5 ms·

"However, a class on product realization at Stanford peaked my interest and I decided to pitch my idea to get into the class." I'm already not listening. Why i

"However, a class on product realization at Stanford peaked my interest and I decided to pitch my idea to get into the class." I'm already not listening. Why is it when somebody from any other school in the U.S. except for top-10 schools says something like this it goes: "However, a class on product realization at school peaked my interest and I..." I now know that you think your idea is on shaky ground and you have to plug your school to make you and your idea seem legit. Note to top-10 U.S. schools, you need to have a required 1-credit class that all students must take. In it, the only thing that is taught is that students are not ever to refer to their overpriced place of education except when asked. It's insufferable and only makes the speaker/author sound like they are incapable of providing strong ideas of their own and have to bolster their statements with a brand label. If it's not clear why this is necessary (i.e. you went to a top-10 school and this concept completely mystifies you) pretend we are talking about something else, say the recent snowfall on the East Coast of the U.S. and I say "When I was out shoveling snow in my Louis Vuitton coat..." or "I was loading groceries into my Mercedes..." or "I realized I was running late to the meeting when I noticed the time on my Blancpain..." -- I sound like a pompous asshole with a pathological need to insert needless and content free information. People who go to top schools in other countries don't feel the need to constantly remind the world of this (well, unless they went to Oxford or Cambridge I suppose, but even then I find remarkable restraint). I can't ever recall hearing "When I did some mundane thing at the University of Tokyo..." or "There I was, doing some typical activity at the University of Heidelberg..." Seriously, stop. And tell all your friends. It's really only hurting them.

matrix 17y ago
The most amusing thing about this rant is that it completely overlooked the most egregious error in that sentence fragment - an error, I had sincerely hope is not representative of Stanford students in general.
- elblanco 17y ago
  Ha! I didn't even make it that far I was so turned off. But I'm not a Grammar Nazi. Even Stanford students can use English how they want.
teej 17y ago
I understand your dislike of egotism around schools. This is certainly an issue that requires education on "not being a jerk". That being said, this author used it in a relevant context - because he was attendig Stanford, he could go directly to Steve Blank for advice. You can't do this in the real world without paying his consulting rates. This isn't egotism, it's simply a perk of attending Stanford.
- elblanco 17y ago
  I admit to overreacting and I sincerely apologize for it. Upon further review (and skipping the first paragraph), he makes a good point. But I do stand by my general point that he fell too easily into the insufferable trap of school egotism. I've made it a policy to pretty much just ignore anybody from the moment they start a sentence with "When I went to <insert specific school>...". It could be a top-10 school, or it could be some Tier-3 school. Unless the point is hyper-specific to that school, the school is really immaterial to the point. Coincidentally when a school is named in a sentence like that it's almost always a top-10 US school. This is a common phenomenon for these schools. I did some quick spot checking just to make sure I wasn't suffering from some kind of confirmation bias... According to Google the phrase "What I was at <insert school>" occurs with the following frequencies: School - Google Returns - US News Ranking Harvard - 2,280,000 - 1 Columbia - 1,300,000 - 8 Yale - 976,000 - 3 Stanford - 962,000 - 4 Princeton - 651,000 - 1 MIT - 607,000 - 4 Duke - 553,000 - 10 Brown - 485,000 - 16 Cornell - 418,000 - 15 Compare to Tier-3 schools with large student populations KSU - 91,300 Biola - 56,800 DePaul - 45,200 UVA - 45,600 Some of the schools barely register at all, even reasonably notable ones. I even tried a couple versions of their names to get more results... George Mason University - Which has the largest student population in the state, and is #1 on USNews's list of Up-and-coming National Universities has the #1 public policy school in the nation, and several other top-10 and top-20 schools and programs (Economics, Political Economics, Law and Economics) etc. GMU - 3 George Mason - 4 Old Dominion University - one of only 101 public universities with a Carnegie/Doctoral Research-Extensive distinction, large student population ODU - 10 Old Dominion - 1 Kettering University (formerly GMI) - Ranked consistently as one of the best Engineering Schools in the U.S. Kettering - 7 GMI - 7
  - 17y ago

matrix 17y ago

The most amusing thing about this rant is that it completely overlooked the most egregious error in that sentence fragment - an error, I had sincerely hope is not representative of Stanford students in general.

elblanco 17y ago
Ha! I didn't even make it that far I was so turned off. But I'm not a Grammar Nazi. Even Stanford students can use English how they want.

teej 17y ago

I understand your dislike of egotism around schools. This is certainly an issue that requires education on "not being a jerk". That being said, this author used it in a relevant context - because he was attendig Stanford, he could go directly to Steve Blank for advice. You can't do this in the real world without paying his consulting rates. This isn't egotism, it's simply a perk of attending Stanford.

elblanco 17y ago
I admit to overreacting and I sincerely apologize for it. Upon further review (and skipping the first paragraph), he makes a good point. But I do stand by my general point that he fell too easily into the insufferable trap of school egotism. I've made it a policy to pretty much just ignore anybody from the moment they start a sentence with "When I went to <insert specific school>...". It could be a top-10 school, or it could be some Tier-3 school. Unless the point is hyper-specific to that school, the school is really immaterial to the point. Coincidentally when a school is named in a sentence like that it's almost always a top-10 US school. This is a common phenomenon for these schools. I did some quick spot checking just to make sure I wasn't suffering from some kind of confirmation bias... According to Google the phrase "What I was at <insert school>" occurs with the following frequencies: School - Google Returns - US News Ranking Harvard - 2,280,000 - 1 Columbia - 1,300,000 - 8 Yale - 976,000 - 3 Stanford - 962,000 - 4 Princeton - 651,000 - 1 MIT - 607,000 - 4 Duke - 553,000 - 10 Brown - 485,000 - 16 Cornell - 418,000 - 15 Compare to Tier-3 schools with large student populations KSU - 91,300 Biola - 56,800 DePaul - 45,200 UVA - 45,600 Some of the schools barely register at all, even reasonably notable ones. I even tried a couple versions of their names to get more results... George Mason University - Which has the largest student population in the state, and is #1 on USNews's list of Up-and-coming National Universities has the #1 public policy school in the nation, and several other top-10 and top-20 schools and programs (Economics, Political Economics, Law and Economics) etc. GMU - 3 George Mason - 4 Old Dominion University - one of only 101 public universities with a Carnegie/Doctoral Research-Extensive distinction, large student population ODU - 10 Old Dominion - 1 Kettering University (formerly GMI) - Ranked consistently as one of the best Engineering Schools in the U.S. Kettering - 7 GMI - 7
- 17y ago