I simultaneously love and hate UChicago! What should I do?

phuriku
Sun, 06 Jul 2014 01:44:36 +0000

You’re coming into this with the wrong mindset. You, who are in high school and have very likely done zero serious research in economics, are convinced that you already know enough to dismiss the Chicago School of Economics as nonsense. I assure you that you won’t be alone at UChicago in thinking this (if anything, most UChicago undergrads possess similar opinions), but if you matriculate with the impression that you already know precisely how the world works, you won’t reap anything from a Chicago education. (Besides, consider for a second that while UChicago keeps on racking up Nobel Prizes, you haven’t even studied advanced mathematics or economics. That isn’t to say that you know nothing, or even that you don’t have enough knowledge to challenge your professors on some points - but it’s indication that you don’t know nearly enough to make such heavy assertions.)

A UChicago education requires that its recipients put aside their assumptions about the universe in order to rebuild their knowledge from the ground up. As is written on the gothic walls of (the once) Harper Library, “Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider.”