Comment by vundercind | Hacker News Reader

Comment by vundercind | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

I’ve definitely noticed a type from top universities (not just MIT). It can come off as kinda in-your-face or confrontational or intense. I have some of the same tendencies, and have to rein it in because people really don’t like it—but it seems to be encouraged some places, they do it way more and harder than I ever have. It even throws me off (that part’s probably my midwesternness coming through)

My guess is part of it’s to do with a much higher proportion of students at top institutions (than at sub-top-1%) having attended prep schools that teach in small group discussion-based seminars rather than traditional classes. Changes how you converse, changes what you consider normal for interacting with your instructors and peers, carries over to the cultures that develop at universities they attend. Plus just everyone there being really driven to get good grades.

I also noticed watching online courses from top universities in a couple areas I’m fairly familiar with from having taken similar courses at a maybe-3rd-tier university, that the content and quality of the lectures was basically the same—the difference was entirely in how engaged the students were, and the kinds of guest lecturers they can pull in for a visit (“holy shit, I know that guy!”)

Man you really made me think. If you just blankly asked me what I thought, I would have written your comment verbatim as a fault of the state schooler. I'll be digesting this for a while. I rarely mention it in public, it really meant a lot to me to get someone's thoughts on this, and it was a Moment for me. Cheers.

My description probably painted this type as more assholish than I intended—it’s mostly that they’re willing, even in fairly casual conversation, to really dig into fine points, to play devil’s advocate (maybe without saying that’s what they’re doing), to pursue any little thing that they don’t immediately get or that seems contradictory.

Conversationally, they poke, they prod, they chase. I assume this is from being educated in environments where that was the norm, and my guess that this is a style that starts in certain types of prep school (and is then imparted on the less-elite folks who attend a university with that set) is really just a guess, but there sure does seem to be a lot of correlation between school prestige and that kind of affect, in my experience, whatever the cause.

As mentioned, I have similar tendencies, but the tenacity at and commitment to this way of chatting from several elite-college folks I’ve met has been a bit much even for me—with more exposure I suspect I’d come to like it, but as it is it feels like being squished on a microscope slide, though I don’t exactly think that’s their fault and I don’t think they’re trying to give offense—but I do think the fact that it can put a person a bit off balance is part of why they’ve picked it up, it seems like a habit honed in a certain kind of affably-contentious intellectual environment (again, I’m just guessing at the causes here)

On the other hand, a passive student will let you go through an entire proof only to raise his hand when you finish and ask something that implies he did not understand the proof from the start.

Why didn't you say so? You wasted both of our time... I even turned around a few times and asked if everyone was following!

I know it's hard to understand when you don't understand. But I don't know how to deal with this problem and the senior lecturers don't seem to know how to, either...

t. just started lecturing

Reply on news.ycombinator.com