Our undergraduates have tremendous access to faculty (in fact, one of them is blowing me as I write this).
Gotten over that sore point, I see.
I was wondering how long it would take for someone to call me out. w-lfs-n clocks in at 1.7 seconds: a new record!
"Gotten over that sore point"
let's hope so, otherwise FL has not business engaging in such activities. Gingivitis and all.
has no business.
wanted to get that one out too quickly
That really should be on the brochure handed out to prospective students.
Let us all welcome Brother Abu back to the land of the willfully decadent and vile. And L, if you're reading this, the secret is: Plastics.
I second on all counts, FL, so long as we're not talking about a Pac 10 school, since it seems to me that if you're willing to suffer the relative ignominy of Big University, you damn well better get a good bowl game each year.
Great cheerleading reference in Paragraph 4. Because God knows the cheerleaders are hoTT!1! at state schools and pretty homely at private schools...
diddy,
I'm glad I'm not the only one who heard the "Be eee aye gee gee, are eee ess ess eye vee eee" chant when reading that post.
Did you know that in England "homely" does not have the same "ugly" connotation it has here. It seemed to mean more of a "homey" thing, before homey got to be ghetto. I mean someone who liked the home and home activities.
FL, you've overlooked two things that trump all of that stuff you wrote: 1) the last school you attend is more important than the first school you attend; and 2) try to make sure that at least one of the schools you attend has a good alumni network.
I can't possibly be the first person to toss in the NYT article on students who get lost (or don't) at big state schools.
w-lfs-n beat you to it in the other thread.
Some people only attend one school, rc.
I'm graduating from a Big Ten school in about two weeks (BS in Materials Science and Engineering from Purdue). I can't disagree with anything you've said so far, though I will be walking out of here with a fair piece of debt. The one word of caution I would give to anyone looking at large state schools has less to do with characteristics of the school itself and more to do with the atmosphere of the campus and town; to put it as pithily I can, some of these schools are real cultural wastelands. If that isn't an issue for you, as it isn't for many of my erstwhile engineering classmates, great. If it sounds less than attractive...well, it's my only beef with my time at an institution that I think has otherwise done an excellent job preparing me for a life of soul-crushing work and heartbreak.
I'm feeling better and better about my career choice (kept man).
Of course some people only attend one school. That's why there's subtlety to my two rules.
Tarrou,
What is the street rep for U of Wisconsin at Madison for unergrads? Have you heard anything?
I just read through the last thread, which I hadn't noticed.
I've spent some time in big 10 schools and spent some time regretting serious education debt, but I think Wellesley's getting a bit undersold here.
Two things haven't been mentioned much in the discussion (though I'm sure L has wisely long since stopped reading) - other students while you're at school and other alumni after school.
The student body at a school has a huge impact on your learning because a student spends most of their time out of class talking with other students. A place like Wellesley selects a class for wide array of student interests, so you're likely to have a wide variety of fellow students who are passionate about a variety of things*. College can and should be a time when your horizons really expand, and that will happen more because of the people you hang out with than the quality of your professors (which I agree will be every bit as good at Iowa or Minnesota, but I have to say that). I happen to have met a number of women recently who attend or are planning to attend Wellesley and are really excited about the place (and so are their parents who visited the school with them).
Also, if you're not sure what you want to do but you're good at math and considering economics, then there's a significant chance you'll end up choosing a professional career of some sort. Wellesley has a tight and well-placed alumni network in business and other professions. This can have a significant impact on your opportunities later in life. I and many other people I know have made important job changes partly through connections that arose in college. Social networks matter. And while debt can limit your options to throw everything over and backpack the world (do it during college, that's what I did), they also can help you land on your feet if you do something like the peace corps after school.
I will, of course, second what every says that with care you L. could get an equally good education at any of these schools.
*of course these folks are there at the big10 schools, but it's harder to preview friends the way you can courses. it's my impression that there are also a sea of students getting by and having a good time and it's going to take longer to find the unique who make for an exciting college experience.
I happen to have met a number of women recently who attend or are planning to attend Wellesley and are really excited about the place (and so are their parents who visited the school with them).
I had a couple of friends who attended Dartmouth and would go on weekend trips to Mt. Holyoke. If what I heard about the scene at Mt. Holyoke can be expanded to Wellesley (and I don't really see relevant differences), I'm not sure how happy their parents should be.
All I have to say about Wellesley is that they almost have very good taste in assistant professors of philosophy.
CW, I agree that the peer group is very important. I should have stressed in the post that I'd choose the big school partly because, even though Wellesley is better, it's not $80k better. In my view, anyway. How much the money matters depends on, say, how much of it you have, what you want to do, and so on.
Thanks for the update, Labs. I was worried people would get the wrong idea.
Damnit.
"Be! Agressive!
B!-E! Agressive!"
it's not Be Be Aggressive.
I believe there's some regional variation in the cheer.
But it's definitely not "damnit."
re: 17 and 18
Wisconsin's reputation, so far as I know, is pretty good. Academically I like them about as much as Illinois, which is to say at or near the top of the Big Ten. A couple of my friends have made trips up there to visit (and one is from Madison) or see football games, and they said the campus/crowd atmosphere was more reminiscent of Indiana University or Illinois than Purdue (that is to say, a little more liberal and a little more esoteric maybe). Madison's a pretty cool town, too, from what I've heard. It's still a Big Ten school, with all the attendant opportunities and frustrations, but I like what I've heard.
Re: the outrage at DeLong's: Oy. Lighten up. That line was hilarious.
This does put me in mind about something else, though. When the warm weather rolls around on campus (or even when the weather just hints at warming up in the next few months), there's skin everywhere. Students are falling out of their clothes: breasts are front and center; cleavage abounds; thongs and cracks peek out from shorts and skirts, ready to pop out full strength when the wearer sits down. Pleated micromini-skirts seem to be in fashion; the thing is, the slightest spring breeze sends them fluttering, exposing the rest of the wearer's thong.
N.B. This is not my style; I'm just an innocent bystander. And I couldn't carry this look off anyway.
But I am very curious about this: I would think that it could get kind of distracting when you're trying to teach a class and some student is sitting in the front row with much, if not all, hanging out. Is it distracting? Do you lecture to the back wall? Suck it up and figure it's a tough job but someone's got to do it? Think of England?
Annie, what you describe is the best reason to live in a state with weather.
Does two commenters humorless commenters at DeLong's count as outrage? That's a pretty low outrage standard. I'd be surprised if any of the regulars here didn't find it quite funny.
Yes, but what a great excuse for an even funnier update.
Outrage? No- that's not the feeling I had. Surprise, and boardom at the tediousness of such a remark, and sadness that you'd find this sort of disdainful approach funny. It is, after all, at the expense of your students that you joke. Maybe they should consider this in deciding where to go. But not outrage.
Obviously, strike the first "commenters".
Re: Madison with all the attendant opportunities and frustrations
And not just for undergrads! Having, like w-lfs-n, attended the school "Where fun comes to die" as an undergrad, I find myself drinking and partying more as a graduate student in Madison. Which isn't really saying anything, but...
Hey, I'm a student and I think it's funny. And I didn't find the blow remark at all boaring.
Matt, that's major league quality humorlessness. Labs is pseudonymous: no one knows where he teaches, so it's not clear to me in what sense his joke is "at the expense" of his students. And the suggestion that students ought to "consider this in deciding where to go" is just smarmy. Nothing about his jokes warrants a belief that he's a bad teacher, doesn't care about his students, doesn't act professionally at all times, etc. It requires a rather simplistic view of human psychology to believe that his joking reveals anything of import to prospective students. And surely you're familiar with more than one academic blog, and so surely you know that disdain for students is a familiar trope; just as you'd expect that disdain for customers is familiar on blogs by people in the service industry, disdain for co-workers by people who work on the help desk, etc. Really, spare us.
I finished in '03. I was going to chime in when you mentioned Plokwort, as she lived in my house my first two years, but didn't get around to it. It figured that you knew her, though, between UC and Kibo.
Re: #30: Yes, weather's great. I can't imagine life without it.
I think what Matt's trying to say is, "I know Eugene Mazo. I did Eugene Mazo. You, sir, are no Eugene Mazo." Jeebus.
Hey, thanks, everyone. Most everyone I've consulted in person has advocated Wellesley on the grounds that the opportunities associated with prestigious schools are worth the cost. It's good to hear the opinions of those who were educated at elite institutions or at least had that opportunity.
I'll resume lurking now. Do go on. Don't mind us minors.
Best of luck, L. Let us know what you decide to do.
The value of prestige varies enormously depending on what you do next. There are, I think, certain careers where a name college -- and Wellesly retains that status -- matters. Investment banking, elite journalism, consulting, the law (where here prestoge of law school matters).
I also think that the value of an elite school to a given student is inversely connected to her level of activity and agression. I was a shy and retiring undergrad. I would not have sought out connections, or formed bonds with obvious "winners" at a large school. Thus, going to a "name" school helped me substantially. That said, I was fortunate enough to receive enough financial aid that I could escape debt rapidly.
That's a mere fraction of life, of course.
I didn't know her as well as I think I should have--we only really met in person two or so times. Too bad as she always seemed mega cool.
She was, but I was never one to fully appreciate the beauty of porting Linux to an imac.
sitting in the front row with much, if not all, hanging out
You know, teaching is pretty demanding so there's not much time to stare at breasts. Last year I had a girl attend every class with a sweatshirt that read FCUK. I found that distracting and annoying and not nearly as clever as she clearly thought.
Doctors see people naked all the time; people usually just do their jobs.
I only know this because the store is right next to me: FCUK stands for "French Connection UK"
L:
Good luck with a very hard decision. So much of your thinking about this hinges on your views about who you are, so it's hard to be confident in any of this advice, and I want to put large grains of salt by all of what I say. There really are good points on both sides. From where I see things, it's just that the debt consideration is serious enough to outweigh the fine things Wellesley has to offer.
I guess one thing to urge on you is this: when people talk about the advantages of a 'name' school, you should press them on just what advantages they have in mind, and verify that such effects exist. So much of this is unchecked lore.
Annie: there's skin everywhere.
Ha. For me, at any rate, it's not distracting in the way that you might expect. I'm not fighting the temptation to check people out while I teach, because it's not at all strong, but I am intent on appearing perfectly comfortable and unselfconscious in my not-checking-out activity, and this makes me self conscious and uncomfortable. That is, I'm worried about the appearance of lechery and how to avoid it. So I deliver intense pronouncements about Jeremy Bentham to particular tiles on the far wall, I make eye contact in predetermined patterns, I look out the window while trying to look like Wittgenstein. Sometimes, just to be defiant, I make eye contact with the attractive woman with the revealing outfit, then deliberately turn my gaze to ugly men with nary a pause.
Yes, this is why I never have sex. There's no need to gloat, people.
Annie: there's skin everywhere.
Yeah, there really is. I'm going to miss being an undergrad. It's been good to me.
True re: #48, and I'm glad for that. It just seemed like it might be particularly distracting when trying to lecture (or do anything halfway serious/involved) for 1-1/2 hours.
Addressing the back wall (and any favorite tiles there) is classic speaking practice. There's the advice to nervous speakers to imagine audience members naked, to make them seem less threatening; I could see that imagery backfiring. When I've been nervous about talking before a group, I've found it helpful to imagine listeners going through a morning routine. Such mundane and boring imagery seemed to take away an audience's intimidation power.
but I am intent on appearing perfectly comfortable and unselfconscious in my not-checking-out activity, and this makes me self conscious and uncomfortable.
No wonder you're so perfect for this blog. Unfogged where the neurotic approaches the sublime.
Re: #55: I know. I read that comment and felt like that AFLAC duck listening to Yogi Berra.
Re 28 and 35 - U of W Madison - thanks for the info. I've got a sprog who most likely will be going there.
Personally it looks like a college I'd love. It reminded me of U of Illinois, my alma mater, but on a lake(!) and hilly, both good things.
My rationale for not spending the "big bucks" at another school is that I think, to a great degree, college is what you make of it. Considering that I do not have the "big bucks" that argument seems pretty compelling.
Aw, geez, the "big buckless" guy above is me.
What a bunch of pussies at DeLong's blog. If *they* got blown more often, they'd STFU.
L:
I go to a large, (prestigious?) public University with lots of fantastic faculty, opportunity, and resources - and a bureacracy from hell. Yes, you have to BE AGGRESSIVE.
Plan out your classes into minute detail, with backups assuming you don't get key classes. Ask upper classmen on what classes have the best ease/credit fulfillment ratio. Get to know profs based on personality, not just stuff you need help with. And remember, like your undergrad classmates, some are indeed assholes.
Have you seen this before? It's a number guessing game: http://www.amblesideprimary.com/ambleweb/mentalmaths/guessthenumber.html. I guessed 28836, and it got it right! Pretty neat.