<p>What do you think about intellectual life outside of the classroom today?</p>
<p>[Intellectual</a> Life Can Thrive Outside of the Classroom | The Hoya](<a href=“http://www.thehoya.com/node/16017]Intellectual”>http://www.thehoya.com/node/16017)</p>
<p>Nowhere near as titillating as the “Honest Parents of Reed College” thread. Sorry!</p>
<p>Could you list some colleges with intellectual life outside of the classroom?</p>
<p>Unfortunately, the “intellectual life outside class” reputation tends to be associated with lack of a social student body, which may or may not be true.
I have studied and now work at the University of Chicago, which is a school often cited as intellectual. I think this is true, but I will say that students today have a much more pre-professional orientation than those of 10 or 15 years ago. More seem to have their sights set on becoming doctors, lawyers and managers. This may be a reflection of changes in the society generally.
Other schools with an intellectual reputation include Cal Tech, Swarthmore and Reed.
However, any of the top schools- such as Amherst, Pomona, Princeton, Harvard, etc., have a substantial number of students who thrive on intellectual discussions. Further down the “pecking order”, I’m sure students can connect with intellectually stimulated kids as well.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>A pretty decent proxy for this is the per capita PhD production of undergrad colleges and universities. Schools that produce a lot of future PhDs tend to be the schools that are regarded as “intellectual”.</p>
<p>A lot of it has to do with students who are, on average, engaged in and excited by their courses and professors so the natural consequence is that they enjoy talking about it with friends. It’s a self-reinforcing culture because engaged students are motivating to professors who in turn do more to engage their students.</p>
<p>Here’s an updated list of the top 40 per capita PhD producers.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.swarthmore.edu/Documents/administration/ir/baccorsum1995-2004.pdf[/url]”>http://www.swarthmore.edu/Documents/administration/ir/baccorsum1995-2004.pdf</a></p>
<p>I can only comment on the discussions my son had during graduation events this weekend. His EGD project team intended to refine their final project for submittal in a national conference competition in April, 2009. A friend offered to write a recommendation for him as a conference volunteer on the west coast next spring saving him big bucks in normal registration fees. And two faculty offerred an ongoing mentoring relationship in an undergraduate research project which he wanted to continue as he entered graduate school on the west coast.</p>
<p>The continuity of intellectual relationships fostered as an undergrad into at least the near future was something that softened the finality of the graduation events and should foster long lasting relationships in the years ahead. And it signified that the academic work most important to him will be continuing beyond graduation.</p>
<p>The collegial atmosphere we sensed among his classmates and faculty we met at the compsci cruise and cogsci coctail reception was gratifying and a special conclusion to his four undergraduate years.</p>
<p>Of course, it’s never a good idea to base judgment solely on the opinions of a few random students, but I do think that if this matters to you, it’s an important question to ask on tours (and to ask students wandering around the campus outside of your tour).</p>
<p>I knew that I wanted an intellectual but unpretentious environment, and I regularly asked students whether it was typical for them to talk, say, in the dorms or at dinner about stuff from their classes. At some schools, people said “Oh, God, no!” and looked at me like I was a weirdo; at other schools, I got kind of noncommittal “Well, we have all types of people, so I guess if that’s what you wanted to do, you could join a club for it” responses; and at a few schools, people absolutely leapt to respond positively. </p>
<p>It’s not an error-free method, but I found it helpful. It makes sense that many ‘top’ schools would fit this bill, and I’d predict that in general, a high number of LAC’s–which some students choose primarily because of their reputations for discussion-based classes–would make the list. And as the article in the original post suggests, I’d also expect that schools where all/most students go through some sort of common academic experience (like a core) would foster out-of-classroom intellectual discussion.</p>
<p>It’s also not either/or. There are intellectually-engaged students at EVERY college and university as well as students who are not.</p>
<p>The issue is really the percentage at a given school and whether that percentage is high enough to actually have an impact on the classroom experience, the out-of-class academic experience, and the overall campus culture.</p>
<p>If you have a very high percentage of engaged students, professors can rely on students doing enough of the course reading to get the basic “coverage” and can shift their classroom teaching to taking that basic information to more interesting discussions. You will have more study groups, with students in collaborative learning settings. You will have more students interacting with professors in and out of the classroom, which motives them to be better teachers.</p>
<p>I don’t think there is any question that college is much more rewarding to a student who is “into” his courses, finds them stimulating, etc…rather than just trying to get by or learn it for the test. To the extent that you have larger percentages of students actively engaged in the academics, the entire school becomes more rewarding.</p>
<p>When DD attended the accepted students event and stayed in the dorm, there was a room full of kids hanging out and watching Nature on Discovery channel. Kids coming and going, then on to play outside, study, take a break, study. Around were some parties, other activities, etc, but everyone seemed to accept the flow of all kinds of interests. </p>
<p>She knew that that was the right combination for her. It really is a personal decision on what is the right combination. </p>
<p>Agree with intersteddad a high percentage of engaged students is important. DD has also found that the level of interest in the classes means that there is always someone really interested in the subject area that enlivens the class. Instead of just sitting there.</p>
<p>And of course sometimes I discussed coursework, sometimes I discussed movies and books, and sometimes I just played pinball. (Harvard)</p>
<p>Danas may be right that students are more pre-professional these days, but I think the University of Chicago has an awful lot of intellectual life outside the classroom. As Exhibit A, I would submit the contributions of current students to the Chicago forum on this website; I am always impressed. I agree that every college has a group of intellectually engaged students, but it is really in the air everyone breathes there.</p>
<p>I think Swarthmore is similar, too. I happened to have dinner with a Swarthmore junior a few weeks ago, and was bowled over by her. (I can’t say too much about it, because she would be instantly identifiable.)</p>