<p>I was looking at comments on a college information website and saw comments about schools such as West Southern Podunk State Community College and NorthSouthEastWestern Alamo State College being for "Underachieving" and "Lower Class" Students. I am looking into said schools and I just want to know why people post such comments?</p>
<p>Since you’ve started threads about your getting into Vandy and Princeton,i think you are looking to start some trouble…</p>
<p>Because students who go to poor schools are poor people. Let’s be honest; there are maybe two (average?) public universities per state and some number of well-known private/LAC colleges. If you’re not going to one of these, you have failed at life.</p>
<p>I’m not going to respond to the above comment, since it’s obviously a ■■■■■.</p>
<p>At CC’s, there are plenty of successful, hard working people who could make it at the top colleges, but can’t go there, usually for financial reasons. Surely you can’t expect a recent Iranian immigrant to pay $60K a year, so transferring is his only option. There are others who got off to a shaky start, and only had the drive/opportunity to start college after high school (their HS grades wouldn’t cut it), or later, at 25/30/40. They have their whole life ahead of them, and just because they weren’t perfect enough to get into Stanford or Berkeley doesn’t mean they have failed.</p>
<p>And I have to wonder, did Bill Gates and Steve Jobs fail at life? Last I checked, they were pretty successful.</p>
<p>I would love to meet someone who tries to claim that I have failed at life. I am looking into public state schools. Yeah state schools in specific SUNY schools. Now tell me, someone like myself who will graduate with a near if not perfect GPA, more than commendable test records and a crap load of volunteer hours under them is a failure at life? No sorry, I do not want to be a doctor from Columbia and have 200k dollars worth of debt. I want to teach. I want to teach in an inner city school so that I can inspire children and show them that they can make it to anything they want and anything they put their minds too. I’m sorry that this was a rant and a response to a ■■■■■ but it upsets me that people can possible have that insight on life. If you give yourself the authority to judge someone and say that they are a failure, you have failed at life because you have failed to look past exteriors and a resume. </p>
<p>But at the OP I have seen a grow in hate comments regarding kids who go or want to go to a public state school and I don’t understand why. Those people are all going after the same thing. Whether your going to Columbia,NYU, Princeton Or to SUNY New Paltz, Lehman College or community college, everyone is following the same path- to set themselves up for a successful future, one that they can be proud of.</p>
<p>The OP is NOT considering the schools mentioned,looking to cause some aggravation with an inflamatory post</p>
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<p>…And yet people always take the bait. Sigh.</p>
<p>Yeah, it just seems to be a parody of that other thread.</p>
<p>Personally, I’d rather attend an institution known for educating the poor than one known for educating the rich. Seems like a better mission.</p>
<p>Would you be prouder of your kid who was “teach[ing] in an inner city school so that [s/he] can inspire children and showing them that they can make it to anything they want and anything they put their minds to” and making maybe $35K - or packaging phony derivative mortgages on Wall Street, throwing people out of their homes, and making a 7-figure income?</p>
<p>I know how I’d answer. I fear I know how a substantial portion of the CC population would answer.</p>
<p>It’s not as black and white as that. A lot of the people who make a big difference, for the better, just happen to be rich. And an unfortunate plurality (if not majority) of inner-school teachers probably aren’t there for passion or charity. There are some wonderful teachers in such schools (ex. Freedom Writers Dairy) and there are others not so much.</p>
<p>I know numerous cases (personally, not hearsay) of kids going to the local “Podunk” CC and transferring into MIT.</p>
<p>Of course there are very wonderful people that happen to be rich and there are very suckish people to, same thing applies to people who aren’t rich. I know not everyone wants to help and I wasn’t speaking in general I was talking about me personally, and a handful of other teachers god knows I’ve had teachers that ended up teaching because it was “convenient” for him. Btw I love freedom writers :). It just annoys me how some people make that generalization. </p>
<p>I was already fumed up because of a comment a girl made to me earlier; in my school we have a liberal arts house where a student can graduate with a degree in cosmetology, a certificate in nursing assistant, an auto mechanic certificate, a cooking degree and as a security guard. My school is located in the middle of a struggling city but it is the only high school for 3 towns and hold 4000 students. This girl said, " the only reason we have these programs here is because kids in (this city) are too lazy to do anything with their lives and if they go to college at all they’ll end up in a community college unlike me." This made me so mad because I know for a fact that a majority of kids in these programs are wonderful people who are actually very smart (girl in this house has highest gPA in school) but can’t afford to go to a prestigious school. For someone who is not living with this as a reality or seeing this is a reality it’s easy to say “oh those kids are lazy” but it annoyed me that she’s friends with those kids she called lazy.</p>
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I know that the quoted sentence is the more agreeable thing to say, but looking at history, the greatest harm is always caused by the rich and powerful. What’s that about power corrupting? And of course not all rich people are snobby/elitist, but far more of them are than snobby/elitist poor people.</p>
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That girl is really out of touch, if she thinks mechanics, guards, nurses, and like professions don’t work hard. They very well may work harder than whatever job she’ll get after graduation.</p>
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By that metric the greatest good is also caused by rich people. Look at George Soros. Look at Bill Gates. Look at Warren Buffet. A doctor can save a multitude of lives. But the rich man has control of the flow of the capital; he can train a multitude of doctors. </p>
<p>The world isn’t so black and white. Many rich people are surely snobs, and many surely cause chaotic consequences (see: GWB). However, it is indisputable that the rich man can make much more of a difference, on a global perspective, than his average counterpart. Why? Nothing innate–just his ability to control the flow of capital.</p>
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But the generation of those fortunes could have entailed much evil. Of course, I could also say that they haven’t had the best impacts upon the world. Who is George Soros, when compared to Gandhi? Bill Gates when compared to Nelson Mandela? Warren Buffet (who disinherited his granddaughter for being interviewed in a documentary about the Top 1%) when compared to Mother Teresa or Martin Luther King, Jr. or Jesus or Buddha?</p>
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Bringing “average” into confuses the issue. A poor man also has the ability to greatly impact the world for the better, and a much lower ability to impact the world for the worse. Unless you don’t think money/power/greed corrupts, it’s hard to say there’s no difference.</p>
<p>It’s hard to say, was the evil dictator corrupt before he came into power? Was it the wealth he has that corrupted him? Or was it always just him?</p>
<p>The whole issue of where people go to school is more complicated than just lazy vs. not lazy. If a family doesn’t have the resources then a degree from a community college will be an achievement.</p>
<p>Exactly. My whole thing is just no one has a right to press judgement on anyone else because they do or not have a Ivy school attached to their name. Bill gate is a genius but whose to say that he couldn’t have gotten there through a state school. Yes money is a huge factor in everything and anything people do. It is easier to make a difference when money is involved but it’s a different change for each person. It could be something like starting a charity or something like corrupting others. </p>
<p>And yeah I know this girl is way out of touch with reality. She wants to be an English teacher. Yes that requires you to get a degree and a masters but don’t you need a working car, and your health to do so??? Just like she has to make lesson plans a mechanic has remember how a car can function, the parts of an engine, what oil works best. Every job is important in some type of way. </p>
<p>In general this whole situation is controversial because regardless what anyone says the topic will still be there. There will still be arrogant people, oblivious people and people who just don’t care. Unfortunately this is just the way our world works.</p>
<p>A few observations/beliefs…</p>
<ol>
<li><p>It’s hard to discern sarcasm in writing, but use your imagination. Even I’m not so crass as to seriously believe that the choice of college determines whether a person has wasted their life.</p></li>
<li><p>A student who could have been admitted to HYPSM will more than likely do as well as students who are admitted and do attend… in other words, the potential to excel is pre-existing.</p></li>
<li><p>Admission to HYPSM is not necessarily a good indicator of (relevant) academic/creative ability/passion, since they base admissions on a number of fairly frivolous things in addition to legitimate ones… in other words, failure to be accepted to HYPSM does not preclude you from being a successful individual.</p></li>
<li><p>It doesn’t make sense to discuss “success” in objective terms, since what I consider success you might consider a waste, and vice versa. Part of receiving a decent education is to realize how little you really know and to understand that different people may have different - and equally valid (or invalid, depending on how you look at it) - priorities.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>I am not saying that the average man does not have the capacity to change the world. I am just saying that the rich man is more able to do so. To accept that power and wealth magnifies corruption is also to accept that it catalyzes welfare.</p>
<p>Many rich people have pledged their fortunes to wonderful causes. I’m sorry, but I know that the 100 billion dollars that will be pledged to good cause between Buffet and Gates is more than what an average man can do. To equate Gandhi and Mandela with average men? Haha. </p>
<p>I understand your point, but it is a little foolish and shortsighted to write-off all wealthy people as corrupted by power. Yes, there is such corruption–it is heinous. By the same token these men can do more than what a whole crowd of average people can do. It is just the consequence of their access to such capital.</p>
<p>Yeah rich people have more I guess the word would be ability? It’s easier for a wealthy person to make a substantial change. However I think the person that said Ghandi and referred to him as an average man has a point. The way we know him it is ridiculous to say he was an average man, but at the time he was. Yes he did have Money but he found a cause that he believed in and his money did no play a role in his followers or what he wanted to change. Correct if I’m wrong however. </p>
<p>Ghandi, after realizing the Change he wanted to make he took on the role of a poor peasant where he didn’t use his money instead he wore the same clothes everyday and walked barefoot although he didn’t have too. I think that’s what the person was talking about.</p>
<p>A man with the charisma and leadership of Gandhi can not be (and was never) considered average. As a side note, he was a fairly successful expatriate lawyer–not a middle-class undertaking.</p>
<p>I guess my point is wealth can be compensated with charisma and brilliant leadership. Thus, although Gandhi may have been a “regular” man as far as personality goes, it doesn’t serve as an argument against the fact that the rich man can do more.</p>