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Interesting. That's directly opposite what I've seen. My close high school friends nearly all went to Ivy League-quality schools: Yale, Penn, MIT, Caltech, etc.

by benesch 12y ago

Interesting. That's directly opposite what I've seen. My close high school friends nearly all went to Ivy League-quality schools: Yale, Penn, MIT, Caltech, etc. Some of us are happy. Most of us are succeeding. A few of us are excelling. (Personally, I'm struggling. I have this irrepressible notion that liberal arts are a waste of my time, no matter how hard I try to subscribe to the learning-for-learning's-sake theory, which is not great for grades.) We're all stressed out of our minds. Three of my equally, if not more, intelligent friends ended up at public institutions or "second-" or "third-tier" schools. Unequivocally, they're happier. They're thriving, as the article puts it. Student council presidents, top of their class, balanced social life, good job or graduate school prospects. Of course, this is all anecdata. Me as much as you. The article at least has some semblance of data. In the end, it's an optimization problem. What is higher education optimizing for? Salary? That seems myopic. Happiness? That seems overly hedonistic. Maturity? Impact upon the world? Good luck measuring that. College is only not worth it if you don't get out of it what you want. Most of us go to college because society tells us it leads to a "better life"--which is an inherently unquantifiable notion.

Chronic29 12y ago
Interesting, in my experience, I've witnessed the opposite of what you've said. Most of my friends at private schools seem to be happier and tend to be more successful than those at mid tier state universities.
pfisch 12y ago
You can't assess anything until college is over and you are actually in the real world. Good Grades does not mean you will succeed in real life. It mostly means you are good at following orders.
- aetherson 12y ago
  I think good grades probably mostly means that you picked courses you're well suited for.
  - benesch 12y ago
    That's why you have to evaluate the grade in the context of the course! GPA is meaningless; individual grades are much more informative. See Harry Lewis, recently appointed dean of Harvard's engineering school, on the subject. [0] The savvy employers do this—though probably not enough. There's a finance firm that hires exclusively Math 55 [1] alumni—I forget the name; a number of tech firms screen for CS161 [2]. Both among the hardest classes you can find. An A in those takes a hell of a lot more than just following directions. [0]: http://harry-lewis.blogspot.com/2014/11/can-we-find-better-way-to-rank-students.html http://harry-lewis.blogspot.com/2014/11/can-we-find-better-w... [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Math_55 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Math_55 [2]: http://www.eecs.harvard.edu/~margo/cs161/ http://www.eecs.harvard.edu/~margo/cs161/
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- hueving 12y ago
  >It mostly means you are good at following orders. Maybe if you went to a terrible school. In any decent school it means you were able to come up with a solution to a problem presented to you. This is especially true for upper-level classes where the majority of the grade is based on a personal project.
  - drcomputer 12y ago
    Nah, I sort of agree. I graduated with almost 4.0 for my masters. There's so much more I am learning now - things everyone who didn't do well in school learned - humility, balance of life and work, ability to adapt without explicit rules, implicit socialization and direction, ability to self direct, ability to group direct, ability to lead, ability to learn things not traditionally used as metrics of intelligence. Education gave me a beautiful foundation of knowledge, the concept and form of theory and knowledge, and a strong love for it. It didn't teach me how to live, nor could it teach me how to think outside the bounds it defines.
  - crpatino 12y ago
    As someone who has been on and off of lecturing for the last 10 years, I think you overestimate the size of the Decent Schools Set.
  - pfisch 12y ago
    Solving discrete problems with discrete answers is just not the hard part of real life, at least not the entrepreneurial part which I am the most familiar with. Starting and completing a huge project that doesn't have deadlines where you have to figure out how to bring it from idea to market is real, and it rarely takes a semester and it isn't at the discretion of a single person to look at it for 30 minutes and then put a letter grade on it, and then throw it in the garbage. The most important difference though is that amount of effort only loosely correlates with the success of a venture in the real world. In school you can really just brute force most problems.
saraid216 12y ago
> a "better life"--which is an inherently unquantifiable notion. Spoken like a true liberal arts major. A better life is pretty easily quantified. The part that gets you tied up in knots is deciding what "better" means. You stop a thousand people on the street, I guarantee you that a ridiculously overwhelming majority can give you an easily quantifiable answer to the question, "What is a better life?" The answers won't be that hard to distill down to, "Enough hours spent doing these things." The numbers are there. And no. College is not optimizing its graduates for a better life. College, since its inception, has assumed that you came in with one.
- benesch 12y ago
  Heh, I'm a computer science major to my core. Spoken like a CS major at a liberal arts school, I suppose. I suspect we agree. If you could universally define "better life," you could quantify it. But you can't. We're also bad--really bad--at analyzing ourselves. Right now, I'd love to be spending 60 hrs/week programming and less time writing papers. But I bet I'll feel differently in a decade. > And no. College is not optimizing its graduates for a better life. College, since its inception, has assumed that you came in with one. I'm not sure what you mean. Higher education has become increasingly accessible to the economically disadvantaged, not less. Also, here's Harvard College's mission statement: > Harvard College adheres to the purposes for which the Charter of 1650 was granted: “The advancement of all good literature, arts, and sciences; the advancement and education of youth in all manner of good literature, arts, and sciences; and all other necessary provisions that may conduce to the education of the … youth of this country….” In brief: Harvard strives to create knowledge, to open the minds of students to that knowledge, and to enable students to take best advantage of their educational opportunities. To these ends, the College encourages students to respect ideas and their free expression, and to rejoice in discovery and in critical thought; to pursue excellence in a spirit of productive cooperation; and to assume responsibility for the consequences of personal actions. Harvard seeks to identify and to remove restraints on students’ full participation, so that individuals may explore their capabilities and interests and may develop their full intellectual and human potential. Education at Harvard should liberate students to explore, to create, to challenge, and to lead. The support the College provides to students is a foundation upon which self-reliance and habits of lifelong learning are built: Harvard expects that the scholarship and collegiality it fosters in its students will lead them in their later lives to advance knowledge, to promote understanding, and to serve society. That's pretty damn well summarized as "we empower our students to lead better lives." We can argue over whether college comes close to achieving that goal, but I'm comforted by the fact that the stated mission at least aligns with my personal reasons for attending school.
AlfaWolph 12y ago
Given the conflicting data points, this question is ripe for some empirical research.
GFK_of_xmaspast 12y ago
"I have this irrepressible notion that liberal arts are a waste of my time" I used to teach math at a large public university, and would always have kids asking 'what's the point of this' and thinking it was a waste of their time.
eli_gottlieb 12y ago
>(Personally, I'm struggling. I have this irrepressible notion that liberal arts are a waste of my time, no matter how hard I try to subscribe to the learning-for-learning's-sake theory, which is not great for grades.) Think of it as learning the vocabulary you can use to communicate your STEMlord ideas to the peasants/mortals ;-). >In the end, it's an optimization problem. What is higher education optimizing for? Salary? That seems myopic. Happiness? That seems overly hedonistic. Maturity? Impact upon the world? Good luck measuring that. The graduate's optimization power.

by benesch 12y ago

Chronic29 12y ago

Interesting, in my experience, I've witnessed the opposite of what you've said. Most of my friends at private schools seem to be happier and tend to be more successful than those at mid tier state universities.

pfisch 12y ago

You can't assess anything until college is over and you are actually in the real world. Good Grades does not mean you will succeed in real life. It mostly means you are good at following orders.

aetherson 12y ago
I think good grades probably mostly means that you picked courses you're well suited for.
- benesch 12y ago
  That's why you have to evaluate the grade in the context of the course! GPA is meaningless; individual grades are much more informative. See Harry Lewis, recently appointed dean of Harvard's engineering school, on the subject. [0] The savvy employers do this—though probably not enough. There's a finance firm that hires exclusively Math 55 [1] alumni—I forget the name; a number of tech firms screen for CS161 [2]. Both among the hardest classes you can find. An A in those takes a hell of a lot more than just following directions. [0]: http://harry-lewis.blogspot.com/2014/11/can-we-find-better-way-to-rank-students.html http://harry-lewis.blogspot.com/2014/11/can-we-find-better-w... [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Math_55 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Math_55 [2]: http://www.eecs.harvard.edu/~margo/cs161/ http://www.eecs.harvard.edu/~margo/cs161/
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
hueving 12y ago
>It mostly means you are good at following orders. Maybe if you went to a terrible school. In any decent school it means you were able to come up with a solution to a problem presented to you. This is especially true for upper-level classes where the majority of the grade is based on a personal project.
- drcomputer 12y ago
  Nah, I sort of agree. I graduated with almost 4.0 for my masters. There's so much more I am learning now - things everyone who didn't do well in school learned - humility, balance of life and work, ability to adapt without explicit rules, implicit socialization and direction, ability to self direct, ability to group direct, ability to lead, ability to learn things not traditionally used as metrics of intelligence. Education gave me a beautiful foundation of knowledge, the concept and form of theory and knowledge, and a strong love for it. It didn't teach me how to live, nor could it teach me how to think outside the bounds it defines.
- crpatino 12y ago
  As someone who has been on and off of lecturing for the last 10 years, I think you overestimate the size of the Decent Schools Set.
- pfisch 12y ago
  Solving discrete problems with discrete answers is just not the hard part of real life, at least not the entrepreneurial part which I am the most familiar with. Starting and completing a huge project that doesn't have deadlines where you have to figure out how to bring it from idea to market is real, and it rarely takes a semester and it isn't at the discretion of a single person to look at it for 30 minutes and then put a letter grade on it, and then throw it in the garbage. The most important difference though is that amount of effort only loosely correlates with the success of a venture in the real world. In school you can really just brute force most problems.

saraid216 12y ago

> a "better life"--which is an inherently unquantifiable notion. Spoken like a true liberal arts major. A better life is pretty easily quantified. The part that gets you tied up in knots is deciding what "better" means. You stop a thousand people on the street, I guarantee you that a ridiculously overwhelming majority can give you an easily quantifiable answer to the question, "What is a better life?" The answers won't be that hard to distill down to, "Enough hours spent doing these things." The numbers are there. And no. College is not optimizing its graduates for a better life. College, since its inception, has assumed that you came in with one.

benesch 12y ago
Heh, I'm a computer science major to my core. Spoken like a CS major at a liberal arts school, I suppose. I suspect we agree. If you could universally define "better life," you could quantify it. But you can't. We're also bad--really bad--at analyzing ourselves. Right now, I'd love to be spending 60 hrs/week programming and less time writing papers. But I bet I'll feel differently in a decade. > And no. College is not optimizing its graduates for a better life. College, since its inception, has assumed that you came in with one. I'm not sure what you mean. Higher education has become increasingly accessible to the economically disadvantaged, not less. Also, here's Harvard College's mission statement: > Harvard College adheres to the purposes for which the Charter of 1650 was granted: “The advancement of all good literature, arts, and sciences; the advancement and education of youth in all manner of good literature, arts, and sciences; and all other necessary provisions that may conduce to the education of the … youth of this country….” In brief: Harvard strives to create knowledge, to open the minds of students to that knowledge, and to enable students to take best advantage of their educational opportunities. To these ends, the College encourages students to respect ideas and their free expression, and to rejoice in discovery and in critical thought; to pursue excellence in a spirit of productive cooperation; and to assume responsibility for the consequences of personal actions. Harvard seeks to identify and to remove restraints on students’ full participation, so that individuals may explore their capabilities and interests and may develop their full intellectual and human potential. Education at Harvard should liberate students to explore, to create, to challenge, and to lead. The support the College provides to students is a foundation upon which self-reliance and habits of lifelong learning are built: Harvard expects that the scholarship and collegiality it fosters in its students will lead them in their later lives to advance knowledge, to promote understanding, and to serve society. That's pretty damn well summarized as "we empower our students to lead better lives." We can argue over whether college comes close to achieving that goal, but I'm comforted by the fact that the stated mission at least aligns with my personal reasons for attending school.

AlfaWolph 12y ago

Given the conflicting data points, this question is ripe for some empirical research.

GFK_of_xmaspast 12y ago

"I have this irrepressible notion that liberal arts are a waste of my time" I used to teach math at a large public university, and would always have kids asking 'what's the point of this' and thinking it was a waste of their time.

eli_gottlieb 12y ago

>(Personally, I'm struggling. I have this irrepressible notion that liberal arts are a waste of my time, no matter how hard I try to subscribe to the learning-for-learning's-sake theory, which is not great for grades.) Think of it as learning the vocabulary you can use to communicate your STEMlord ideas to the peasants/mortals ;-). >In the end, it's an optimization problem. What is higher education optimizing for? Salary? That seems myopic. Happiness? That seems overly hedonistic. Maturity? Impact upon the world? Good luck measuring that. The graduate's optimization power.