Let me let you in on a little secret. It’s not any different what people learn in state schools(I’m speaking of broad undergraduate programs). What is different, is access to connections for some prestigious internship that only rich people can afford.
Not only is this very true, but the people who do the programs are also no smarter
I went to an ivy league school, I can promise you there are just as many dumbfucks there as there are everywhere else. They are not smart as a rule, but wealthy.
You went to an ivy league school and you hang out with all of us yelling "CUM CUM CUM PEEPEEPOOPOO PIGPOOPBALLS"
I don't know why but it makes me feel warm inside.
Same, I go to one of "more left" ivys. The amount amount of Hayek reading dipshits I've had to deal with is crazy. My YDSA chapter is bigger than the campus dems and Republicans though and we've gotten a tuition strike gaining steam and students for justice in Palestine got a bds vote to pass the student government last year.
I will say though that I did not have the experience of disinterested professors. Busy definitely, but I also had super kind profs that hate the admin as much as anyone and want to help the grad students unionize, and were super responsive to helping students if the class wasn't too big. Big school though, definitely neoliberal ghouls all over the place I just didn't take classes with them.
I'd also say though that the instruction quality and rigor were higher than the some of the state schools from conversations I had with transfer students. There was also just a much wider selection of niche courses to take.
I transferred from a top 100 to a top 10 US university two years back, and I can say this with authority: there is hardly a meaningful difference in the effectiveness of the two schools in terms of education. The teachers at the top 10 are maybe 'smarter', in the sense that they are generally more involved in the research of their field, but they are also way busier and have little interest in helping students. The students are way more careerist and grade-grubby, which creates a somewhat hostile dynamic between faculty and undergrads. You have access to more potential research work, but it is also bottlenecked by the fact that there are so many more students chomping at the bit to do their own research. In terms of prestige and career opportunities, there is a pretty big difference, but that's not exactly what you're signing up for.
There are exceptions. In the case of places like MIT and CalTech, you also have access to technology you won't have at a state school. Even as an undergrad.
There's just so much research going on at these schools that you can get your feet wet before you have to decide on a graduate degree. That can be incredibly rewarding.
But yeah, for the most part you're getting connections by going to "elite" schools. Especially Ivy League schools.
because under capitalism education is a means for replicating class privilege
yup. You don't get into these schools by being smart, you get in by being rich
the 2019 college admissions bribery scandal really made this inarguable
Loved when the judge said "this isn't a case of someone donating a building" as if there is any difference there other than scale
Anything you would be taught there can be learned at a state school, much of it is already online.
The purpose of Ivy League schools is getting credentials & networking.
MIT is a bit better than your average "elite" schools at sharing educational resources with the general public. But still not great.
A few years ago a lot of it actually was. Mainly some of the intro to ______ courses, which I would argue is where a lot of the “ivy league prestige” stems from - the idea of learning about the world from the best... Not sure about now.
Many courses are, there's just no systematic uploading of them I'm aware of except MITs open courseware so you have to search around. The only stuff that's really never uploaded are small seminar/discussion courses. Like nearly every STEM prof that writes their own course notes has them up somewhere, though you can't really do that with like a music humanities discussion course.
god damn that sounds so great, but also terrifying to work at community college since they're always being cut down
Hey you might want to be careful with exact locations for doxxing reasons - unless you're peppering your history with wrong information here anyway haha.
I get that. As I increasingly involve myself with socialist organizing publicly, it's a decision I've been reflecting on too. I've received death threats from Neo-Nazis before, but that was actually before I was radicalized. It changed the way I posted, and I guess I haven't fully reflected on that given my rapid shift leftward in the last year and a half. For now, I think I prefer some amount of anonymity online, but at a certain point it's probably not going to matter. People are going to know where I stand by my actions and public statements anyway. If I'm going to be an outspoken Cadre of a vanguard party (just as soon as we can build one) then I'll have to get used to the death threats and hate.
I did 3 years of community college then finished at a University. Saved a bunch of money and only have the University on my resume.
Haha I go to the "party" state school bc it's a lot less stressful than the "good" state school here. The one that's "good" here does have some prestige but all the classes are basically designed to be weed out after weed out (especially in CS, which is what I do) and incredibly high stress for no reason. The reason I chose not to go there was bc of the rate of depression and other mental health issues.
I feel like I get a much better education than my friends who go to the good school bc my professors try and teach, not find who already knows the material and weed everyone else out. The downside is I'm going to have to work much, much harder to find internships and make connections and network so that I can get a job bc the tech world is kinda brutal.
Oh hey speaking of networking if any of you are in tech and have any sway over internships or really can help in any way I would really appreciate it, get more commies in tech y'know?
not find who already knows the material and weed everyone else out
this shit should be illegal i swear
at my Uni there a few notorious "weeder" classes in the CS department to do that. Worst thing is that you'd be in your 2nd year when you reach the weeder classes
Haha I go to the “party” state school bc it’s a lot less stressful than the “good” state school here. The one that’s “good” here does have some prestige but all the classes are basically designed to be weed out after weed out (especially in CS, which is what I do) and incredibly high stress for no reason. The reason I chose not to go there was bc of the rate of depression and other mental health issues.
Do you live in a northern midwestern state by any chance?
These fucking STEM departments at these 'good' public universities should be fucking outlawed. Every minute, moment, and semester is meant to weed out the students and grind the remaining brains into a fine paste that is content with just passing courses and making you unemployable in the job market with a shitass gpa. It's not just the first two years, it's every course that is out to absolutely destroy you and your future.
If you really want to study CS or engineering, go to the shittiest school with the best reputation in the job market, kids coming out of these public units are at such a big disadvantage compared to their peers who go to smaller private schools and have vastly inflated gaps.
Do you live in a northern midwestern state by any chance?
I don't, are you talking about Michigan? I've heard things about Michigan being good but not about their weedouts
Yeah, was talking about Michigan lol The public schools have killer weed out curriculums.
They aren't. What they have better is prestige, access to resources and access to opportunities for career development. Even though you might be smarter, better etc. in a smaller university, nobody would pay attention to you as much as they would if you come from certain universities, certain labs, certain professors, certain cliques, even though you might be the next Einstein
I had a friend in high school who pulled himself up real high by the bootstraps. He ended up going out of Liberal Mountain, Idaho to study in Liberal, Kansas. The point being is that he was at a tippy top tier school that you've heard of. He was still learning the same o chem as me. It was a different textbook but it was the same stuff at the same time in the semester.
For what it's worth, I believe both Harvard and MIT offer online classes for free. In my worldview, there needs to be a coming to God moment about what it means to be qualified for a job because even if you had an MIT level education, entry level jobs that require o chem hardly need the kind of route memorization that comes with the education. But that's another story for another time.
I hope my grandkids gulag me because they think I'm too far to the right.
Harvard of MIT-style education
A lot of the perception that those schools are better is marketing. The real value add for top schools is meeting rich people and possibly joining their social circles.
I feel the "best" schools aren't even THAT great in terms of education. Networking, probably is the main benefit. But I had a friend who went to Harvard. She's a genius, don't get me wrong, but I felt I got a better education than she did at my private, non-Ivy school (which yes is still private vs public but pretty far off from ivy league). My classes had way less people in them and the professors genuinely seemed to care about the students rather than what she would tell me about her own classes/profs.
But again, the networking opportunities are probably what "makes it worth it."
It's more of a function of the society. Our entire educational apparatus is structured by capitalism. Universities are all run like corporations for the most part with their own quasi profit motives.
