I saw an interesting comment in the thread for the post for "The Disadvantages of an Elite Education" (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=645000) that prompted me to flip the bit and ask this question.
It never ends. Even at a "Name Brand" school you're still looking up at Harvard-Princeton-Yale. If you're there, you're looking up at the Rhodes scholars, valedictorians, and the "stars" of each department.
You have to remember that once you go to some top-rated school, you're suddenly in an environment where everyone goes to that school, and it stops being special.
Set goals that will get you to a place where you can do the kind of work that you really want to be doing. If you can achieve that, you're better off than most Ivy grads. A top school brings a few advantages, sure, but nothing that a little success can't cure, and certainly not happiness.
This is very true. I'm at a top "name brand" school for CS, and, honestly, when I look at myself next to someone from a good but less-well-known university (say, UW) who has done really interesting research, I feel inferior in a way. I guess it has something to do with this guy really being a star in a pretty good department, versus myself being a pretty typical student in a very strong department.
What I'm trying to get at is that while being from MIT or Stanford makes a good first impression, personal achievements say a lot more about you than the hand you were dealt by the extremely noisy college admissions process (consider this: I am a CS grad student at Stanford, and I was rejected from UMD and UMass Amherst for grad school).
I'm in England, I can tell you what this is: It's the class system.
Oxbridge > Red brick university (old) > ex-Polytechnic
This could be changed of course, but the things that the Oxbridge and red bricks do so well is the networking. The societies, the sticking together, the essence of "you must be thoroughly decent and clever because I experienced that system and you did too", except the entry requirement was not smarts but whether you could afford to fund yourself through and could get through the entry requirements.
I say it could be changed because I see similar power of networks in smaller social nets. For example I see cyclists online have a great bond with other cyclists and a very strong bias towards other cyclists... to the degree of giving work to cyclists based on no other criteria than those people appearing to be qualified (but many thousands of others are) and exist in the pre-requisite community (belong to a cycling community).
So the class system can be thought of as exclusive social networks. The education itself is not the measure here, it's whether you are in the network or not.
Why this opens it to change is that the network they are in has to be exclusive, and so would a replacement, but it changes by you working with those you went to college with to build your own networks and positively discriminate towards each other. To the degree that if you have 2 candidates in front of you and 1 is MIT and one is <insert your college> you opt for your college or fellow institute over MIT.
Basically... you do have means to weaken the influence class system by discriminating positively towards your social network. Just standing by and bitching that you (not the poster, but general "you") don't belong to the advantaged network isn't going to help you, and you can't become a member of that network... you can just build a new network and make it strong.
I've perhaps over-simplified a hell of a lot of this post... it's early and I'm hungover.
Indeed I do. MIT grads are automatically understood as smart. I can often convince people after a few minutes of conversation, but I do not always get those minutes.
I feel that, but I see the issue is not being as connected.
People who went to elite colleges built a valuable network, many of their friends and class mates are in big business or startups. None of my class mates are anywhere near the valley or startups.
have you personally seen cases where you were discriminated against but an MIT grad was given preferential treatment? or is that just a general sentiment you're conveying?
It doesn't matter at all where you went to college, or even if you went to college.
Sure, graduating from Harvard offers some short-term advantages, but if you're motivated you can take the lead.
Consider how much time in college is wasted studying minutia for a competitive exam that has no impact on learning.
Consider how much of college is often spent stressing about stupid deadlines that really don't matter or fawning over prestigious faculty who did something noteworthy 30 years ago and have coasted since.
My advice: Do something that really matters, and take the initiative to teach yourself as you go. You are (and should be) your own harshest critic. Make it your responsibility to find others to join you in your quest (if necessary). A college campus might be a good place for you to recruit.
But certainly don't hang your head!
note: most students at top phd programs didn't go to major name brand undergrad programs... they went to small (not well known) schools and accomplished meaningful research that would have been harder to accomplish in a cutthroat name brand atmosphere.
"note: most students at top phd programs didn't go to major name brand undergrad programs... they went to small (not well known) schools and accomplished meaningful research that would have been harder to accomplish in a cutthroat name brand atmosphere."
i think it depends on the department. some smaller departments at top schools are fairly elitist in their admissions, mostly since they're based so heavily on recommendation letters. if you didn't go to a top undergrad institution, chances are they don't know who your letter writers are and might not give as much weight to your letters or application. just speculation, tho :)
I saw both threads and I think that you're probably wasting useful energy by dwelling on this (true or not - I don't spend much time analyzing it).
At the minimum, if you feel inferior because of something like this, try to find a way to turn it into a challenge to succeed at whatever you want to do in spite of it. There are many successful people out there with non-name brand college degrees.
Well, it may be a little different in the UK due to our many-tiered higher education system (Oxbridge, redbricks, ex-polytechnics and a moderate spectrum in between), but I'll chip in my two copper pence either way.
Actually, this is a question I've thought about a little too much, I'd wager, because, as a prospective undergraduate, I actually turned down an offer to read mathematics at Cambridge and decided to study at the University of Bristol instead. The latter is in itself a well-regarded institute, no doubt, but it cannot be said to have anything near the Oxbridge 'name-weight' (for want of a better term).
Do I regret my choice? In some ways yes, in some ways no. The decision was very much informed by my particularly working class background - I did not believe I would have 'fit in' to the predominantly upper-middle-class culture of either the university or the city that surrounds it. In hindsight, my opinion hasn't changed at all. Bristol suffers many of the same problems as a university, but as a city it is as colourful as they come.
I believe that forgoing the 'top tier' university worked such wonders for my social development (and, hence, my subsequent happiness) that I cannot bring myself to regret it wholesale. However, I can't help but feel there's an undeniable magic that happens when a highly selective and competitive institution brings a bunch of smart, young people together to explore their interests.
Being a part of that could, as the "Disadvantages of an Elite Education" article suggests, have ended up insulating me from the 'regular world', but there is the odd occasion where I cant help but wonder what could have been if I'd chosen to experience it. Maybe that's what it takes, you know? I try not to dwell on it for long, though - I've left that to my folks!
I've not planned to become a high-ranking politician or appear on BBC Radio 4 (yet), so a non-Oxbridge education hasn't hindered me much so far... Either way, though, I'm still (relatively) young and it will be a good few years before I can evaluate these decisions with any great degree of accuracy.
Having lived in both the US and the UK, I'd observe that the prestige of one's university counts for MUCH more in the UK. To an American it is unbelieveable how much Brits focus on where they went to school (at all levels) rather than their abilities--and they are correct to do so, because other Brits use schools and universities as vital credentials. It's an aspect of the class system in the UK which doesn't exist in the same way in the US (note also the discussion of "working class background" versus "upper middle class culture"--not at all the same in the US). Someone from the UK might well obsess about a degree from an elite university, but in the US any good degree gets you over the threshold and able to compete on equal terms.
Currently a Warwick student. It's a great university, and I'm glad I chose to come here than try to apply for Oxbridge - I believe they are the best universities in the UK, but not by such a massive margin as people make out. If you say you're an Oxford student, anyone in the country will be impressed. Many people will not have heard of Warwick or Bristol university, or will assume they are just bog-standard institutions.
I have to disagree, though, with the comment that anyone with brains can get into Oxbridge - from what I've heard, they seem much more obsessed with preliminary interviews than other UK institutions - potential applicants stay for several days of interviews IIRC. Many private school kids get special tuition to pass these tests, which is an advantage that state school kids don't have.
Even Bristol probably has issues. When I was choosing Universities I heard that for Bristol, the filtering for remaining places on the medicine course (i.e. for people who didn't make the grades the University asked for) was rumoured to start with these two questions:
1. Did you go to public school? (i.e. privately educated)
2. Was either of your parents a doctor?
If you answered either of those with 'no', then the concensus was you could kiss that place goodbye.
I go to a "name brand" college (Carnegie Mellon, you can disagree if you'd like) and there are LOTS of CS majors who don't know anything. Likewise I've worked with people from state schools who know exactly what they're doing. Anyone who associates eliteness with where an undergrad degree was obtained is wrong.
The only plus side to name-brand colleges is well known professors, but most of learning is self-motivation anyway.
> I go to a "name brand" college (Carnegie Mellon, you can disagree if you'd like) and there are LOTS of CS majors who don't know anything.
That was my impression of ECE at Purdue University (a top 10 graduate school at the time, unsure of undergrad ranking). Most undergrads were incapable of functioning as engineers. I taught two different senior-level courses while I was there. The top students were excellent, as you would expect. The rest hobbled along. I had seniors who couldn't approximate the gain of an op-amp or make a common-emitter amplifier. Not one of the senior design students bothered to simulate their circuits before building them (and frying them). They had no idea how to test a circuit once they built it.
I actually credit the undergrads' ineptitude to the curriculum. Purdue has lots of classroom instruction but very few labs. I had approximately double the number of labs as an undergrad at the University of Arkansas. Even the worst students were capable of building and testing a circuit, whereas the Purdue students would expect the TA to do their testing for them.
No, but I have felt inferior for not going to college. For a variety of mostly personal reasons, it didn't seem like a life-enhancing decision at the time (~25 years ago, in Ireland).
I was recently re-reading the "regrets" pamphlet by n+1 magazine (link at bottom) where the premise was to get a round-table discussion of some "intellectuals" and ask them what they regret about their education in order to provide a guide for current students in ideas of "literature, philosophy, and thought."
Some of the participants went to the Ivy League, but all of them went to highly respectable schools. There were a few points that I'd like to share.
Quite a few of the participants had a feeling like they screwed up big time in choices in their education. Not necessarily about the choice of school, but in, for example, choosing the English department instead of Literature and end up studying Theory rather than readings and after a few years they found out they missed out on Anna Karenina in favor of Foucault. This was to the extent that some of them claimed to go to masters school to make up for what they didn't do as an undergraduate, and regretted that too.
Another idea that they quickly agreed on is that the very nature of a regret is to notice what choices you should have made, and clearly it is too late to do anything about it. Yet, some of the participants were reluctant to even call them regrets. How can you call your life a regret? This is a group of people where there was no question that reading the right book at the right time would (and did) change their life, and it really wasn't a question of "for better or worse", but they would learn their lessons and are the better for it.
I suppose I'm talking about making decisions, reflecting on those decisions over time (sometimes it takes years, decades even), and then gaining a modicum of wisdom.
Feeling inferior would seem to me a common sentiment. Hasn't everyone had this feeling before? You feel like you missed out on something you may have not known existed until you had the years to figure out it was even there. Yet, I don't think you should deny yourself the line of thought that this would take you down, and it may take a long time, but I think you need to turn these feelings around to find a genuine calling/relaxedness of what you are here to do.
No affiliation with the publishers, but I highly recommend the $9 "What We Should Have Known: Two Discussions" (aka regrets) pamphlet: http://www.nplusonemag.com/pamphlet-two. It is well worth the money, especially if you are in the situation where you think you might be ready to hear their advice.
Upmod, but you should feel inferior for not thinking, not for not coding. You are not a code monkey, but a thinking problem solver, whatever your label is (engineer, scientist, technician, CEO, whatever).
That remembers me Sir Popper wrote a book "All of Life is Problem Solving." Got to read it some time...
I want to add that even if you personally don't feel inferior about it, you'll probably still feel something when you know someone else is judging you for it.
And of course, sometimes it doesn't even matter how you feel. You are at a disadvantage regardless.
As I said in the other thread, college degrees today are titles of nobility by definition, thanks to state support. Titles of nobility were supposed to have been abolished.
People happen to judge you by where you went, where you didn't go, or at pretty much any whimsical idea they happen to come up with. You can't control that and you shouldn't either because if you do then you're just playing somebody else's game and not your own.
You're not here to fish for acceptance by pleasing people in random positions of prestige. If you feel inferior, the quest is to learn to ignore it and find your own worth yourself. Then nothing can make you feel like crap because you know better anyway. Nobody needs to feel like crap because he didn't go to institution X, Y, or Z. (And because of many other things as well.)
You also don't need each and every possible advantage to yourself as if you couldn't make it otherwise. You just need enough and if you know enough to be able to help people, you'll surely get them.
I have stopped to. Thought I don't get excellent facilities, or a good geek crowd as name-brand colleges have here in India, I've started to believe in myself... ever since I did some freelance web design last year, and got myself into computer security related intern this summer, I've been more confident over my belief that "brand name doesn't matter, if I have skills and confidence over what I know, I can surely find the best for myself"
Have you ever felt inferior for not being from a name-brand college? - Yes, in the beginning of my college days, when people would ask me which college are you from? I would tell, and they would go... hmm haven't heard the name... okay.. whtever.
Do you feel inferior for not being... ? NO way, I wish to be a grand brand myself, why the heck attach branding n stuff to college, be the name, influence, etc yourself :)
I usually try not to compare myself to others too much (too many variables in life experiences make such comparisons difficult anyway). But if anything, I feel superior for having accomplished what I have with graduating from a "no-name-brand" school.
> But if anything, I feel superior for having accomplished what I have with graduating from a "no-name-brand" school.
I am motivated to try harder at work because I feel like I'm fighting for all smaller school graduates in a company full of Stanford, Berkeley, MIT, Illinois, Harvard, CMU, and Michigan grads. I also ensure that everybody knows where I came from with a huge Razorback flag on my wall.
I feel superior for not following the system and even going to college to rack up debt to get a piece of paper.
People rarely ask what college you went to. A name-brand degree is just a pissing match that doesn't matter.
4 years of outdated assignments won't much of a difference further out in your life. The value of the paper you went into debt to get is going down every day.
Every time I apply for a job, my engineering degree cuts out two or three annoying questions (which they might not even bother to ask before throwing my CV away).
I'm thinking about moving to Hong Kong. A masters degree makes immigration trivial.
Sometimes I find that an interesting problem is related to something I studied in college and so I know where to start.
When I meet the parents of the girls I date I start with a few extra points of reputation in hand.
Each time I sit more professional exams the whole process is well within my comfort zone so I can concentrate on the material rather than stress about the outcome.
Not a bad investment if you ask me - although no one has asked me where I went to school in years either.
I compliment colleagues and friends who have CS degrees, and deprecate myself about it out loud, but I secretly don't feel the least bit inferior. In fact, I kind of enjoy the drop-out hacker makes good story.
No, and I'm not even from a non-name-brand college. I am confident in my abilities and seem to be adequately respected among my peers who know me. That's good enough for me.
[+] [-] GavinB|17 years ago|reply
You have to remember that once you go to some top-rated school, you're suddenly in an environment where everyone goes to that school, and it stops being special.
Set goals that will get you to a place where you can do the kind of work that you really want to be doing. If you can achieve that, you're better off than most Ivy grads. A top school brings a few advantages, sure, but nothing that a little success can't cure, and certainly not happiness.
[+] [-] endtime|17 years ago|reply
What I'm trying to get at is that while being from MIT or Stanford makes a good first impression, personal achievements say a lot more about you than the hand you were dealt by the extremely noisy college admissions process (consider this: I am a CS grad student at Stanford, and I was rejected from UMD and UMass Amherst for grad school).
[+] [-] buro9|17 years ago|reply
Oxbridge > Red brick university (old) > ex-Polytechnic
This could be changed of course, but the things that the Oxbridge and red bricks do so well is the networking. The societies, the sticking together, the essence of "you must be thoroughly decent and clever because I experienced that system and you did too", except the entry requirement was not smarts but whether you could afford to fund yourself through and could get through the entry requirements.
I say it could be changed because I see similar power of networks in smaller social nets. For example I see cyclists online have a great bond with other cyclists and a very strong bias towards other cyclists... to the degree of giving work to cyclists based on no other criteria than those people appearing to be qualified (but many thousands of others are) and exist in the pre-requisite community (belong to a cycling community).
So the class system can be thought of as exclusive social networks. The education itself is not the measure here, it's whether you are in the network or not.
Why this opens it to change is that the network they are in has to be exclusive, and so would a replacement, but it changes by you working with those you went to college with to build your own networks and positively discriminate towards each other. To the degree that if you have 2 candidates in front of you and 1 is MIT and one is <insert your college> you opt for your college or fellow institute over MIT.
Basically... you do have means to weaken the influence class system by discriminating positively towards your social network. Just standing by and bitching that you (not the poster, but general "you") don't belong to the advantaged network isn't going to help you, and you can't become a member of that network... you can just build a new network and make it strong.
I've perhaps over-simplified a hell of a lot of this post... it's early and I'm hungover.
[+] [-] Dilpil|17 years ago|reply
[+] [-] anotherjesse|17 years ago|reply
People who went to elite colleges built a valuable network, many of their friends and class mates are in big business or startups. None of my class mates are anywhere near the valley or startups.
[+] [-] unknown|17 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] rdr|17 years ago|reply
[+] [-] grandalf|17 years ago|reply
Sure, graduating from Harvard offers some short-term advantages, but if you're motivated you can take the lead.
Consider how much time in college is wasted studying minutia for a competitive exam that has no impact on learning.
Consider how much of college is often spent stressing about stupid deadlines that really don't matter or fawning over prestigious faculty who did something noteworthy 30 years ago and have coasted since.
My advice: Do something that really matters, and take the initiative to teach yourself as you go. You are (and should be) your own harshest critic. Make it your responsibility to find others to join you in your quest (if necessary). A college campus might be a good place for you to recruit.
But certainly don't hang your head!
note: most students at top phd programs didn't go to major name brand undergrad programs... they went to small (not well known) schools and accomplished meaningful research that would have been harder to accomplish in a cutthroat name brand atmosphere.
[+] [-] rdr|17 years ago|reply
i think it depends on the department. some smaller departments at top schools are fairly elitist in their admissions, mostly since they're based so heavily on recommendation letters. if you didn't go to a top undergrad institution, chances are they don't know who your letter writers are and might not give as much weight to your letters or application. just speculation, tho :)
[+] [-] rgrieselhuber|17 years ago|reply
At the minimum, if you feel inferior because of something like this, try to find a way to turn it into a challenge to succeed at whatever you want to do in spite of it. There are many successful people out there with non-name brand college degrees.
[+] [-] unknown|17 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] J_McQuade|17 years ago|reply
Actually, this is a question I've thought about a little too much, I'd wager, because, as a prospective undergraduate, I actually turned down an offer to read mathematics at Cambridge and decided to study at the University of Bristol instead. The latter is in itself a well-regarded institute, no doubt, but it cannot be said to have anything near the Oxbridge 'name-weight' (for want of a better term).
Do I regret my choice? In some ways yes, in some ways no. The decision was very much informed by my particularly working class background - I did not believe I would have 'fit in' to the predominantly upper-middle-class culture of either the university or the city that surrounds it. In hindsight, my opinion hasn't changed at all. Bristol suffers many of the same problems as a university, but as a city it is as colourful as they come.
I believe that forgoing the 'top tier' university worked such wonders for my social development (and, hence, my subsequent happiness) that I cannot bring myself to regret it wholesale. However, I can't help but feel there's an undeniable magic that happens when a highly selective and competitive institution brings a bunch of smart, young people together to explore their interests.
Being a part of that could, as the "Disadvantages of an Elite Education" article suggests, have ended up insulating me from the 'regular world', but there is the odd occasion where I cant help but wonder what could have been if I'd chosen to experience it. Maybe that's what it takes, you know? I try not to dwell on it for long, though - I've left that to my folks!
I've not planned to become a high-ranking politician or appear on BBC Radio 4 (yet), so a non-Oxbridge education hasn't hindered me much so far... Either way, though, I'm still (relatively) young and it will be a good few years before I can evaluate these decisions with any great degree of accuracy.
We'll see, I guess.
[+] [-] rg|17 years ago|reply
[+] [-] IsaacL|17 years ago|reply
I have to disagree, though, with the comment that anyone with brains can get into Oxbridge - from what I've heard, they seem much more obsessed with preliminary interviews than other UK institutions - potential applicants stay for several days of interviews IIRC. Many private school kids get special tuition to pass these tests, which is an advantage that state school kids don't have.
[+] [-] nomoresecrets|17 years ago|reply
1. Did you go to public school? (i.e. privately educated) 2. Was either of your parents a doctor?
If you answered either of those with 'no', then the concensus was you could kiss that place goodbye.
[+] [-] gms|17 years ago|reply
Also, Bristol is a lovely city.
[+] [-] alexgartrell|17 years ago|reply
The only plus side to name-brand colleges is well known professors, but most of learning is self-motivation anyway.
[+] [-] babycakes|17 years ago|reply
That was my impression of ECE at Purdue University (a top 10 graduate school at the time, unsure of undergrad ranking). Most undergrads were incapable of functioning as engineers. I taught two different senior-level courses while I was there. The top students were excellent, as you would expect. The rest hobbled along. I had seniors who couldn't approximate the gain of an op-amp or make a common-emitter amplifier. Not one of the senior design students bothered to simulate their circuits before building them (and frying them). They had no idea how to test a circuit once they built it.
I actually credit the undergrads' ineptitude to the curriculum. Purdue has lots of classroom instruction but very few labs. I had approximately double the number of labs as an undergrad at the University of Arkansas. Even the worst students were capable of building and testing a circuit, whereas the Purdue students would expect the TA to do their testing for them.
[+] [-] jerryji|17 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rdr|17 years ago|reply
i suppose it's harder when you are around people from name-brand colleges, no?
if nobody around you went to a name-brand college, then of course there's no point of reference
[+] [-] anigbrowl|17 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mickt|17 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jpwagner|17 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gabriel|17 years ago|reply
Some of the participants went to the Ivy League, but all of them went to highly respectable schools. There were a few points that I'd like to share.
Quite a few of the participants had a feeling like they screwed up big time in choices in their education. Not necessarily about the choice of school, but in, for example, choosing the English department instead of Literature and end up studying Theory rather than readings and after a few years they found out they missed out on Anna Karenina in favor of Foucault. This was to the extent that some of them claimed to go to masters school to make up for what they didn't do as an undergraduate, and regretted that too.
Another idea that they quickly agreed on is that the very nature of a regret is to notice what choices you should have made, and clearly it is too late to do anything about it. Yet, some of the participants were reluctant to even call them regrets. How can you call your life a regret? This is a group of people where there was no question that reading the right book at the right time would (and did) change their life, and it really wasn't a question of "for better or worse", but they would learn their lessons and are the better for it.
I suppose I'm talking about making decisions, reflecting on those decisions over time (sometimes it takes years, decades even), and then gaining a modicum of wisdom.
Feeling inferior would seem to me a common sentiment. Hasn't everyone had this feeling before? You feel like you missed out on something you may have not known existed until you had the years to figure out it was even there. Yet, I don't think you should deny yourself the line of thought that this would take you down, and it may take a long time, but I think you need to turn these feelings around to find a genuine calling/relaxedness of what you are here to do.
No affiliation with the publishers, but I highly recommend the $9 "What We Should Have Known: Two Discussions" (aka regrets) pamphlet: http://www.nplusonemag.com/pamphlet-two. It is well worth the money, especially if you are in the situation where you think you might be ready to hear their advice.
[+] [-] udekaf|17 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ovi256|17 years ago|reply
That remembers me Sir Popper wrote a book "All of Life is Problem Solving." Got to read it some time...
[+] [-] johnnybgoode|17 years ago|reply
I want to add that even if you personally don't feel inferior about it, you'll probably still feel something when you know someone else is judging you for it.
And of course, sometimes it doesn't even matter how you feel. You are at a disadvantage regardless.
As I said in the other thread, college degrees today are titles of nobility by definition, thanks to state support. Titles of nobility were supposed to have been abolished.
[+] [-] yason|17 years ago|reply
You're not here to fish for acceptance by pleasing people in random positions of prestige. If you feel inferior, the quest is to learn to ignore it and find your own worth yourself. Then nothing can make you feel like crap because you know better anyway. Nobody needs to feel like crap because he didn't go to institution X, Y, or Z. (And because of many other things as well.)
You also don't need each and every possible advantage to yourself as if you couldn't make it otherwise. You just need enough and if you know enough to be able to help people, you'll surely get them.
[+] [-] rdr|17 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ideamonk|17 years ago|reply
Have you ever felt inferior for not being from a name-brand college? - Yes, in the beginning of my college days, when people would ask me which college are you from? I would tell, and they would go... hmm haven't heard the name... okay.. whtever.
Do you feel inferior for not being... ? NO way, I wish to be a grand brand myself, why the heck attach branding n stuff to college, be the name, influence, etc yourself :)
[+] [-] tptacek|17 years ago|reply
[+] [-] grandalf|17 years ago|reply
[+] [-] NoBSWebDesign|17 years ago|reply
[+] [-] babycakes|17 years ago|reply
I am motivated to try harder at work because I feel like I'm fighting for all smaller school graduates in a company full of Stanford, Berkeley, MIT, Illinois, Harvard, CMU, and Michigan grads. I also ensure that everybody knows where I came from with a huge Razorback flag on my wall.
[+] [-] quellhorst|17 years ago|reply
People rarely ask what college you went to. A name-brand degree is just a pissing match that doesn't matter.
4 years of outdated assignments won't much of a difference further out in your life. The value of the paper you went into debt to get is going down every day.
[+] [-] notauser|17 years ago|reply
I'm thinking about moving to Hong Kong. A masters degree makes immigration trivial.
Sometimes I find that an interesting problem is related to something I studied in college and so I know where to start.
When I meet the parents of the girls I date I start with a few extra points of reputation in hand.
Each time I sit more professional exams the whole process is well within my comfort zone so I can concentrate on the material rather than stress about the outcome.
Not a bad investment if you ask me - although no one has asked me where I went to school in years either.
[+] [-] xenophanes|17 years ago|reply
If you feel inferior, but aren't inferior, then the problem is your feelings. Change them.
[+] [-] ellyagg|17 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tdavis|17 years ago|reply