@Pizzagirl- again- I never said that they’re heroes. They are just people who likely like finance and are good at it. It’s their choice in life, just as your choices in life are yours. Neither is “better”; as I’ve said over and over and over, to each his/her own.
When you constantly attack and denigrate people who are different than you, and when you appear to try to be as unpleasant as possible when disagreeing-it doesn’t cause people to change their ways. To the contrary, people who you attack may just become more set in their ways and views.
“@dfbdfb, I just think it’s wise to work hard when you can, take advantage of opportunities that will lead to longer-term benefits, even at short-term cost, and store up resources while they’re available.”
Well, of course. Who said its not good to work hard, take advantage of opportunities and delay gratification and live below your means? I’ve done all that which is precisely why I can send 2 kids to top schools full pay AND retire at the age of 51. No one has said hard work isn’t a good thing.
But you explicitly started this out by saying that certain jobs were “better”/more elite and that everyone should want to do those jobs; and if they claimed they didn’t it was probably just sour grapes because they couldnt get those jobs; and you seemed very surprised that not everyone drooled over a $320k/year (or whatever) figure you cited, I think it was for a new lawyer. You seemed stunned that not everyone here nodded in agreement, or concludes that - yeah, those particular doors closing would be awful.
You’re playing both sides. First you said you didn’t understand why anybody with half an IQ point wouldn’t want Forbes / Davos / a gazillion dollar salary and now you claim you understand. Which is it?
@thumper1, it was for graduate school. The colleague got a free ride at Columbia but zero at Harvard.
@dstark, no, I don’t work on Wall Street, but I have before. Finance wasn’t my thing, as I discovered after taking various jobs there. I am very, very happy in my current job and have been there for a long time.
@Pizzagirl, again- it’s YOU who is saying that some jobs are “better”. I said that some have higher pay, more comprehensive ‘perks’, higher-profile work, etc. I also said that those characteristics make some jobs able to attract a disproportionate number of recruits. Those are specific details about jobs, and they can be compared as fact. Does that make them “better”? No, and not for all people.
And I never said that I didn’t “understand” why someone wouldn’t want to be on the Davos list. I said that anyone with half an IQ point would. That’s a fact.
You can be offensive if you want. But you can’t twist my words; they’re right there in my posts.
Guess your friend went with the prestige factor of Harvard…and the cost…over Columbia. I am not sure I understand that either…but whatever. It was the friend’s choice!
@thumper1, no problem- I hadn’t specified that before. You’re exactly right about Harvard and Columbia, though.
The friend is very pleased with the choice of Harvard, several years out of school, and does not regret the decision. From a pure cost/benefit perspective it wasn’t necessarily the right choice though.
“People who pass up opportunities such as one to attend the school that will give the person the most benefits for what s/he wants to do in life, and instead pick a school based on weather or whatever, are welcome to do so; to each his or her own, but that’s not what I’d do.”
If someone is selecting 103 vs 3, your argument makes sense. There are appreciable, real quality differences. Maybe even 53 vs 3. But no one who attends 9 instead of 3 is “passing up the school that will give the most benefit.” Unless we are talking about a specific program offered by that one school, it’s just all the same, and its slicing the bologna way too thin to pretend otherwise.
You have a real scarcity mentality - a lot of fear behind it, a lot of fear of never-enough or suboptimality.
I am currently in a business trip in India. I spent several days in villages in Uttar Pradesh which has unbelievable poverty. All of these colleges we are discussing provide tons of opportunity to those who take advantage of it - more than 99% of people on earth will EVER have access to. To think there are meaningful diffs between 3 and 9 is just insane at any kind of high level. It’s like facing the midnight buffet on the cruise ship and worrying that the midnight buffet on the other side of the ship might have a few more dinner rolls, mango instead of pineapple and two more flavors of ice cream. Calm down - there’s more than enough food for everybody at both buffets.
@Pizzagirl, again, for the 4th time, that’s not so. We exhaustively researched both schools and saw a big difference.
Take, for example, University of Virginia versus Columbia law schools. They’re just a few slots apart in the US News rankings, but UVA has a big chunk of its class unemployed or underemployed at graduation; Columbia does not. That means that someone who’s going to be in even the bottom 20% of the class at UVA will end up jobless or scrambling to get any job, but the same person, at Columbia, will not. That’s certainly a noteworthy difference, and that’s one of many differences between schools that are closely ranked.
@happyalumnus I just looked up the statistics for UVA 1.4 per cent are seeking employment for the class of 2013. That is a huge number.
I think you could learn a lot from @pizzagirl. She seems to giving you great advice on this thread. Nobody after a few years cares where you went to law school. It is whether you can do the job or not.
@sevmom and @florida26, look a bit further: the ABA employment data, available through PDFs on the UVA Career Services website.
In 2013, 59 (!) of 364 graduates were in “university/law school funded positions”. Some schools have had endowed fellowships for a small number of recent graduates for years, but not UVA: it simply had to create jobs for 59 (!) of its graduates who could not otherwise find them. That’s astonishing.
@florida26, to the contrary, what @pizzagirl could learn from people she rails against:
Having an "elite" diploma and a job that is related to that does not preclude happiness. Rather, some people who have those diplomas and jobs are very, very happy with them.
Having a non-"elite" job does not necessarily bring happiness. Nor does having a non-"elite" diploma.
I am very, very happy in my job. It's a very good match for me and my talents. While I didn't find financial-sector jobs that I've had on Wall Street fulfilling, they helped me to learn what I like and what I didn't like, both about work and myself, and they led me to my current job. So I'm glad for every job that I've had, independent of the pay.
I was extremely happy at my "elite" school--much more so than the less "elite" one. Plenty of my classmates at my "elite" school also loved it.
So, in short, the whole premise that aiming for “elite” diplomas and “elite” jobs is somehow less worthy and less fulfilling than aiming for non-“elite” ones is patently false in my case, and many of my friends would agree.
I did get my current job due to one degree that I had- the more “elite” of the two. I know that for a fact. Where I went to law school certainly matters, and it has helped me get jobs and business in those jobs, even years after graduation. Same for many of my classmates.
I. Never. Said. I. Didn’t. Value. Elite. Education. I have a degree from an elite school. I married someone from an elite school. I have two young adults who are currently at elite schools. I work frequently with a lot of McKinsey people and half my BFF’s are McKinsey folks. I have friends who are lawyers at top notch firms. Please stop acting as though I’m from Whoville State and full of sour grapes.
No one has suggested you couldn’t be happy, that you didn’t like finance, that it couldn’t be less worthy and less fulfilling.
We are taking issue with what you said at the very outset of this thread. Let me refresh you.
You “couldn’t understand” why anyone wouldn’t want to be on the Forbes richest list or part of Davos.
You “couldn’t understand” why anyone wouldn’t want to go after Goldman Sachs, McKinsey, whatever the big fancy law firm was because they were prestigious and who wouldn’t want prestige and they paid a lot and who wouldn’t want that.
We are also taking issue with the very conceit that those certain jobs are “elite.” They’re just jobs. They happen to be well-paying jobs, but they’re just jobs. You seem to think that everyone put them at the top of their pecking list and agreed - those were the most desirable jobs. That’s simply not true. Some of us find being the actual creator of value to be far more intellectually rewarding than the person who stands off to the side and gives it a grade.
If you want to be in finance - go for it. Just don’t kid yourself that everyone everywhere is just totally drooling over it. I don’t think you get it - I don’t think you get how little people in other fields care about fields other than their own and how little general “prestige” they ascribe to them. You have a good job, you’re happy - great. You don’t get special shiny markers because it’s at GS, because no one outside that world cares, despite the fact that you think they’re all jealous. They’re just not. Honest. That’s all.
The argument against the original post is not and never has been (except maybe for a couple people who popped in and then straight back out—I’m talking about those who have actually engaged in the discussion seriously) that “elite” colleges result in a less fulfilling experience or worthy outcomes than “non-elite” colleges. The argument is and always has been that there is not necessarily a meaningful difference between “elite” and “non-elite” colleges on such scales.
You’ve asked others to respond to the claims they’re faced with, not the claims they wish they were faced with; please do the same.
"3. I am very, very happy in my job. It’s a very good match for me and my talents. While I didn’t find financial-sector jobs that I’ve had on Wall Street fulfilling, they helped me to learn what I like and what I didn’t like, both about work and myself, and they led me to my current job. "
Great! More power to you! Do you see the difference between THIS statement - which is about YOUR personal preferences - and your assertions before that everyone would or should want to do these kinds of jobs, and if they didn’t aspire to that, it’s only because they knew those doors were closed to them and so it was sour grapes?
Well, If you think that having 59 students getting Powell fellowships (for Supreme Court Justice Powell) or Kennedy fellowships(for RFK) so kids can work in legal servicws or public service for awhile after law school graduation as a negative, then I don’t know what to say. You seem obsessed with minor percentages and rankings. Even Harvard Law School had 12 of 579 grads unemployed and seeking employment in 2013. Who knows why they were unemployed at the time of the survey. I’m guessing they’ll be just fine as will most grads of the top law schools. Most undergrads will do fine, even if not at an elite school, if they are motivated and do well enough in school , especially in majors that are in demand.
“anyone with half an IQ point would love to be on the Forbes’ Most Powerful Men list. So would anyone, for the Davos Top Academics list. Non-elite school graduates are excluded from those sectors, though–most likely not by their own choice.”
@Pizzagirl: “Non-elite school graduates are excluded from those sectors” is entirely correct.
I would suggest that you actually read my posts and respond to them, rather than just coming up with your own ideas and attributing them to me, and railing against them, and even making up your own statements, attributing them to me, and railing against them. At least when you want to rail against specific phrases, you should actually use ones that I stated if you’re going to attribute them to me.
@sevmom, while a handful of attractive fellowships, designed for people who want careers in academia or public interest, have been around for a while at some law schools, the UVA ones are these:
Perhaps 10 of its fellowships are selective ones that have been around pre-recession, but even with that, nearly 15% of UVA’s class had to get paid by the school or otherwise would have been unemployed or the like. That’s huge.
Note that American U. law school has a similarly-sized class but has a lot fewer school-paid positions.