find contradictory information about the percentage of economics majors at Chicago vs. elsewhere.
Re: Demonic plans. I don’t believe anyone associated with the University of Chicago, including Jim Nondorf, have anything like @marlowe1 's “complete Princetonization” as a goal, or even think that would be a good idea. No one wants to mess with the rigor of the Chicago education or the intellectual quality of the university. I think they just want a more vibrant undergraduate culture, and to attract a broader range of really smart kids, including some who want to get really rich and name buildings at their alma mater.