Reply to tell me about Pitt

Forum Index » College and University Discussion

Reply to "tell me about Pitt"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Due respect, but your college prof knows absolutely nothing about Pittsburgh and needs to get out more. How old is the prof?[/quote]

He was probably in his early 30s, and had done his doctorate at Yale, then become an assistant prof at Harvard by a young age.  He knew plenty about academia and the reputation of different schools and departments, and I don't think he would have needed to even visit Pittsburgh or "get out more" to enhance his credibility.

Pitt is an OK school with an OK, not spectacular campus, and some good departments.  Depending on your goals and the schools with which you are comparing Pitt, it might even be a "good" school.  If you are comparing it to the Ivy Leagues and the most selective schools, it is just OK.

My brothers loved it and have no student loans, and are happy they went there.  Even they will freely admit that my house at Harvard was in a different league than their Pitt dorms, and Pitt's campus is not great compared to those of other schools.  But they don't care: they liked the grittiness, and they didn't want student loans, and they are very successful now.

But I would have been so depressed at Pitt. [/quote]

[b]Dang, you must have been awfully sheltered if that would be enough to make you "so depressed."  Maybe, and I mean this in all seriousness, your brothers' success is based more on them being more resilient than you.[/quote][/b]

Choosing to go to the best school to which I was admitted, and being thankful for a great experience there--especially when I was able to compare my university to my brothers' university, and know theirs would not have been a "good fit" for me--does not make me "awfully sheltered" or less "resilient."  We grew up in Western PA, and my brothers went to Pitt with a lot of our high school friends: to me, this was "awfully sheltered."  I worked super hard to get into Harvard, and choosing to go there over Pitt does not demonstrate a lack of resilience.

My brothers loved their Pitt experience, and they are both successful engineers now, but I would not want their experience for myself.  It is right for a certain kind of kid, and wrong for others, but bleating on about snobbery and defending Pitt against all criticism, no matter what, is stupid and not fair to your kids.

I still maintain that Pitt is an OK school with an ugly campus.  I am not only comparing it to Harvard, and I do agree with the other PP who pointed out that it is not reasonable to compare Pitt to Harvard at all.  OK.  However, I visited friends at Penn State, Boston University, Boston College, Mount Ida, and UMass, and ALL of these schools had a "feel" that would have suited me better than Pitt, with its gritty, ugly campus and gritty, ugly feel.  Knowing the "feel" of a campus and knowing what suits you before you choose a school is not "awfully sheltered", but a sensible thing to do.

My brothers were smart kids who were very social, and they loved the relaxed atmosphere at Pitt.  They would have hated an intense, pressure cooker of an academic environment, and I respect that.

You need to consider what type of kid you have when helping them choose a school.

[/quote]

If it makes you feel better, I also went to a lot of frat parties at MIT.  The MIT campus is much uglier than the Pitt campus.  Much, much uglier.  The bit you see on Good Will Hunting is just a small showpiece, and rest of the campus is hideous.  So there you go: MIT has nothing so lovely as the Cathedral of Learning.  [/quote]

This is actually a good comparison. My husband went to MIT and I spent a lot of time on that campus over several years. They are both rather spread out, urban with some green spaces and a few eye catching buildings amongst a lot of brutalism. I remember MIT's buildings were set up that it was easy to get from one end of campus to another without going outside much. One either appreciates an urban campus or not. My son really loved Pitt but didn't love GWU when we visited, much to my surprise. [/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