Poison Ivy: Are Élite Colleges Bad for the Soul? | Hacker News Reader

Poison Ivy: Are Élite Colleges Bad for the Soul?

newyorker.com

26 pointsjseliger14 comments

"Learning is supposed to be about falling down and getting up again until you do it right. But, in an academic culture that demands constant achievement, failures seem so perilous that the best and the brightest often spend their young years in terrariums of excellence."

In my experience, this couldn't be further from the truth. I'm a current Dartmouth student with an Engineering/Computer Science concentration, and in my hardest classes the curriculum is set up to help you persevere through failure. There are optional TA/Professor office hours for when you fall behind, and if you completely fail at an assignment, most professors allow you to add an explanation to why/where/how you failed, and they'll generously take this into account for the assignment grade.

I've read about the benefits of a "growth mindset" many times here on HN, and I couldn't be happier with how Dartmouth encourages this school of thought. I'm not sure if this is universal in the Ivy League, but this part of the article really bothered me because my experience is drastically different.

I found that quote to be consistent with my experience at UPenn.

The quote very much applied to my experience at Yale (and, just as aptly, to all of my experiences preceding it). But it really depends on the kinds of students you're observing.

The students this article talks about are the traditional, career-track types: the future lawyers, consultants, and bankers of the world. The people for whom the phrase "Choose any career you want, so long as it's one of those three" elicits a resigned sigh and a nervous chuckle. Failure is not an option for these kids. Their career paths, and future employers, do not understand, forgive, or tolerate failure. If you're aspiring to those paths, your GPA is your life's destiny. You're always minding your permanent record. Life is a series of hoops to be jumped through and numbers to paint by, and that mindset starts young. As young as junior high for some people, and as young as elementary school for others. You get on the treadmill, and you run.

I was on that treadmill for most of my life, and I hopped off in college, to pursue a career in arts and entertainment. I might as well have announced that I was leaving to join a commune in rural Alaska. That's about what my friends and peers thought of my decision (and many still do).

There were (and still are) some wonderful ways to lose oneself at Yale, to grow personally, and to take classes for the love of learning. A lot of students are probably there for those reasons. Just as many are there to check the necessary resume boxes and slide onto the right tracks. The pressure is largely self-applied and peer-exacerbated. The school itself doesn't do anything to encourage it, and to its credit, tries to encourage the opposite. But it's too late by the time kids even show up for freshman orientation. They've been minding their careers since they were old enough to read.

I don't really blame colleges for this problem, and I find a lot of that blame misplaced. The blame lies somewhere deeper in our culture. Colleges are just catering to the problem; they're not causing it.

Beyond what jonnathanson already mentioned, there's also a case of "scholarship" kids, who have to maintain a high GPA to be able to afford going to school. This results in safe class selection and extreme failure avoidance.

I've read this story where a girl noticed her granny really likes watch sports.

This puzzled her a bit until once she heard granny watch pole vault and muttering "oh it's so nice". When she asked her granny - what's so nice, and why does she enjoy sports?

Her granny replied: "I'm just so happy I don't have to jump with the pole".

Stories about modern education always spring this emotion in me. I'm so happy I don't have to "study" anymore never!

> The collision of old and new ideals is clearest when it comes to the gnarly socioeconomics of collegiate education. The professors at the old university were, with few exceptions, white, male, trained through direct lineage, and self-selected for an interest in the Western canon. The students at the élite schools were mostly patrician, also white and male, and, owing to these and other factors, not terribly anxious about their post-graduation circumstances. Deresiewicz is right that today’s college students are more risk-averse. That’s partly because there’s much more risk to be averse to. A Yalie of the Nick Carraway generation could afford to “stand outside the world for a few years,” as Deresiewicz puts it. It cost nothing: a Wall Street job awaited.

Today's idealism is often grounded in the realities of a generation past.

Booth did a survey to see how risk averse their students were. There was a giant gap between the white and non-white students.

The question was: Imagine how it feels to lose a dollar. Now imagine winning x dollars. What does x have to be for the feelings to be equal.

I think the median result was 2 for white students and a ridiculous number over 10 for Indians and Asians

Having attended a top Uni and a not-so-top Uni (long story; two different degrees), the single reason people aim and attend for the top Unis is the attached prestige, the network of contacts you will make (and hit up via alumni), and the doors it then potentially opens. The best tutors by far, who made themselves more available, who seemed more grounded than pure ivory tower academic, were in the less-than-top Uni.

My experience, ymmv.

That needless affectation on elite is what's bad for the soul. But perhaps that's the point. Oh, well done! «clap, clap, clap»

These articles are the elite navel-gazing at themselves and despairing their tragic circumstances.

There are problems with higher-education. This problem, however, is not the most pressing.

Evidently, if they make you use French accents on words long since naturalized in English.

I have at this point in my life read so much about education, enough of it about the high end, that though I imagine William Deresiewicz's book is interesting, I will not read it. Let's quit worrying about the Ivy soul. Tell me how things are at Auburn or Colorado School of Mines, and maybe I'll pay attention.

It seems to be a recent affectation, vide this from 1925: [0], although note that it isn't enforced on the sports pages: [1] or on Malcolm Gladwell: [2]

[0]http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1925/09/19/st-elite

[1]http://www.newyorker.com/news/sporting-scene/kevin-wares-gri...

[2]http://www.newyorker.com/news/sporting-scene/complexity-and-...

That header on The New Yorker site needs a minimize button.

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