4 ms·

I didn't even understand the whole world of prestige and specialization among colleges when I was 16 or 17 and trying to pick a school. I didn't know that some

I didn't even understand the whole world of prestige and specialization among colleges when I was 16 or 17 and trying to pick a school. I didn't know that some schools were where the "good" people go. I just knew I was supposed to go to college, so I visited the local Penn State campus and people said "don't come here". Then I visited another state school and people seemed to like it, so that's where I went. I wonder if people realize how rare it is to even understand these things. If you don't have people in your family who went to college you are unlikely to be initiated into all this. If you do have a lot of people in your family who went to college, that's a serious leg up. Now I work in a fancy startup where everyone went to Stanford, MIT, Harvard. It's a very weird feeling.

_raoulcousins 9y ago
Yep! I chose a local state school over my top choice. State school was free with financial, extrapolating my financial aid package I would have graduated from the top choice with ~$60,000 debt. I didn't understand the prestige differential because literally everyone I knew at best went to that state school. One of my high school teachers even told our class that we should not aim higher than the state school, because everyone who ended up going somewhere better flunked out and at best eventually graduating from the state school. At least he was telling us a state school was achievable?
stuxnet79 9y ago
Things ended up working for me overall but I can relate to this post so much ... The assumption that it's 'obvious' that knowledge of how the system works is widespread is just wrong. It's only recently that I clued in to how the industry works, if I had all this knowledge handy years ago, if somebody told me, I don't know what position I would be in right now.
- gbrown 9y ago
  This even goes for high school counselors. I grew up in a suburban family with all of that knowledge of the system. My wife went to a similar high school, but is a first generation college student. She found out that she was supposed to take the ACT from a fellow student mere days before the deadline. Her counselor told her to ask her mom about college visits.
jakub_g 9y ago
Thanks for writing that. Sounds very similar to my experience in Europe. I started high school at 15 and it didn't even cross my mind (and would not have been financially possible) to look for one outside of my town, while I had a reasonable one 5 min walk away from my place. There was one school known to be the top in the state, in a big city 50 km away, but it had a reputation of people going on meth to be able to keep studying 24/7 - not so great. Then I started the local university at 18 - I happened to go to CS because I didn't see anything matching my skills better, but I didn't even write a line of C before that (did a bit of webdev and PHP though). No one in my family and none of my friends had anything to do with CS before me. Since then I moved country twice for study/work, but I still don't see myself changing country or even state back then at 18. (At that time, I barely started having fixed internet connection at home, didn't even know something like MIT exists, and what's all the fuss about Silicon Valley).
- mcguire 9y ago
  "what's all the fuss about Silicon Valley" No idea.
wpietri 9y ago
> If you don't have people in your family who went to college you are unlikely to be initiated into all this. Absolutely. The number 1 reason I'm in tech is that my dad was a programmer. The reason he's in tech is that his dad was high enough up at an insurance company to swing my dad a job back when computers were new and nobody knew what to do with them. And that probably worked out because the generation before that was reasonably well off due to some lucky choices. But I still grew up with little idea how to play the elite educational game. My family valued learning a great deal, but the jockeying for social advantage was never given much consideration. It's a very specific set of knowledge and skills.
srj 9y ago
This was my experience as well. I knew and admired schools like Berkeley as the home of Berkeley UNIX, but didn't recognize that the people who went there were considered the upper crust or that colleges were widely categorized into tiers until later on. As none of my family had gone to college, the goal simply seemed to be to get into a "4 year school". I can appreciate now that these schools offer stellar educational opportunity in contrast with many others. It's just that this should still be seen in the context that a person attends for a brief time when they're young and that perhaps it's not the be-all and end-all of intellectual ability that cultural attitudes (especially seemingly here in New England) might suggest.
groupthink-- 9y ago
it’s not a function of having gone to college. my parents and other family members have stem-related graduate degrees from state schools but were entirely ineffective in educating me on how the social aspect works. they just had no idea how the ruling class / managerial swath of society really works.

_raoulcousins 9y ago

Yep! I chose a local state school over my top choice. State school was free with financial, extrapolating my financial aid package I would have graduated from the top choice with ~$60,000 debt. I didn't understand the prestige differential because literally everyone I knew at best went to that state school. One of my high school teachers even told our class that we should not aim higher than the state school, because everyone who ended up going somewhere better flunked out and at best eventually graduating from the state school. At least he was telling us a state school was achievable?

stuxnet79 9y ago

Things ended up working for me overall but I can relate to this post so much ... The assumption that it's 'obvious' that knowledge of how the system works is widespread is just wrong. It's only recently that I clued in to how the industry works, if I had all this knowledge handy years ago, if somebody told me, I don't know what position I would be in right now.

gbrown 9y ago
This even goes for high school counselors. I grew up in a suburban family with all of that knowledge of the system. My wife went to a similar high school, but is a first generation college student. She found out that she was supposed to take the ACT from a fellow student mere days before the deadline. Her counselor told her to ask her mom about college visits.

jakub_g 9y ago

Thanks for writing that. Sounds very similar to my experience in Europe. I started high school at 15 and it didn't even cross my mind (and would not have been financially possible) to look for one outside of my town, while I had a reasonable one 5 min walk away from my place. There was one school known to be the top in the state, in a big city 50 km away, but it had a reputation of people going on meth to be able to keep studying 24/7 - not so great. Then I started the local university at 18 - I happened to go to CS because I didn't see anything matching my skills better, but I didn't even write a line of C before that (did a bit of webdev and PHP though). No one in my family and none of my friends had anything to do with CS before me. Since then I moved country twice for study/work, but I still don't see myself changing country or even state back then at 18. (At that time, I barely started having fixed internet connection at home, didn't even know something like MIT exists, and what's all the fuss about Silicon Valley).

mcguire 9y ago
"what's all the fuss about Silicon Valley" No idea.

wpietri 9y ago

> If you don't have people in your family who went to college you are unlikely to be initiated into all this. Absolutely. The number 1 reason I'm in tech is that my dad was a programmer. The reason he's in tech is that his dad was high enough up at an insurance company to swing my dad a job back when computers were new and nobody knew what to do with them. And that probably worked out because the generation before that was reasonably well off due to some lucky choices. But I still grew up with little idea how to play the elite educational game. My family valued learning a great deal, but the jockeying for social advantage was never given much consideration. It's a very specific set of knowledge and skills.

srj 9y ago

This was my experience as well. I knew and admired schools like Berkeley as the home of Berkeley UNIX, but didn't recognize that the people who went there were considered the upper crust or that colleges were widely categorized into tiers until later on. As none of my family had gone to college, the goal simply seemed to be to get into a "4 year school". I can appreciate now that these schools offer stellar educational opportunity in contrast with many others. It's just that this should still be seen in the context that a person attends for a brief time when they're young and that perhaps it's not the be-all and end-all of intellectual ability that cultural attitudes (especially seemingly here in New England) might suggest.

groupthink-- 9y ago

it’s not a function of having gone to college. my parents and other family members have stem-related graduate degrees from state schools but were entirely ineffective in educating me on how the social aspect works. they just had no idea how the ruling class / managerial swath of society really works.