Reply to "Smartness" of fellow students and whether it matters

Forum Index » College and University Discussion

Reply to ""Smartness" of fellow students and whether it matters"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote]  I had plenty of small, upper-division classes with tenured professors at a state school similar to SDSU and there was zero engagement. Yes, there were smart students getting a good education, but they kept to themselves.[/quote]

That was my experience at an Ivy League school as well.   Or rather, the teachers were excellent and engaged, but at the undergraduate level the education came from them and not from one's classmates.   I've always assumed it's a sort of myth common to those without personal experience of top schools that all the top schools are hotbeds of intellectualism where students learn at least as much from their sparkling classmates.   At top schools the repartee over dinner might be a little more self-consciously witty (pass the barf bag...), but in the classrooms, you care less about listening to your classmates than to what the professor has to impart.

What's weird is to see all the status consciousness here on DCUM, since compared to other metropolises (like NY or Boston) DC attracts and rewards people from an incredibly diverse range of undergraduate backgrounds.   Look at the many sources of undergraduate degrees of those who occupy top executive positions in the federal bureaucracy or in the Congressional committees or at NASA/Goddard - that's your best answer to the question in the subject line. [/quote]

I went to a small state school (non-flagship) and had a couple of professors who got their PhDs from HYPS schools. Once I found out which professors those were, I noticed their frustration every time the kids in my 101 classes acted like duds. [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics