What a Northwestern grad would do differently

knowbefore
Mon, 15 Mar 2010 05:19:31 +0000

Elite schools are thought of by most people as one of the places you go to prepare for a career in government and politics. How does it follow that if Northwestern does not prepare you for the job, that Northwestern has nothing to do with not being able to get or succeed in the job?

Why is it unreasonable to think that kids believe Northwestern does prepare you for the job? Why is unreasonable to suggest that there may be programs that do a better job?

1) Most of us agree that there is no major (at least at NU) built for this purpose. Statistics might be your best option if you want to break in via polling, but poli sci has very few classes on politics and econ is too abstract to prep you for the job.

2) Most of us agree that connections, networking, and experience make more of a difference than the name of your diploma.

Do we really expect so little from universities that we don’t see a problem here? Why are so many kids at these schools unhappy or disappointed? Do we really think that’s not a problem?

Are we really perfectly fine with schools marketing themselves as the best place to prepare for these careers? Of all careers, what is more closely associated with a liberal arts degree than politics? If colleges are supposed to be partners in education, then don’t they have a responsibility to tell students that they shouldn’t be there? (I know that some people believe that a traditional liberal arts curriculum teaches skepticism and is therefore a critical feature of an education, but there are schools that combine the academic mode of thought with specific knowledge and applications for careers. I know because I’ve researched them and visited them and I might just enroll in one. And let’s not pretend like everything’s OK because a master’s program exists. That was four years and more than $100k that could’ve been better spend. That is not a little deal.)

But like I said, it’s mostly up to the kids to make the decisions. We should be focusing on them. It is not as easy as some of you seem to believe it is to convince a high-achieving high schooler to look beyond the Top 20. I was an academic freight train until I was 22. I’d dismissed warnings from people just like me because I believed in the Northwestern brand. You have to show them the evidence, ask them the right questions, and maybe even force them to attend a few lectures at each school. It’s not going to happen on it’s own.