word of caution for U Chicago applicants

PaperChaserPop
Wed, 30 Sep 2009 23:34:28 +0000

I discovered this thread today and just read all the posts. I did it primarily because it was started by my CC friend hyeonjlee. She and I have been exchanging posts on another live thread and although we may not be in agreement on everything, I can say this about hyeonjlee - her opinions and positions are often supported by stats, analyses and rationales. You can feel the effort she put in her posts.

While you may not agree with some of her assertions, please at least acknowledge the good effort and rigor here. It is very easy to attack a post with words that are either surface deep or out of context without given the benefit of doubt to the OP, especially when it is obvious that the OP had put a lot of thought in her post. An attack loses its appeal if it is not backed by rationales of matching rigor. It is much easier to find faults than to come up with an alternative view supported by the same level of rationale and analysis.

Before we lash out with disagreements, we can first check our own assumptions and ask the OP to clarify points that may have triggered our disagreement. As a community endeavored to discovery and learning through sharing of ideas, our interaction should encourage each other to post thoughtful comments backed by good rationales, even if we don’t agree with them. We may often find ourselves being corrected at the end of an “argument”. How else can we learn if we are always right? Most of the posts on CC do not come close to the depth of what we see from hyeonjlee, and many of us still want to see posts at this level in the future.

Good work here hyeonjlee. Carry on!