Calling Alums of Non-Prestigious Colleges

[Anonymous]

I went to IU for undergrad and University of Nebraska for law school. You need to find different friends. I work for the feds and lots of people would love to have my job. 40 hours a week from home. None of my friends care where I went to school. I don't care where my friends went either other than being amazed at the ones that worked and did law school at night. They have my respect because I know I couldn't have done that.

[Anonymous]

16:56 what agency allows you to work 50 hours from home? Sounds great!

[Anonymous]

Quite honestly, nobody has ever asked me where I went to school since maybe the first year I started working (quite some years ago now).

That's as it should be. Once you start working, the important thing is can you perform today on the job, not did you perform years ago when you were in school.

[Anonymous]

Incidentally, I work for a Fortune 500 company, and none of the senior managers I know has a degree from a "prestige" school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It might not be well known everywhere but IU is a solid school with a good rep.

What's "IU"?

Indiana University. I got a full scholarship and assistant teaching job there for grad school. Coincidentally. IU is now advertising its school of public policy and environment on NPR.

[Anonymous]

I went to Penn State. The whole decades long "incident"'horrifies me. Yuck. Wash off my diploma please!

[Anonymous]

I'll say it again: Get new friends, OP. And get tougher with your relatives. Don't let them get away with riling you up over your alma mater. They know you are sensitive about it, so that's where they attack you. Start wearing Indiana sweaters, pins, hats, whatever. Be proud of your alma mater, OP.

I went to an Ivy and DH went to a completely no-name school. DH has done far better than I have financially. No one has ever asked where we went to school, but I imagine they'd guess he went to the Ivy and I went to the no-name.

In the end, it doesn't matter. I took some classes at a community college, and met amazing, brilliant people, much smarter than my Ivy-born and bred friends. These people didn't come from money, most were second generation Americans, the first in their family to go to college, and most worked full time jobs and went to school at night. I've never met a more hard-working and smarter group of people.

People who sneer at where you went to college are ignorant. Let go of them as friends, and keep your nasty relations at arms length. Be proud of who you are and what you accomplished, OP. And let that chip fall off your shoulder and don't think about it ever again.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'll say it again: Get new friends, OP. And get tougher with your relatives. Don't let them get away with riling you up over your alma mater. They know you are sensitive about it, so that's where they attack you. Start wearing Indiana sweaters, pins, hats, whatever. Be proud of your alma mater, OP.

I went to an Ivy and DH went to a completely no-name school. DH has done far better than I have financially. No one has ever asked where we went to school, but I imagine they'd guess he went to the Ivy and I went to the no-name.

In the end, it doesn't matter. I took some classes at a community college, and met amazing, brilliant people, much smarter than my Ivy-born and bred friends. These people didn't come from money, most were second generation Americans, the first in their family to go to college, and most worked full time jobs and went to school at night. I've never met a more hard-working and smarter group of people.

People who sneer at where you went to college are ignorant. Let go of them as friends, and keep your nasty relations at arms length. Be proud of who you are and what you accomplished, OP. And let that chip fall off your shoulder and don't think about it ever again.

Well said!

[Anonymous]

Maybe I'm delusional, not part of the club, or don't know the secret hand shake, but when in the company of individuals who graduated from elite colleges, I feel no sense of superiority on their part.

I normal conversations I hold my own with most people. I would not be able to keep up with intellectuals who regular cited the most recent historiographies about a wide variety of topics, but that's an entirely different social circle which would not include the average Ivy League grad either.

[Anonymous]

Money takes care of a lot of that feeling of insecurity, I've found. Our HHI varies between 500k-1m, depending on bonuses. We have a nice house in NW DC, drive expensive cars, send two kids to private school, take lavish vacations, and have ample savings. It's nice not to have to worry about money. We both went to private universities that are in the top fifty but not top twenty. So more like middling privates. Think schools like Tulane or Carnegie Mellon.

Incidentally, it has also convinced me that you don't *have* to go to a top school to end up financially successful. I know too many people who went to no name schools and are now 1% earners to think differently.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Money takes care of a lot of that feeling of insecurity, I've found. Our HHI varies between 500k-1m, depending on bonuses. We have a nice house in NW DC, drive expensive cars, send two kids to private school, take lavish vacations, and have ample savings. It's nice not to have to worry about money. We both went to private universities that are in the top fifty but not top twenty. So more like middling privates. Think schools like Tulane or Carnegie Mellon.

Incidentally, it has also convinced me that you don't *have* to go to a top school to end up financially successful. I know too many people who went to no name schools and are now 1% earners to think differently.

Tulane is indeed a middling to below average private, but Carnegie Mellon is better than that. So buck up!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It might not be well known everywhere but IU is a solid school with a good rep.

What's "IU"?

Indiana University. I got a full scholarship and assistant teaching job there for grad school. Coincidentally. IU is now advertising its school of public policy and environment on NPR.

Can't argue with that!

Signed,

IU Graduate

[Anonymous]

I went to a third rate flagship state university. Nobody has commented since my 20s. The rudest comment ever was from the son of a trustee who asked if I just couldn't get in anywhere else. Douche.

My favorite attempted stab was from a HS friend who went to a middling SLAC and made some comment about feeling more comfortable in a group of her intellectual peers. Okay, then!

Feel free to underestimate me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Money takes care of a lot of that feeling of insecurity, I've found. Our HHI varies between 500k-1m, depending on bonuses. We have a nice house in NW DC, drive expensive cars, send two kids to private school, take lavish vacations, and have ample savings. It's nice not to have to worry about money. We both went to private universities that are in the top fifty but not top twenty. So more like middling privates. Think schools like Tulane or Carnegie Mellon.

Incidentally, it has also convinced me that you don't *have* to go to a top school to end up financially successful. I know too many people who went to no name schools and are now 1% earners to think differently.

Tulane is indeed a middling to below average private, but Carnegie Mellon is better than that. So buck up!

Neither of us went to either of those schools. The point is, we didn't go to top twenty big name schools and yet still do well financially. Better than the vast majority of the population. So while I still wonder occasionally what it might be like to come from that type of background (super preppy east coast, sailing lessons, family home on Martha's Vineyard or Nantucket, etc. etc.), I feel pretty satisfied with where we are now. We have all that we need and most of what we could want.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I went to a third rate flagship state university. Nobody has commented since my 20s. The rudest comment ever was from the son of a trustee who asked if I just couldn't get in anywhere else. Douche.

My favorite attempted stab was from a HS friend who went to a middling SLAC and made some comment about feeling more comfortable in a group of her intellectual peers. Okay, then!

Feel free to underestimate me.

Well said!