TV4: in the book the low SES kids on the party floor did not do every well. Were all your hall mates included in this? Were any of them poor kids or were they all upper SES types? Interesting perspective.
They have a responsibility to make facts available to the students. They shouldn’t mislead a student in theater that jobs are easy to find after graduation and a plan b won’t be necessary for many. For tourism, there should be statistics available for number of graduates and number employed in that field after graduation. Professors advising these students need to make sure students understand these realities. Then students can make informed decisions.
We may think these facts are just obvious but they won’t necessarily be to first generation college students from under privileged backgrounds. They don’t have savvy helicopters. They need some help figuring this out.
Anyone who wanted to be included was. I don’t remember any very low SES kids but we had several lower-middle class kids. We had a couple of upper-middle class kids too, but the majority were kids from working class parents. The list of parent jobs included: waterman; steel mill worker; mid level manager; not very successful salesman; doctor; law enforcement officer; farmer; carpenter; teacher.
“They shouldn’t mislead a student in theater that jobs are easy to find after graduation and a plan b won’t be necessary for many.”
lol. They are not doing this but the kids are going to major in what they want to major in regardless. Turning a drama major into a stem kid is not going to happen in most cases and it’s not an advisor problem.
One of the themes of the book was that being on a party floor was detrimental for the people who didn’t party. Another theme was that the people who didn’t party were invisible to the people who did party. So hearing that the loud, boisterous people on your floor who were up at all hours were successful makes me wonder about the people on your floor who weren’t loud and boisterous and didn’t want to be up at all hours. Who were they?
The students on the floor in the book didn’t complain, or at least we don’t hear about their complaints, but that doesn’t mean they were happy being awakened at three in the morning four nights a week, nor does it mean they weren’t harmed by being awakened four nights a week.
marie: The girls in the book weren’t told they didn’t need a college degree for the jobs for which their majors were supposedly preparing them. They figured it out themselves by looking at monster.com. They were taking out loans. They were going to college to get jobs. It was job training for them. They were better off with teaching or nursing degrees. They finally figured this out themselves, after losing time and money they really couldn’t afford to lose. They seemingly had no advising or career counseling. That is shameful. imho. ymmv.
Please read the book. Then we can discuss this a lot easier.
TV4caster: Please read the book. I would love to read your thoughts.
adding: The book challenges a whole lot of our preconceptions. What is happening today at state colleges may bear no resemblance to what when on in our day. The flagship may no longer be the route to realization of the American Dream for less privileged students.
I mean I get that the mean girls were mean girls but I do not get how you blame the college for not solving a problem if no-one complained. I guess we are assuming that because they were first gen college students they had no knowledge of how to complain but with all due respect I find that silly and insulting to lower SES kids and the ones I know are well aware of complaining. That’s for sure.
Alh, I may read the book but I’m reasonably sure I won’t like either group of girls and won’t feel the college is responsible for solving these types of inter-personal issues. But, I could be wrong about that. Right now it sounds like some less worldly girls were paired up in a dorm with some snotty bullies. That’s unpleasant but it doesn’t determine future success or failure in life. As for figuring out what to major in on their own people do this every day with varying levels of success at all large public universities.
I want to weigh in on the sorority aspect as well. @Cardinal Fang and @Pizzagirl have different opinions about sororities. In my opinion, and experience, both are wrong, and both are right.
There are plenty of sororities that judge people based on looks, SES status, etc. There are some that don’t.
There are some people who rank sororities according to a hierarchy, and some who don’t. If you ask a large number of students at IU (or any school) you will find a huge number or different answers. You will find a large percentage who ranks the “popular” sororities high, and the less popular ones lower. You will also find a significant number of people who think the popular ones are stuck up Bs and rank them low. Therefore, you are both right about your opinions, as well.
I had several very close girl friends (not girlfriends) in college. They all lived on the same dorm floor with what was probably considered the #1 sorority in terms of looks and status at my huge State Flagship. I don’t know if the sorority girls were mean to them or not, but I do know that my friends could not have cared less whether those girls were nice to them or not. One of those friends was high SES but the others were not.
I checked around. Some of my local libraries have Paying for the Party. Your local library could probably get it for you with interlibrary loan, if they don’t have it.
That’s a good point. We were certainly inclusive of them when we did things that did not involve partying, and we were friendly with all of them. We were obviously not as close to that group, however, so I am not sure what happened to them in the 4 decades since graduation. I know a few went on to have good careers, but I do not know exactly how successful.
Edit- actually, one kid who was not a part of the party scene was still very friendly with us and went on to be an Admiral.
It’s disingenuous to claim that because every person doesn’t agree in every particular on the exact ranking of sororities on a campus, that there is no hierarchy. Every person doesn’t agree in every particular about the exact ranking of colleges, either, but nobody says that San Jose State has a better reputation than Harvard. If someone here talks about a neighbor’s kid who’s applying to top schools, we all have a rough idea of what they might be. Our list includes Harvard, and it doesn’t include San Jose State.
Marie: It’s an easy, thought-provoking read. There is a lot more to it than the mean girl story. imho. The main point, to me, is whether social mobility is still possible. Lots of baby boomers say, “I did it, so kids today can do it” and that may not be true.
Okay, I may look into the library this afternoon. Interestingly, last week I was talking with a first gen college student with a “useless” major at a large and fairly well-respected public university. This student feels that the degree in whatever is a necessary ticket to the rest of life. A hurdle to jump through, basically. And, not at all job preparation or even education barring the narrow specialty which is unlikely to be very lucrative as much as the required credentials to keep on going and it’s hard to argue that even for jobs that don’t really require it a BA in something has become a barrier to entry for many positions. The student was not dumb or unworldly, but refreshingly realistic. And, there was plenty of complaining.
I certainly agree that social mobility is getting harder for a whole lot of reasons.
TV4caster, you’re a guy, right? Was this an all-male floor? The social dynamics for men have got to be different than the social dynamics for women.
@Cardinal Fang re: #170
I disagree. There are plenty of people who would do better at SJ State (and would like it better) than at Harvard. The rankings are completely wrong for those people. Rankings are only important if you give them power.
I’m not saying that some people wouldn’t do better at San Jose State than at Harvard (though I do think it’s an indictment of Harvard that anyone who they would accept would do better at San Jose State). I’m saying that there is a concept of top colleges, a concept that most people on CC understand, and when we talk about top colleges we mean Harvard and we don’t mean San Jose State.
It may be that some young woman may be better off at XYZ sorority than ABC sorority, even if ABC is generally known as a top sorority. But that doesn’t make ABC not a top sorority, and it doesn’t mean nobody talks about top sororities. If you ask the women who are rushing at Indiana what the top sororities are, the same three names will keep popping up.
“On the other hand, the regional colleges hire teachers to teach. And they don’t have a Greek presence.”
I can’t speak for the directionals elsewhere, but in my state, the directionals have Greek presence.
"It’s disingenuous to claim that because every person doesn’t agree in every particular on the exact ranking of sororities on a campus, that there is no hierarchy. Every person doesn’t agree in every particular about the exact ranking of colleges, either, but nobody says that San Jose State has a better reputation than Harvard. "
Right. But the kids at San Jose State don’t sit there and fret that they aren’t at Harvard; Harvard’s “betterness” just isn’t relevant to their everyday lives. (Or even make it schools that are a lot closer; Vanderbilt vs Harvard, let’s say.) Similarly, the girls in the “lower” sororities don’t sit and fret that they aren’t Kappas/TriDelts/Thetas either. They have their friends and they have their experience. You vastly overrate the extent to which people’s lives are consumed by this.
“It may be that some young woman may be better off at XYZ sorority than ABC sorority, even if ABC is generally known as a top sorority. But that doesn’t make ABC not a top sorority, and it doesn’t mean nobody talks about top sororities. If you ask the women who are rushing at Indiana what the top sororities are, the same three names will keep popping up.”
But so what? Either they are the smart kind of girl who says - it matters what I like and who I get along with, or they are the dumb kind of girl who pines away for one specific house – which is just as dumb as the kids on CC who get obsessed with Harvard or Yale as the be-all-end-all. Either way, it’s their problem.
Most majors at most colleges require just a 2.0 GPA to graduate. It’s called passing.
Most kids at big state U’s can move off campus after one year and be free of any negative types. One slightly tough year should not make or break you. I find this book agenda driven and false for most students of all SES.