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Forget about textbooks, they're irrelevant. The exclusive thing some universities can offer is a direct guidance from the top academics (including Nobel prize w
by sklogic 11y ago
Forget about textbooks, they're irrelevant. The exclusive thing some universities can offer is a direct guidance from the top academics (including Nobel prize winners).
This is the main (and probably the only legitimate) reason to want to be educated in such an institution. They can provide an access to an early research material which is not even published yet, and will only get into textbooks decades later.
- harryjo 11y agoFor the most part, this opportunity is wholly irrelevant to undergraduates -- they aren't ready to benefit from it.
- sklogic 11y agoWhy? They're (a majority of them) are in exactly that age when the great minds can influence them most strongly. Later on in their career they'd have a bunch of sticky prejudices, their own solidified research interests, and so on. Meeting a great mind won't sway them as much as it can do to a young and unspoiled.
- invalidOrTaken 11y agoYou know, it's funny; I was an undergrad when, broken-hearted over a girl and wondering why it didn't work out, I came across a partial explanation (http://paulgraham.com/nerds.html http://paulgraham.com/nerds.html), thought, "This guy is smart and writes well," read some more (http://paulgraham.com/avg.html http://paulgraham.com/avg.html), and...well, six years of lisp later...here I am.