why is Tufts not in CC's list of top universities

Colleges and Universities A-Z Tufts University
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<p>^Harvard is more selective than Tufts no doubt. It has a bigger name, more money, and better-known profs. It's grad programs are probably on the the best in the world. But the thing is that i don't believe the typical undergraduate Harvard student is substantially smarter than the typical Tufts student. Harvard has its Intel Finalists and 1600-scoring piano prodigies; it also has its' development candidates, its recruited athletes, and its Z-list. (note: I'm not implying that other schools, including Tufts, don't do the same thing, it's just that Harvard, with its reputation and endowment shouldn't have to) </p>

<p>Bill Richardson, the governor of New Mexico, is a Tufts alum, as are many ambassadors, congressmen and several foreign heads of state and government ministers. There have only been 43 presidents, and although a very large number of them went to Harvard or Yale, MOST probably got in through family connections. Are you seriously going to tell me that George W. Bush would have gotten into Yale with his C average and 1260 on the SAT if his dad wasn't director of the RNC and head of the CIA?</p>

<p>I seriously believe that rightbackatyou is a Tufts student, and I do see how not everyone would enjoy the school. It's just that on a site like this you tend to get polarized opinions, ie either ppl who loved the school or ppl who hated it.</p>

42

<p>"Tufts alums and professors are senators, representatives, governors, ambassadors, prime ministers, and top UN diplomats"</p>

<p>1 Senator, 1 High Level UN official, 2 Prime Minsters (Greece and...Libya, LOL), and some ambassadors only one of which was for anything prestigous (France). So yeah, why don't you stop pretending like Tufts is some fountain for high level global and national policians. Bill Richardson, lol...how many people do you honestly think have even heard of that guy?</p>

<p>The fact that you have to do a wiki search to identify these individuals and their connection to Tufts just serves in proving my point. Seriously, how many people do you honestly think have even heard of Bill Richardson?</p>

<p>JFK = Harvard, Bush = Yale, Clinton = G'Town. These are commonly known associations and universally known individuals. You simply don't have that at Tufts. Thus I think individuals considering a career in high level global politics should realize that the $40,000 they're paying for the Tufts name really isn't worth all that much. </p>

<p>But really now Bill Richardson? I say Tufts hasn't produced many well known public officials in high places and you come back with Bill Richardson? Go up to any person on the street and ask them who Bill Richardson is. 30 minutes after you're through explaining Bill Richardson's relevance to anything try asking them where he got his degree from.</p>

<p>And to suggest that the Pulitzer Prize is anywhere near equatable with a Noble Prize is quite possibly the most disgusting thing I've heard in quite some time. Absolutely insulting actually.</p>

<p>wrathofachilles,</p>

<p>Of course Bush is a dingbat, but he is an exception to the rule. There are probably a dozen or so kids in the entry classes of HYP that are accepted because of genetics ONLY. This however is not even close to the case for the vast vast majority of kids that get into those schools. How dare you even begin to assert otherwise.</p>

<p>The fact is kids at HYP are a cut above everyone else. Now I know thats not politically correct language here at Tufts but those are the facts. That's why you can point to any HYP graduating class and find dozens and dozens of individuals from middle and lower class backgrounds who have excelled to the highest positions in every field imaginable.</p>

<p>Really, it seems Tufts students will stop at nothing to reassure themselves of their prestige even if it means insulting the accomplishments and hardwork of completely honest, intelligent and dedicated individuals at HYP and the like. Unreal. You guys really need to grow up, so what if Harvard kids are alot smarter than Tufts kids?</p>

43

<p>I know that the vast majority of kids who get into HYPS-MD totally deserve to be there; I'm sorry if my post implied that I thought otherwise. It's just that there are kids who are qualified to get into these schools don't get in and many who do get in but don't deserve to. </p>

<p>Also, though I'm sure you won't care and will mock me for making this point, but Richardson was sec of energy before he became governor of New Mexico. Also, the foreign ministers of Thailand and Sri Lanka, both of whom were serious contenders to be UN Sec Gen (ultimately won by Ban Ki Moon of South Korea, a Harvard Kennedy School grad), went to Tufts at some point.</p>

<p>Tufts may have no Nobel winners on faculty, but how is this relavent to undergraduate education? Will a student really benefit from having a nobel-winning physicist teach them intro physics? Is this a productive use of the professor's time? The answer to both questions is probably not. At schools which do have large numbers of nobel laureates, they work almost exclusively with grad students and teach graduate courses, probably very rarely even talking to undergrads, let alone teaching them. I realize there are probably exceptions, but this seems to generally be the case.</p>

44

<p>Richardson was also the US' ambassador to the UN. He is also a top contender (among 5 others) for the Democratic nomination for president in 2008.</p>

45

<p>Rightbackatyou, you certainly sack quite a few strawmen in your vitriolic posts. A lot of what you argue is backed by pseudoreasoning and a narrow mindset - so you didn't enjoy Tufts, that's okay. But has it occured to you that the reasons why you don't like it aren't applicable to everyone? You want your 40k a year to buy you a perfect experience; that's impossible. You cling to superficial grandiose claims of "Tufts isn't recognized" with famous people coming from Harvard and Yale - as a philosophy major with a 3.2, you should be able to reason why Tufts isn't as good a bit better than that. Most of our graduates report that the education here was invaluable. So you imply that that we'll never measure up to people from the ivy leagues: speak for yourself - don't bash others for your own insecurities over the power elite theory. We'll go out and do great things without your respect or knowledge because you don't WANT to see what we're capable of.</p>

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<p>I disagree that economics and IR are bad for law school. I know quite a few people with those majors who are at top 25 law schools. You do not need philosophy or classics for law school. While my second major was among those, and I do think it helped, it was only becuase I was also an engineer and gained a tremendous amount from the liberal arts courses. </p>

<p>I know people with history degrees who did investment banking. I know people with econ degrees who are CEOs. Fact is, once you have your first job, your major is pretty irrelevant, unless it is engineering or accounting.</p>

47

<p>i didn't read the last two pages, but in response to rightbackatyou, i've taken some cool Philosophy courses here. I don't necessarily think IR and Econ are good prep for law school but then again I don't necessarily want prep for law school. I want to study IR, and Econ, and get a law degree because I feel I'm very interested in all three of those areas. I might not end up practicing law, I'm just glad to get a diverse base so that hopefully some of my skills will be marketable.</p>

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<p>"I disagree that economics and IR are bad for law school"</p>

<p>Look, it doesn't matter whether you agree, are indifferent or are oppossed to your very core. These are readily available facts that any professor will back me up on, try asking. I've had numerous professors at Tufts tell me the same thing. Shoot, if you don't believe me just do a google search. Political Science and Economics majors simply do not score highly on the LSAT's compared with other majors.</p>

<p>I'm just saying if you're looking specifically to go to law school IR and Econ, according to the numbers, are not going to give you the best chance at performing well on the LSAT's. </p>

<p>Not that Philosophy is any golden ticket either, but I mean let's be honest here, the LSAT is essentially a Philosophy test, a logic test anyways. Not to mention that the bulk of the coursework in Law School is going to be theory based as well.</p>

<p>Blah, what were we talking about?</p>

49

<p>I think it depends on what type of law you're going into (which should also influence which law schools you apply to): for business, international, or immigration law, then IR and Econ are probably good majors to have. </p>

<p>I find it odd that PoliSci majors don't do well on the LSAT, especially since a lot of the polisci courses I've taken involve a fair amount of philosophy, logic, and abstract thinking.</p>

50

<p>Yeah if you're going into International Law then I think IR and Economics would be good for the work you're doing AT law school. But don't you still have to take the LSAT?</p>

<p>Also, I'd like to know what Political Science courses you've taken at Tufts, taken anywhere for that matter, where you're using logic at all. Some political theory in some, abstract thinking MAYBE, MAYBE in others. But Logic? (~Q v P) Why would you be doing formal logic in a political science class? Again, I could very well be wrong, but that's why I'm asking.</p>

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<p>formal logic no, but if A then B type stuff yeah sure. No PS class (unless it's game theory or something like that) will involve mathematical formal logic. I'm sorry if i misphrased my statement. </p>

<p>Also, if you're going to law school yes you do have to take the LSAT no matter what, but as I'm sure you know there's no shortage of LSAT prep books and classes.</p>

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<p>While taking Philosophy courses prepares you very well for the logic portion o the LSAT, LSAT courses can make up for it ("it" being the Logic portion of the LSAT, not a philosophy education, mind you), as well as buying an LSAT prep book and going through it diligently (as I have). Like all SAT tests, it's coachable. Study what you want -- you can go to law school.</p>

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<p>"I'm sorry if i misphrased my statement"</p>

<p>Nah it's cool. I mean, shoot lets face it, we all use the term "logic" interchangably with reason, reasoning, critical thinking, etc. on a daily basis.</p>

<p>It's just my whole point is that a good portion of the LSAT is formal logic.</p>

<p>"Study what you want -- you can go to law school"</p>

<p>Within reason yeah. I still don't see how English or Pyschology would help at all and I still don't think African American Studies, Sociology, Art History and the like are even real majors at all.</p>

<p>I still don't see how philosophy could do anything but help, not only on the LSAT but in law courses as well considering that humanism, globalism, liberty and all these other abstract concepts which our law, international law, the concept of law period, didn't just spring out of nowhere. They came from philosophy.</p>

<p>Regardless, Political Science and International Law are nowhere near as rigorous as Philosophy.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
Look, it doesn't matter whether you agree, are indifferent or are oppossed to your very core. These are readily available facts that any professor will back me up on, try asking. I've had numerous professors at Tufts tell me the same thing. Shoot, if you don't believe me just do a google search. Political Science and Economics majors simply do not score highly on the LSAT's compared with other majors.

[/quote]

RightBackAtYou, please, please take a statistics course. You simply do not understand how they work, and it's very frustrating. Furthermore, I see no reason why I should take the opinion of what someone says that a bunch of non-law students/non-lawyers say about law school. Consider the sources - undergraduate professors. Personally, I would prefer to listen to law professors. </p>

<p>The LSAT scores in question are AVERAGES of the LSAT scores of all of the people of a certain major who take the test. Some problems with your logic:</p>

<p>1) some majors, like poli sci, have large numbers of people in them who go to law school and take the LSAT. That tends to bring down the average, because the stupid people who don't do well bring down the average of the smart people. Philosophy doesn't have the stupid people to bring down the average.</p>

<p>2) Some majors, like IR, have the opposite problem: so few people go to law school that the average is often not measured. You also get the problem of some majors, where the smart people in those majors tend to head into PhDs, and the less intelligent ones head to law school. That doesn't mean that the major is bad; it just means that the people who gravitate towards that major make different decisions.</p>

<p>3) Input/output. The LSAT is fairly g-loaded (not as much as the SAT). If smarter people gravitate to philosophy, then those people take the LSAT, they should do better than the poli sci people. You cannot reverse causation and say that, by majoring in philosophy, you will be smarter. That's like saying that going to Harvard makes you smart; the real flow of causation is that smart people go to Harvard in much higher numbers than Slippery Rock.</p>

<p>4) You have zero clue how law school admissions works. :) Two people with identical GPAs and LSAT scores, coming from the same school, one with a philosophy degree and the other with an IR degree, will, generally, have the same admissions results. Put in statistics talk, when you control for every other factor, the effect of major washes out. THAT is what I mean when I say that econ and IR are fine majors for law school. A major like communications will be considered so fluffy that it may hamper one's ability to get in the door; the law school doubts the student's ability to handle the rigour. It is a low hurdle and most majors don't have that problem.</p>

<p>You're talking to an engineer/law student. I aced the LSAT (and the GMAT, which is a very similar test). Yes, the LSAT involves "formal logic," although there's nothing in it that a reasonably decent high school education would not have taught you. A math class will get you to the same place. </p>

<p>Now, if you want to talk good majors for law school, once you are in the door, here would be my top picks: engineering, classics, philosophy, and sociology/psychology. Reasoning.<br>
Engineering:analytical skills up the wazoo; technical writing skills; and you're used to working harder than everyone else.<br>
Classics: our legal system came from the Romans and the Athenians. The problems of their legal system inspired some parts of ours. Yet, this is really only relevant for Con Law. More important is the rigourous grammar that comes from learning Greek or Latin. It helps immensely with reading Codes.
Philosophy: a lot of law school is changing one thing and seeing the result. A lot involves arguing by analogy (although this isn't quite the right way to put it). Philosophy teaches you that.
Sociology/psychology: a lot of common law is very intuitive. A lot of law, period, is policy. Those majors will help you to understand why the law is structured in a certain way; once you understand that, law school is much eaiser.</p>

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<p>I'll just ignore all the personal attacks and assumptions you've made about me and get straight to destroying your argument in my usual way. :)</p>

<p>I think however you just off and assumed that I know nothing only because I haven't provided in detail the data used for the comparison of LSAT scores amongst various college majors. It's plainly obvious that more political science majors go on to take the LSAT than say economics majors. Of course this conveniently has NOTHING to do with what I've stated all along which is that philosophy (and I also mentioned classics...stay tuned) is a more rigourous major that better prepares an individual for both the LSAT and law school than does Political Science and IR...</p>

<p>And despite all your attacks against me you miraculously come to the same conclusion. That Philosophy (and classics) are the best Liberal Arts majors for Law School, although you seem to disagree that they're also good for the LSAT's which I think is merely a result of your not knowing what Formal Logic actually is since you curiously have "Formal Logic" in quotations above for some unknown reason.</p>

<p>The mere fact that there are more Political Science majors taking the LSAT does not extinguish the relevancy that Philosophy's rigourous training in formal logic has to that test. I mean, c'mon on now.</p>

<p>I don't think it's just a matter of the "smarter gravitate towards philosophy." Frankly I don't know how you can say that philosophy teaches you logic, reasoning by analogy, etc. not to mention the theory and history which inspired our system of law and still say that the major isn't tailored more perfectly than any other Liberal Arts major for law school.</p>

<p>It's not a matter of who's smarter, it's about who knows what needs to be known. On average I'd say that a physics major is smarter than a philosophy major, but who's education is better tailored for law school?</p>

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<p>First of all, whether a major helps on the LSAT and whether a major helps get you in the door to law school are different issues. Second, those are different issues from what helps you once you get to law school. </p>

<p>Frankly, I think that philosophy is good but not as good as you think it is. Trust me, the "foundations of our legal system" or whatever won't help you when you're analyzing the UCC. You aren't going to do well if you talk about Plato when you're supposed to answer a question about the Internal Revenue Code. Very little of law school actually deals with the "foundations" of our legal system - maybe an upper-level legal history elective. </p>

<p>The people I know who did really well on the LSAT (175 range) are math, engineering, physics, and philosophy majors. The formal logic on the LSAT is extremely limited, which is why I put it in quotes. For the purposes of the LSAT, formal logic lite is all you need. (Considering that I teach the LSATs for one of the "big two" test prep companies, I'm pretty sure I know what I'm talking about. You can learn the logic for the LSAT in about ten minutes. Contrapositives and standard inductive/deductive reasoning are all you need.)</p>

<p>Once in law school, formal logic won't help you much. The "thinking" part of philosophy becomes important, but is not more important than strong analytical skills.</p>

<p>Dirty little secret about law school admissions: it doesn't matter what you major in when you seek admission. Once you're in law school, if you're at a top school, it doesn't matter how you do. If you go to a non-top 10, grades matter. Law schools don't look at your major and think too hard about whether or not you'll be a good law student; they take students with the highest numbers. </p>

<p>My list was about who does well once you actually get to law school. That's an entirely different ball game than getting through the door. In terms of getting in the door, econ and IR are fine majors. One of my Tufts friends doubled in those and is now at Harvard Law. Clearly, not penalized by admissions committees for those choices. If you like econ and want to go to law school, you'll be fine. Just learn what the contrapositive is before you take the LSAT. Taking a whole major in philosophy is just overkill.</p>

<p>Again, as an engineer in law school, I actually think that my education was great for what I'm doing. A lot of law school is legal writing, which is more like technical writing than anything else. It's very rigid and formulaic; technical writing teaches you how to stick to the point, build a discussion of dry material, and (most importantly) ignore your feelings and your beautiful ideas. The analytical skills, especially the inductive reasoning, were amazingly helpful. Also, engineering builds on itself throughout four years. I was used to crunching information and putting it together before I arrived at law school. Classics didn't teach me that; engineering did.</p>

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<p>"You can learn the logic for the LSAT in about ten minutes"</p>

<p>Here we go again. Look, what you and lolabelle need to understand is that Formal Logic cannot be picked up by everyone in 10 minutes. C'mon now, I've seen perfectly intelligent people break into tears over Undergraduate Logic homework. Literally. </p>

<p>It is not that easy for everyone. You who scored perfectly on the LSAT and lollabelle who scored like 176 or something are not the norm. My position in this thread is recommending a major that would best help MOST students in law school and the LSAT's.</p>

<p>Still I'd tend to agree that a whole major is overkill. Sometimes I look back on classes like Aesthetics and wonder why the hell I took that. </p>

<p>You're going to need some exposure to Plato though, ethics and logic. So that's about 4 courses give or take. I'd recommend these for everyone regardless of whether they're going to law school. There's also a philosophy of law listed here on the Philosophy Dept website here at Tufts although strangely I've never once seen it actually offered.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
Here we go again. Look, what you and lolabelle need to understand is that Formal Logic cannot be picked up by everyone in 10 minutes. C'mon now, I've seen perfectly intelligent people break into tears over Undergraduate Logic homework. Literally.

[/quote]

What, the logic homework where you try to prove that 2 + 1 =3? That's supposed to take hours to prove. The formal logic on the LSAT is limited to the contrapositive, which is really straightforward, and some very limited deductive reasoning. If you're not careful, they'll even sneak a Venn diagram into your test. Oh, the horrors!</p>

<p>The contrapositive is pretty simple but considered the toughest thing on the LSAT. The only thing you have to do is reverse the if/then statements and negate both of them. The truth holds when you do that. So, the statement of,"If it snows Saturday, I will go skiing on Sunday," turns to "If I did not go skiing on Sunday, it did not snow on Saturday." That's the limit of what the LSAT tests you on. </p>

<p>The logic games just involves being methodical. If you can do Soduko, you can do the Logic Games. I really think that those are more about methods than about formal logic. Draw a picture, put everything in its place, and they aren't that difficult. The people who have trouble are those who just don't like to be that methodical - they like to do things in a more circuitious fashion. It typifies the difference between sequential and random thinkers, which correlates to Thinking v. Feeling in Myers-Briggs. A major in something that requires them to think that way is only going to make their lives four years of hell. Which undergraduate is not supposed to be - that's what law school is for. :)</p>

<p>I do agree with a lot of what you are saying re: a core curriculum. IMNSVHO, most colleges really fail their students that way. They want them to have fine arts and non-Western civilisation, but they do not require a firm grounding in Plato, Thucydides, Aristotle... or any of the great philosophers. It's sad that you can get a college diploma from the best schools in this country without exposure to the basic underpinnings of Western Civ. Then again, I'm a die-hard conservative and really believe in learning that stuff as a basic requirement of being an informed, educated human.</p>

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<p>Law School Success
Not to be cynical, but to help students prepare... what you need to do to be successful in law school. First year courses are some combination of Property, Contracts, Civil Procedure, Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure, Torts, and Constitutional Law. </p>

<p>Of those, Contracts, Civ Pro, and Crim Pro are "code" courses, in that they mainly focus on statutes and statutory interpretation. Foreign language and OCD grammar nazism are good things for those. It helps if you can read a very dense, dry code and see where the ambiguities are; case law will expand on the Codes. </p>

<p>Code exams are hard to classify. I had one that was 60 multiple choice questions (and the answers were like A-G, all with slightly different explanations). The explanations were all cited to the Code or to cases. I had a take-home essay that asked questions about how you do certain things - pretend you are a lawyer for this corporation that is trying to do this, so what requirements does it have to satisfy? I've also seen exams that are not the traditional two or three issue-spotters, but are almost a dozen smaller essays. I've seen a combination of multiple choice and something like two dozen short answers, and then two long essays. (That test was rough.) Mostly, though, answers are short and to the point - you look up the Code section, and, if there is an ambiguity or a clarification, you remember which way the case came out. </p>

<p>For the other courses, welcome to such questions as "What is a chicken?" Now, the law is a phenomenal, wonderful thing in terms of its intellecutal development. However, if you want to do well in law school, there's a basic formula that you need to know - the "black letter" law. Black-letter law is just the "law" that results from all of those cases and philosophical ideas. The end result of a discussion about whether someone can be liable in a tort action if the plaintiff did not prove the mechanism by which the tort occurred is that, in some cases (such as things falling out of windows or parts falling off cars), the plaintiff need not prove the mechanism in order to recover. Or, the end result of the "what is a chicken" question is that ambiguities are construed against the drafter and extrinsic evidence can be brought in to satisfy a latent ambiguity. The example most familiar to everyone is that of a fence; if you build a fence on your neighbour's property, you will eventually own part of his land, up to the fence. On an exam, you don't need to know the theory behind adverse possession; you only need to recognize that issue and know that the relevant time period is either 10 years or 20 years, depending on the statute of limitations in the jurisdiction in question.</p>

<p>For exams, it doesn't matter how well you know the rationale behind the law; you just need to know the end result - the upshot - of all of those cases. A few professors may test theory, and you can certainly use theory to bolster your argument (law school exams will involve some long, twisted hypothetical problem that you have to resolve one way or the other, and it is deliberately constructed to be arguable either way). One important skill is the abilty to spot issues - when you see two pages of writing that includes six characters and twenty different actions, which ones are relevant to the class? Which ones are relevant to getting into court? Which action correlates to something you learned in class? Philosophy doesn't help you with that! Then again, not much does. :)</p>

<p>Yes, you'll enjoy law school if you really enjoy the philosophical underpinnings of the law. Mostly, though, you have to figure out the trend in cases and predict how a situation will be decided, given that trend. If a plaintiff is denied recovery in Situation A, but another plaintiff is allowed to recover in Situation B, and you are given Situation C, you have to argue whether C is closer to B or to A. (Often, it's a jury question, and that needs to be noted on your exam. You just say, "This party argues x, this party argues y, and the jury decides, because it's not a question of law.")</p>

<p>"Why x but not y" is a very common question in law school. You just aren't tested on it very frequently. :) All you need to know, for exams, is that x is but y is not. </p>

<p>To that end, you need to figure out how to organize something in the realm of 200 cases per class and 1000 pages of reading so that you it makes sense. That is where the inductive reasoning comes in. Outlining is a huge thing in law school, because it breaks that all down into smaller, manageable chunks so that you can learn where everything is going. You want to put all of the trees together to make a forest. Just be used to crunching information and take courses that require you, at the end of the semester, to have built on everything you've learned to date. History courses, unfortunately, tend to let you forget things right after the exam. Foreign language is the best analogy I can give for non-engineers. Also, once you're done with a class in law school, you're not really done. Property played a huge role in patent law and in bankruptcy law. Admin law and con law are closely intertwined. Family law requires con law and conflict of laws. </p>

<p>Some courses are just too huge for one semester. Criminal law is generally split into basic crim law (what is robbery, burglary, rape, assault, battery, negligent homicide, reckless homicide, second degree murder, attempt crimes, conspiracy); criminal procedure (often, the federal rules, but states have their own rules - this is things like how long you can detain someone before they have to see a magistrate for an independent probable cause determination; bail; what constitutes a felony v. a misdemeanor; double jeopardy) and constitutional criminal procedure (4th, 5th, and 6th amendments). Have fun digging through your memory bank as to what you learned a year or two ago! :)</p>

<p>If you take an upper-level seminar course, especially on a very "hot" topic, such as abortion or anything in con law, philosophy will become a bit more important and make the experience significantly more enjoyable. </p>

<p>I do remember debating with someone about the merits of abortion - consider analogies to end-of-life (brain death being the standard for ending care in a hospital and signing a death certificate - what about a fetus before it has a brain? does the potential to develop a brain matter? does that potential override the woman's interest in bodily integrity? can you consider life at conception? under what definition? the twinning process - a clear creation of two distinct embryos - happens after implantation - so can you ban Plan B on the grounds of it ending a life, when it is clearly not clear whether there is one or two individuals present?). Anyway, someone who was watching us debate (yes, how we spent our spare time... law school makes people boring) said something to the effect of, "I can see why philosophy majors do so well in law school." Yes, philosophy will help... but, again, my opinion, I don't think that the major really helps. If you hate thinking like that, law school will be three years of hell. If you like thinking that way, you'll catch on quickly enough and have a grand old time in seminars and out-of-class discussion.</p>

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<p>"What, the logic homework where you try to prove that 2 + 1 =3?"</p>

<p>LMAO! Dude, no! I can't remember doing any Math in Logic ever, or in the graduate level logic either. It simply isn't like that at all. I've never done mathematical logic but the logic it Tufts is mostly, what I guess you would call predicate logic so you're using alot of syllogisms and then later you'll get into using quantifiers, universals, etc. if I remember correctly in the 33 class. It might have been 103 though...</p>

<p>Now and then we'd have sample LSAT questions for homework based on this type of work. </p>

<p>"They want them to have fine arts and non-Western civilisation, but they do not require a firm grounding in Plato, Thucydides, Aristotle... or any of the great philosophers. It's sad that you can get a college diploma from the best schools in this country without exposure to the basic underpinnings of Western Civ. Then again, I'm a die-hard conservative and really believe in learning that stuff as a basic requirement of being an informed, educated human."</p>

<p>Allen Bloom says word the **** up. I'm glad there's someone else that thinks this way although I wish you wouldn't look at it as a matter of being a conservative.</p>

<p>It's not even about being an educated person IMO. Well, actually it is, but it's more about what creates a good citizen or a good American I guess you could say. How can we honestly expect people to care about Western virtues, values, heritage, etc. if they know nothing about the rich history and thought of the West? </p>

<p>Yay Southeast Asian Studies majors :rolleyes:</p>

<p>Rediculous.</p>