<p>Searchingon,</p>
<p>You are either a prospie or 1st year, I bet.</p>
<p>It may take a while for you to learn: 1. what critical reading is, even as applied to online postings and 2. that Chicago learning is about discussion, testing hypotheses and yes, disagreement.</p>
<p>FWIW, CB’s newest comments can perhaps best be understood by also looking at earlier posts by the same person.</p>
<p>To summarize, it is not the message we’re disagreeing with. It is that the message itself is inconsistent with other information, and inconsistent with the experience of most other posters here. </p>
<p>For example, most of us could understand a challenge complaint from someone taking honors analysis or even the 160 series calc. These are the most challenging Chicago offers. But to hear such a complaint from someone who took one of the easiest math sequences does not make sense. The complaint makes even less sense when we learn that the same person received a 5 in the BC calc class, but blames their low math placement on weaknesses of their HS (which is claimed to be among the best in the land!). On top of that, to denigrate a math series that most consider too challenging as “largely useless” and then to say “I am judging the university’s ability to challenge me, not my own ability to challenge myself.” tells many of us that this poster has a very different concept of what education is about. And THAT calls into question the reliability of their criticism.</p>
<p>For a person to “find U Chicago student body intellectually stimulating and engaging,” implies a willingness to engage others, not merely letting others “challenge me.” I suspect most folks, (and I’d put the U in this category) would tire of such a game quickly.</p>
<p>In fact, it seems to me, after reading other CB posts, that CB is mostly interested in getting a high status high paying job after graduation, not in learning. And CB views high grades and academic honors mostly as tools to that goa. That is, of course, a goal shared by a good number of other students, and a fine choice in its own right. But it is not a goal that gives much emphasis to learning for knowledge’s sake, and not a goal that is core to U. Chicago’s approach to education. </p>
<p>Maybe this discordance accounts for the difference in perspective?</p>