9/13 Anthro professor investigated student life by becoming a student:
http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2005/09/13/freshman_year/index.html
'In the book, I look at things that the university says it wants to
focus on. They say, "We're a community of scholars, we're a community
of diversity, we're about intellectual life." That's what the
university thinks it is. From what I saw, the student's version of
these concepts is very different.'
\_ oh gawd, not to criticize necessarily, but did anyone else find this
really boring? basically: students at fourth-tier university don't
like to give the impression that they're studying hard so they're
not branded as nerds/overachievers, they care more about grades than
learning anything, they take loans to pay for tuition/housing, and
part-time jobs to pay for iPods and random entertainment crap.
\_ FWIW, Berkeley students are exactly the same way - only
difference I can see is that Mommy and Daddy usually pay for the
iPod and the random entertainment crap.
\_ I didn't find a lot of Berkeley students to be particularly
wealthy, spoiled, or coddled. Some were. It's nothing
like private school, though. You should see the kids at
the private liberal arts colleges. I found UCB students
to be harder-working and less-privileged than many.
Addendum: I found a lot of academic, political, and
philosophical discussion at UCB. I submit the MOTD as an
example. That the professor thinks her students and those
at Yale aren't much different is what makes an NAU
professor and a Yale professor different.
\_ Ditto. For all the extremism and stupidity I was extremely
impressed by the general character of the people I was at
Cal with. FWIW, in the "real world" I've also generally
found the above to be peoples' view of Berkeley. -John |