<p>It’s clear that in a number of jobs, having an Ivy degree will help you get the job (unless someone else has more experience). After that, you of course need to carry the ball yourself. So opening doors is not exactly the same as keeping them open, but it certainly can help.
I find that having a math degree provides employment opportunities. Perhaps people just think you are smart if you like math.
I find that amusing, especially since so often everyone asks “Gee, when will I ever use this?” in math class and a pure math degree is good for, uh, nothing, because it doesn’t aim to be good for anything but itself, by definition:)</p>
<p>“If my goal in sending a kid to college were to guarantee that s/he would make big bucks afterward, I would be probably sending my kid to flagship state U in my state, and encouraging my kid to take full advantage of the contacts there .”</p>
<p>But only if they are planning to stay in the state after they graduate. Otherwise there’s probably not much point. I think for some grad schools it’s well worth it to go where you think you want to live afterwards.</p>
<p>“What do you all think of Yale’s period that allows you to check out classes before officially enrolling in them?”</p>
<p>I loved it at Harvard. Spared myself some real duds!</p>
<p>“An education is an end in itself; it is not a means towards a better paying job or friends in high places.”</p>
<p>I agree with this statement. However why do we think that an education can only be accomplished at a college or university? Many of the most literate, thoughtful and erudite people I have known became so following a lifetime of learning.</p>
<p>It is fascinating to visit the homes of great people of the past. We visited the homes of Pierre and Henry DuPont this past weekend and it was evident that each had acquired vast stores of knowledge in their adult years. Pierre taught himself hydraulics in order to design a fountain garden at his estate, a design that included 50 pages of calculations. He Became a skilled architect as evidenced by the design drawing of his house expansion and conservatories on display. Henry kept copious notes in the fields of animal husbandry and horticulture, employing the knowledge acquired to develope an unsurpassed breed of dairy cattle and to become a landscape architect extrordinaire.</p>
<p>I know the Dupont wealth enabled them the time and money to pursue these “pastimes” to great ends. But we can too in perhaps more modest ways.</p>
<p>Interesting. College certainly provides a kind of structure and discipline. Certainly we can learn a lot on our own, but some things are better explained by a professor. Also, in college, you learn many things much more efficiently than you could left to your own devices.
Personally, there isn’t any school that has a degree which leads to my career choice. I think that’s pretty funny. Everything I’ve learned having to do with this came from my experiences and a lot of my own research. That was also true of my past jobs. I’m also teaching myself a lot about a few hobbies that I aim to get better at, and I’m finding the way I learn best at them.</p>
<p>Truth is, despite an Ivy grad degree and another top institution undergrad degree, the most in depth learning I have ever done in my whole life has been independently…because <em>I</em> wanted to learn something, as opposed to it being imposed externally.</p>
<p>In college, I did what I needed to do, studied, and got good grades. But in terms of being deeply engaged in learning…that didn’t happen for me until adulthood, when I began to do more on my own.</p>
<p>Again, I am glad to have the two degrees I have, and they give me a certain legitimacy in my work, but my learning didn’t stop there…in fact, I’d say the degrees were merely a springboard for my lifelong learning.</p>
<p>Originaloog:</p>
<p>College classes are like book clubs for those who like to read and argue. You can learn a lot by reading a book on your own and pondering what you’ve read. But the prof provides the reading list and the themes around which the reading list is constructed it, maybe provides background and interpretive materials; the pro also fills the gap between different monographs and articles. The classmates provide different viewpoints, different perspectives and different intepretations. In the interchange of ideas, you are challenged to defend your ideas, or you modify them. And when you get to research a topic and write on it, you’d like feedback. School/college is a more efficient way of delivering on all these desiderata than the solitary approach or the one-on-one tutoring approach.</p>
<p>Many also like company while they’re learning .My S w never wanted to study by himself so he did not consider distance programs. He liked to be surrounded by others, even if they studied different math curricula than he. He continues to value his math study group.</p>
<p>Brown University also has a “shopping period” the first two weeks of each semester in order to try out and “shop” the classes.</p>
<p>Brown also allows students to undertake independent studies. </p>
<p>Northstarmom, my experience was the opposite as far as how a top school on a resume opened doors or not. When I lived in Boston, I really doubt my Harvard graduate degree stood out…they were a dime a dozen. When I graduated, I moved to Vermont where I am sure that the degree/college played a part in my getting an interview on a pile of apps because it did stand out. That said, I still believe in the end that it is the person who gets the job or succeeds, not the school they came from. A school may open doors (all sorts of schools can do this) but the person must be able to enter that door and then not have it close on the way out!</p>
<p>Originaloog, I agree with Marite’s explanation of what one can get from a college education that differs from independent learning. </p>
<p>In any case, I do agree that you do not need to go to college in order to become educated and to learn. Learning is a lifelong endeavor. There are people who succeed and are very knowledgeable who have not attended college. </p>
<p>But another reason to attend college, besides being one avenue for becoming educated, is that for SOME fields, one cannot get work without a degree. For instance, my child wants to be an architect. To become a licensed architect, she’d need either a five year BArch (which she is not getting) or a MArch degree. There are many occupations that require a degree. My other kid is going into a field where conceivably one does not need a degree…musical theater, though she is getting a specialized BFA degree. So, while I am a proponent of lifelong learning and independent study, there are reasons why a college education is worthy and in some cases, necessary.</p>
<p>
Hmmm. I didnt exactly mean it in this way. What I am saying, and I am only trying to throw this around a bit, is that prestige and power are in fact driving many of these decisions and yet we seem to be surviving okay. I dont think the lions share of students (and their parents) who are trying to get into the top schools have really researched those schools and deemed them as offering the best value for the buck as a result. I don’t think they are so lofty in spirit that they are seeking the best place to “find themselves”. Some students and parents do this, but I am talking generally. I think, by and large, people know that HYPSMCDUBCWA etc., have big names and so they just go for them. They are enamored with prestige and the idea of hobnobbing with folks who have it. After getting in, they often discover the schools are not what they had bargained for and become disenchanted with them. But probably just as often they stumble on a great experience (the well-examined life, if you will), which burnishes the names of the schools even more.</p>
<p>Is that dangerous? Well, let me see it could be, especially to those who are so willing to trust their ready perceptions of the market they fail to do their own due diligence. But I am wondering if it is dangerous across the board. Im not convinced it is, else these big named schools would have toppled long ago. Maybe the big names persist because they are still offering the prestige and power commodities for which people hunger. But they may also survive intact because while prestigious, they really do give students something more meaningful than mere prestige.</p>
<p>Surely less elite schools are also offerring something more meaningful than prestige. Yet, folks are scrambling and fighting tooth and nail for the top schools. The only difference I see that may cause this is prestige.</p>
<p>Drossel, my children did not care about prestige. I did not care which college they picked and left it to them and had no preference of my own. My personal wish was that they got into a college that they’d be happy to get into and eventually be happy to attend. You ask if top schools are “worth it”. My feelings about the worth of colleges my kids have chosen would be the same prestige or no prestige. The price tag is worth it to me if my kids are happy at their colleges. They are the opposite from “disenchanted” as you can get. One has gone two years so far and one has gone one year and both ooze with enthusiasm (I see this when they come home and others ask how they like their colleges) regarding their respective schools. They truly LOVE where they are going. They have no complaints. As for me? I am so happy because my kids are so happy with their choices. Is that worth it to me as a parent? Yes, it is priceless.</p>
<p>(oops, I guess I should say the colleges to have this post make sense in context, in case anyone is reading the post and hasn’t seen others I have written…one D goes to Brown University and one D goes to one of the top programs in her field, NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts’ CAP21 Program (musical theater) )</p>
<p>“I don’t know what the majority is, but I’ll let ya know that my thoughts align with yours on this matter.”</p>
<p>As do mine, as I said in a post a few messages before marmite’s.</p>
<p>Marmite?? Since when have I become a nightcap or a sandwich spread only the Brits could love? :(</p>
<p>Marmite??? LOL…I thought this might be a typo from Sinner’s Alley where there are Marmots! :D</p>
<p>soozievt:</p>
<p>It doesn’t surprise me a bit to find that your kids went through pains to find the school they thought best for them and that they just happened to choose top schools. It suggests even more strongly that top schools are tops quite often for legitimate reasons and that those reasons do appeal to informed consumers. No problem there. But I guess I am not really that confident that the masses who create the hysteria NSM mentions here are doing so because they are as informed as you are. I think by and large, they are being driven by prestige, and I am now wondering if that is so awful.</p>
<p>Part of my reevaluation is due to a few of my kids’ insistence that prestige is not a bad thing. Don’t we all play into this in some way? Are we really so attracted to simple Quakerian functionality that we have no place for prestige?</p>
<p>I’m really not so sure about this, which is kinda amazing to me after all my ranting on the subject.</p>
<p>LOL! Sorry, Marite! Sometimes typos speak volumes . . .</p>
<p>As an aside, has anyone ever tasted marmite or vegemite? I hear they are similarly disgusting. (Unlike our Marite, of course!)</p>
<p>Momwaitingfornew:</p>
<p>
I have a jar in my refrigerator right now, given to me by a fine Aussie friend about three months ago. I hope it is keeping okay, because I am trying to get up enough nerve to try it again and it is gonna take some time. 8O</p>
<p>Drosselmeier:</p>
<p>Prestige is not bad. And in the case of the highly selective schools, it is not empty. They have earned their good reputation.</p>
<p>But there are many others which are as good or are getting to be as good as the ones everybody considers to be the tops. I don’t like for people to be blinded by prestige and ignore excellent value.</p>
<p>When I discovered CC a couple of seasons back, there was a young woman who was distraught because her parents were adamant that she apply to Yale in which she had zero interest. Another applicant reported that her parents were willing to fork over the big bucks but only if she got into an Ivy. Last year, I got chewed out for failing to be properly sympathetic when one parent reported that in mid-May, six weeks after getting rejections and offers, her child was depressed over being rejected by all the Ivies she’s applied to and “only getting into Rice, Wellesley and Chicago.” In my book, these are all terrific schools, of the same caliber as the </p>
<p>Mom:</p>
<p>Let us just say that marmite or vegemite is an acquired taste. :)</p>