2016 Presidential Race AND POLL

[The Oi]

On a lighter note, Trump told some kid in Iowa he was Batman. I'd say he's more like Lex Luther, but he's nowhere near smart enough.

Maybe the Penguin?

Cartman.

 

[Jack Brickman]

Cartman.

That's terrifyingly accurate.

 

[Cavatt]

So I've been reading this thread with great interest but I have a question

If you study at an Ivy League school or MIT do you learn harder stuff than if you studied the same thing at a small school?

Or are you just paying for the contacts and name?

I always wondered about this as well. From experience I can say I was a fairly high achieving chemistry student who ended with aasters degree. I was self employed as a tutor in Chicago for a couple of years. Hands down the hardest intro and organic chemistry course I ever saw was at Northwestern. It was equivalent or harder than the advanced courses I took at Case Western. I would say yes, but the better schools are still pulling in the best students.

 

[Maximus]

Check out this vid of Malcom Gladwell, it's very interesting. He argues you shouldn't go to the best school you can get into and how institutions should pay more attention to class rank than schools attended. He basically says elite schools are screwing us all up...Elite Institution Cognitive Disorder. The stats and examples he throws out about who graduates with STEM(Science, Tech, Engineering and Math) degrees are mind blowing.

He made a similar argument on 60 Mins and added the cost factor into it. Basically he says he'd send his child to Toronto instead of Harvard. More or less, go and be a big fish and dominate at a lesser university and have way less debt.

 

[Ohdang]

STEM graduates get paid more? Someone tell that to my employer

 

[Randolphkeys]

I know a lot of high school geniuses from the 1990s who were screwed over by multi-billionaires in Silicon Valley by being fed a bunch of bullshit about rejecting education and plugging into the tech world early. One guy I know went from making $100,000 right out of high school as a programmer to slicing bagels at age 26 because his specialization was no longer desired and he needed to completely start over. No agenda here, just food for thought.

BTW: On the Malcolm Gladwell thing, its a risk to say that your child will overcome temptation to slack and just be a B- student in that small pond. A parent should hear both sides, but it takes a strong personality to walk into any situation - big pond or small pond - and say I'm going to be in the top 5%.

 

[Pioneer10]

I've grown to hate Malcolm Gladwell. The guy has no idea or simply refuses to discuss things like effect sizes or absolute vs relative changes and yet he is constantly referencing scientific papers in his books. Jumps to big conclusions based on headline only

Sent from my Lenovo TAB 2 A10-70F using Tapatalk

 

[Adam]

That's all really interesting guys thanks. I think this explains why when my friend attended Kent state as a sophisticated he was in Sr classes for math. Here in England the curriculum is rather fixed and sos provision of say the top 50 is pretty constant but the old class network is strong at Cambridge and Oxford. I actively encourage my students to avoid those top 5 schools a I think they burn you out and are full of weirdos

 

[The Oi]

That's all really interesting guys thanks. I think this explains why when my friend attended Kent state as a sophisticated he was in Sr classes for math. Here in England the curriculum is rather fixed and sos provision of say the top 50 is pretty constant but the old class network is strong at Cambridge and Oxford. I actively encourage my students to avoid those top 5 schools a I think they burn you out and are full of weirdos

Well going to Kent State is always a mistake to begin with.

 

[KI4MVP]

Check out this vid of Malcom Gladwell, it's very interesting. He argues you shouldn't go to the best school you can get into and how institutions should pay more attention to class rank than schools attended. He basically says elite schools are screwing us all up...Elite Institution Cognitive Disorder. The stats and examples he throws out about who graduates with STEM(Science, Tech, Engineering and Math) degrees are mind blowing.

He made a similar argument on 60 Mins and added the cost factor into it. Basically he says he'd send his child to Toronto instead of Harvard. More or less, go and be a big fish and dominate at a lesser university and have way less debt.

He talks about it in one of his books too. In the book he was talking about the marginal cases. The people who barely get into the better school including the ones who make it over a better qualified student because of their race. He says in most cases those students would be better off in a lower ranked college that gives them a better chance to excel vs their peers and tha a lot of them end up thinking they aren't good enough and change majors when they would be less likely to do so had they gone to a different school.

 

[The Human Q-Tip]

The people who barely get into the better school including the ones who make it over a better qualified student because of their race. He says in most cases those students would be better off in a lower ranked college that gives them a better chance to excel vs their peers and tha a lot of them end up thinking they aren't good enough....

And sometimes that's right. There's pretty good evidence from affirmative action litigation that while AA helps some students get into school, many just aren't adequately prepared academically, and the graduation rates are significantly lower. The road to hell and all that.

Some schools don't even release class ranks based on the rather self-congratulatory theory that any grad should be good enough. But employers still dig for grade information and make their own guesses anyway.

I lost two roommates in two years - not AA - because of grades. And it wasn't like they were partying or not studying. They were just not able to keep up academically. Both went to other schools after getting the boot and did well.

 

[Adam]

Well going to Kent State is always a mistake to begin with.

it turned me into a cavs fan,watching dujuan wagner. So i guess there was a silver lining

 

[The Oi]

So when we're talking about "lesser" schools, I assume we're talking about competitive state universities like Texas, OSU, Penn State, etc or private schools like Washington & Lee, Davidson, etc and getting top 10% as opposed to Ivy League schools?

Or are we saying you can go to a school outside of the top 100 and as long as you finish top 5% you're better off?

I'm curious what kind of schools "qualify."

 

[Maximus]

Here's the excerpt about this from Gladwell's "David and Goliath"...

https://www.ash.nl/ftpimages/401/download/download_1009994.pdf

 

[Kouki]

I graduated pretty high in my class at the University of Akron, BS mechanical engineering.

Was offered a pretty hefty scholarship to OSU which would have covered almost all my college expenses IIRC. Akron offered a little more. Still kinda regret not going to OSU, but I digress. I probably could have gotten into a pretty nice school where I wouldn't have been as close to the top in the class.

Anyways, I now work alongside people from Georgia Tech, Virginia Tech, Purdue, Case, OSU, Penn State, etc etc, and I more than hold my own. I guess it helps that my job is in Akron.