<p>
</p>
<p>wjb, Please forgive me for misunderstanding this post of yours quoted below.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>“That’s what I thought. If kids drop their music ECs after getting in, it doesn’t hurt the academic institution in any way. It was a pure red herring”</p>
<p>I think it’s a horrible thing to tell a kid that you’d better always pursue something at the very highest level or don’t bother. Life is too short. What’s wrong with hobbies? And yes, of course it’s sad if some kid who likes to play the piano or sing or play tennis is counseled that he shouldn’t try to work it into his life as a hobby if he so chooses.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Oh no, I’m just trying to help you make your point. You want to beat around the bush, throw out some smoke and mirrors, spin what people say. Why can’t you just be more straightforward? Why do you have to now have 4 threads all on the same thing?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I would never go out of my way to tell a kid to drop a hobby or an EC that is taking time away from his/her primary interest, but would 1) support the kid is (s)he wants to do so and 2) advice the kid to do so if asked. Is that fine, or do I need to clear my brain out with soap?</p>
<p>IP, I wonder why you ask questions, and then only respond to people to argue with them?</p>
<p>The people who treat your questions as real questions, and give you straightforward answers, you ignore.</p>
<p>As John Cleese once said, “Ahhhhh…You came here for an argument!”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>It’s called the Socratic method.</p>
<p>I think, to be fair, that many of us have been misreading IP’s provocatively stated positions here. He has not been saying that all students should drop their ECs when they get to college. He has been saying that HE would have dropped his ECs when he got to college, if he had had any before college, and students who want to do that shouldn’t be criticized for it. Fair enough, I can agree with that. The rest of what he has been writing has either been willful misreading of others’ posts or shocking ignorance of the institutions he his talking about, but that’s par for his course. </p>
<p>We should all agree with him that Yale has no right to force thousands of its students to sing, dance, act, and play instruments every day. And he should agree with us that it’s nice that there’s a place where serious academic students who also want to sing, dance, act, and play instruments more than once a month (but not including IP), as well as serious musicians who want high-level academics, too, can go and play with one another on a voluntary basis without wrecking their futures.</p>
<p>JHS, I fully agree with your second point. If kids are pursuing their ECs - more power to them. If not - more power to them as well. Can we all continue to bicker now? After all, that’s why I started this thread.</p>
<p>It seems to me that I read about the phenomenon of “multiple summit competence” in the book The Peter Principle many years ago. The author mentioned Einstein as an example of this, through his work in physics and couture (not wearing socks).</p>
<p>Seriously, though, Jean-Marie Lehn is a Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, and I understand that he has a grand piano on the top floor of the lab. Around midnight, after finishing work in the lab, he goes to play the piano. I don’t know whether or not his playing is of concert-caliber, but it is clearly meaningful to him and his playing is excellent, even if not of Nobel-equivalent quality.</p>
<p>Since Yale was mentioned, I will say that they tend to select students who are actually interested in their EC’s and not just pursuing them for the purpose of college admissions. The Halloween concert by the Yale orchestra is a tradition of 30+ years–not sure quite how long–and it is definitely not filled exclusively by music majors and grad students. No one is “forcing” Yale students to continue their EC’s.</p>
<p>Locally, we’ve had several students who became concertmasters in the [good] high school orchestra, and when they graduated, shoved their violins under their beds and did not take them to college. There probably ought to be an EC misery index that could characterize those circumstances.</p>
<p>I think it’s sad, really, if a person only wants to do those things at which he/she is somehow “best.”</p>
<p>My ECs in high school
Girls Scouts (lots of leadership and environmental stuff)
Recorder group
Painting/art
Yearbook (layout and artwork)
School Newspaper (cartoons and reviews)
Backpacking/hiking
Modern Dance</p>
<p>**My ECs in college<a href=“my%20biggest%20regret%20is%20that%20I%20didn’t%20do%20more”>/B</a>
Some art beyond coursework (life drawing mostly)
Theater (once on stage, once behind the scenes)
Political Review
Literary Magazine
Modern Dance (just took classes) and squash (since those courts were in the basement of my house)</p>
<p>My ECs in real life - different ones at different times
PTA for many years including running Reading is Fundamental (which ensured every kid in the school got four new books a year) and a year of running the Learning Garden.
Historical Society/Architectural Tours
Watercolor painting (semi professional)
Various art related do-good projects - some teaching, some design work for local organizations
I mostly go to the gym or walk for exercise
Leadership and newsletter for the local art association
Backpacking and hiking </p>
<p>As you can see some I have pursued (I am a much better painter now than I was a 16), some I dropped (I have no theatrical or musical talent), some I do at a recreational level (exercise). Art has been the one constant, and some sort of connection with nature. Harvard is a place where many students seem to major in their ECs (and get connections through them - Harvard Lampoon and The Crimson launched many careers) and I am sorry I ignored that part of the culture. I do play a pretty mean game of pinball though thanks to Harvard! BTW I think half the music majors at Harvard were also pre-med! The concert master of our high school orchestra was kind of shocked to find out how far back he would be sitting in the Princeton orchestra, but he does still play.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p><sigh></sigh></p>
<p>Here. We. Go. Again.</p>
<p>EC’s are more than just playing a musical instrument. For instance, if you like to argue <a href="like%20some*%20people%20in%20this%20thread">/i</a>, then joining the Debate Team would be a great EC. Plus it would give good experience for a future in management, law, or government. It’s all good.</p>
<p>Sometimes when a kid quits doing something, whether they have talent or not, they are making a statement. I’m burnt out, I don’t enjoy this anymore, this isn’t who I want to be. It can be a step in the direction of finding oneself. Sometimes it is a good idea to go against what everyone else sees you as and become someone else.</p>
<p>We all have to figure out who we are. Sometimes discarding an EC is an important step in that direction.</p>
<p>Re Post 59: You seem like a reasonably smart guy, IP. Either you’re not, or you’re deliberately disingenuous.</p>
<p>Do you not understand that the questions I raised were HYPOTHETICAL? Those things are not happening at Yale. They are not going to happen at Yale, because physics majors are playing in the chamber ensembles, and architecture majors are singing in the Slavic Chorus. Most students and their parents think differently than you about the value of pursuing ECs that are not directly tied to the student’s major, and that is reflected in the richness of the music community at Yale, despite the dearth of music majors. Again, IP, those questions I raised were purely hypothetical. No worries about harm to Yale.</p>
<p>At the risk of prolonging this thread, let me give you an example of a useful pursuit of an interest out of the mainstream: Neils Bohr apparently read the work of the Viennese school of logical positivists while he was working on the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. Bohr never made any notable contribution to philosophy and the work of the logical positivists was peripheral, really, to the more qualitative components of Bohr’s work. However, this was a useful pursuit, as are many things that promote lateral thinking.</p>
<p>MIT used to have multiple soft-ball leagues, including “Fast Pitch,” “Slow Pitch,” and “Kentucky Fried.” I think that people benefit a lot from being able to pursue casual interests at the Kentucky-Fried level. There’s not a lot of that on offer in the typical upper-middle-class suburban area.</p>
<p>I understand the thought that people will have more time for their primary pursuit if they drop all EC’s, but I would counsel against it. IP: Have you read Hadamard’s Psychology of Invention in the Mathematical Field? (The citation is more or less correct.) Do you disagree with the thought that mathematical breakthroughs often come when a period of intense focus on a problem is interrupted by a break?</p>
<p>wjb, I’ll take it a step further. Many smaller colleges have EC activities (music, drama, club sports, whatever) that students choose to pursue. My daughter chose to continue a particular EC in college because it was TOTALLY opposite from what her major was and she found it both relaxing and fun. She also participated in a “club” related to her major, but she didn’t really view that as an EC…it was more cocurricular than extracurricular.</p>
<p>I’m sure MY kid isn’t the only one who chose to continue an activity in college that was unrelated to her major.</p>
<p>I fully agree with that QM. I have no problem with the KFC level of engagement. The time I waste on this board is a KFC level of indulging in my passion to debate. That’s fine. That was an option in my first post as well. Note that to me pursuing an EC is far, far more than KFC level.</p>
<p>wjb, Why ask a hypothetical that is never going to happen?</p>
<p>IP…we know a NUMBER of Yale undergrads who chose Yale over other schools because of the varied opportunities available to undergrads in the area of music. MANY (and I mean many) undergrads at Yale participate in these groups.</p>
<p>Just for the record (not at Yale where there is no undergrad performance major)…even MUSIC MAJORS stop playing…switch majors or decide to go to different schools. It’s usually not a crisis for schools with ensembles.</p>
<p>thumper1, That’s exactly what I thought, so I didn’t understand the particular relevance of that hypothetical. It is like saying what would happen if trees stop photosynthesis.</p>