Article by Harvard student on the institution's academics

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The author didn't attend any STEM classes where the course load are significantly higher. You can't pass those classes without putting in work. There are no essays, only labs, psets, mid terms and finals.

My STEM friends skipped lecture ALL the time at my T10.

Maybe but it is impossible to bs your way through a STEM exam

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Did you think it was going to be any different? That is every college everywhere.

nah.. big public univ don't hand hold, and if you fail, you fail.

I know someone who experienced something similar at another Ivy+ -- they don't like to fail out students no matter what.

My kid is at good, but not top, big public university. She took AP bio in HS and got a 5 on the exam. She decided to retake it in college to get a really good foundation since she’s majoring in biology. She took honors biology and barely scraped a C. Huge wake-up call for her. She was a 1500 SAT/4.5 GPA kid from HS without really trying and has found it takes a lot of work to maintain a solid GPA (~3.6).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not SLACs

I wouldn’t send my kids to Harvard if you paid me….

Says the 95% of parents whose kids wouldn’t be accepted to Harvard.

Ha. I said that. My kid is going to another Ivy....
I stand by it.

Let me guess. Your kid picked Cornell over Harvard.

[Anonymous]

This is the case with most Ivies. Getting in is the hard part.
Princeton and Cornell STEM do not f around. Other than those, this may be true
------
My daughter just graduated from Cornell Engineering. She worked her tail off to get Bs in the core courses. A tough workload and surrounded by really good engineering students. My daughter's friends in majors like Information Science, Psychology and Philosophy had a lot more free time, and worked less for better grades. So, I think the extent to which a student can pass without working hard varies quite a bit by major, and by school. Cornell Engineering does not have the grade inflation mentioned at Harvard.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A good article on the Havahd experience, by a current student :

https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2024/03/university-people-the-undergraduate-balance

Choice quotes:

"This fall, one of my friends did not attend a single lecture or class section until more than a month into the semester. Another spent 40 to 80 hours a week on her preprofessional club, leaving barely any time for school. A third launched a startup while enrolled, leaving studying by the wayside."

"[T]hree of my friends and I took a high-level seminar one semester, and, although we knew hundreds of pages of readings would be assigned each week, we were excited about the prospect of engaging with the material. As time went on, the percentage of readings each of us did went from nearly 100 to nearly 0.

In the final class, each student was asked to cite their favorite readings, and the professor was surprised that so many chose readings from the first few units. That wasn’t because the students happened to be most interested in those classes’ material; rather, that was the brief period of the course when everyone actually did some of the readings."

"[Professor] Martin told me that he used to get more essays “where the student was trying to ‘jerk your chain,’ i.e., write something that completely contradicts what you’ve been teaching,” but this is no longer as common. That certainly resonates with my own experiences. When approaching essays, I often automatically start by thinking about what my professor or teaching assistant wants to hear, rather than what I want to argue or what I have authentically learned."

--

A friend says, "20 years ago I had friends at Harvard saying that the only thing harder than getting into Harvard was failing out."

As one of this forum's more diligent Harvard-haters, having all my biases confirmed is going to give me a dopamine hit that will have me flying high as a kite the whole rest of the evening.

I know a couple of knuckleheads who tried to start a start-up while at Harvard. Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg. They made their classmates billionaires.

Enjoy being a loser.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A good article on the Havahd experience, by a current student :

Thanks for sharing this incredibly well written article that describes the behavior of students at Harvard focused on opportunities later vs the learning now; and the need to distinguish themselves from others outside the classroom.

The question is whether this is wrong? Clearly in the short term (landing the job at GS or McKonsey) it works , otherwise they would not do it. Would it hurt them in the long term vs someone who took the alternative experience out of college? Hard to make that case empirically.

After all Pavlov's dogs do get their reward too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Did you think it was going to be any different? That is every college everywhere.

Not at Smith. Great education.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

This is the case with most Ivies. Getting in is the hard part.

Princeton and Cornell STEM do not f around. Other than those, this may be true

Put slightly differently, Engineering School almost anywhere is just plain hard for virtually all students. (Feynman was the exception who proved the rule.). No one accidentally gets a degree in Engineering.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The author didn't attend any STEM classes where the course load are significantly higher. You can't pass those classes without putting in work. There are no essays, only labs, psets, mid terms and finals.

My STEM friends skipped lecture ALL the time at my T10.

I graduated from a string state flagship with a 4.0 in engineering and skipped all the lectures in some of my classes. If you decide you are better working from the book and doing problem sets, that can be a very good choice. Some profs really help you understand the material. Some profs drone on writing random equations on the board and you have no idea what they are saying. For the latter, you have to find some other way to figure out what is going on. Now if your STEM friends did not do any problem sets and aced the classes, they were likely geniuses. There are one or two kids like that but for the vast majority, working your way through problem sets is the way you learn.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How do you square this with the kids so stressed about schoolwork that they are having mental health breakdowns?

The downside of extreme grade inflation is that when 90% of your classmates make an A, the product of even a B+ is enough to induce a panic attack.

I agree. Grade inflation is rampant in college. Many students are barely doing their work and need incentives to even attend class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What's weird is that this is so exciting for you, OP. I did not attend anything resembling an Ivy, but at least I don't have a huge chip on my shoulder about it. The same description could apply to many colleges and universities. Why would you hoist Harvard on a hated pedestal and expect those students to behave differently?

Check yourself.

+1. OP's reaction to a student tale is very weird. The green-eyed monster got ahold of OP and it's interfering with her judgment

+ 1

OP likely got rejected from Harvard and has been carrying the pain for decades.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What's weird is that this is so exciting for you, OP. I did not attend anything resembling an Ivy, but at least I don't have a huge chip on my shoulder about it. The same description could apply to many colleges and universities. Why would you hoist Harvard on a hated pedestal and expect those students to behave differently?

Check yourself.

+1. OP's reaction to a student tale is very weird. The green-eyed monster got ahold of OP and it's interfering with her judgment

+ 1

OP likely got rejected from Harvard and has been carrying the pain for decades.

Or watched what’s been going on at that campus and wondered is it really worth the $$!?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A good article on the Havahd experience, by a current student :

Thanks for sharing this incredibly well written article that describes the behavior of students at Harvard focused on opportunities later vs the learning now; and the need to distinguish themselves from others outside the classroom.

The question is whether this is wrong? Clearly in the short term (landing the job at GS or McKonsey) it works , otherwise they would not do it. Would it hurt them in the long term vs someone who took the alternative experience out of college? Hard to make that case empirically.

After all Pavlov's dogs do get their reward too.

Getting into elite colleges has more to do with connections and hooks than academics. And as we see, the lack of academic rigor in college continues.

[Anonymous]

The question is whether this is wrong? Clearly in the short term (landing the job at GS or McKonsey) it works , otherwise they would not do it. Would it hurt them in the long term vs someone who took the alternative experience out of college? Hard to make that case empirically.

If they get a much more laid back college experience AND better career outcomes than the kids at the pressure cookers like MIT, UChicago, Princeton et al that’s awesome.

Criticize the lack of rigor all you want but that sounds like the best deal in higher ed to me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

The question is whether this is wrong? Clearly in the short term (landing the job at GS or McKonsey) it works , otherwise they would not do it. Would it hurt them in the long term vs someone who took the alternative experience out of college? Hard to make that case empirically.

If they get a much more laid back college experience AND better career outcomes than the kids at the pressure cookers like MIT, UChicago, Princeton et al that’s awesome.

Criticize the lack of rigor all you want but that sounds like the best deal in higher ed to me.

Are they considered "elite" then if not for the academic rigor?