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Your College - Love It or ???

htb

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I think college is a scam.
Why do you think that?

The value of some courses and even degrees from certain universities or colleges can be questionable, yes, but not all -- natural sciences, applied sciences, and even the more rigorous performing arts like music and industrial design all show many examples of academic merit and professional utility.

Edit: To the thread, my undergrad experience at Syracuse University was worthwhile. My degree wasn't the most practical but both its contributive lessons, and my elective coursework, made for a decent education. While it can't depreciate what I've learned over the last decade, I don't resent my repayment of college loans.

Edit 2: A good friend of mine, an INxJ, majored in philosophy at the University of Chicago. He loved school, met a grand bunch of friends, and lives in Hyde Park working for the university.
 

kiddykat

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I hope it's not too late to jump in!

Has she visited the campus yet?? I know that traveling by plane is a PAIN in the butt, but I really think that it would be nice for her to really check out the environment to really get a feel for how campus life would be like.

**I heard Santa Monica College is an AWESOME community college in CA. They seem to really care about *quality* education there and most importantly (for me) it seems like the campus is fairly diverse.**

Am I proud of my alma mater? I was really whatevers about it. I mostly attended there because it was most affordable. I paid about 2/3 of my education- cost was an issue. Plus, I didn't have to live on campus. In fact, I didn't even attend my own graduation- Got my degree mailed in! LoL. I figure- I'll walk when I finish my Master's Degree- which is more important for me.

Has she checked out Boston, yet?? I was thoroughly amazed by how many different schools were out there in such small proximity! They have a good mix between Ivy & Non- Ivy League Universities out there. It was a truly fun experience for me during my visit there. I would've been more motivated in my studies had I attended college out there, I think (not sure about the weather). If I were to be an undergraduate again, I would DEFINITELY opt for a college town like Boston. Plus, she'd also get to take the train to go visit Manhattan every now & then.

Hope she picks the right college for her! If I could give advice to her I would say to: listen to my heart and REALLY not let other factors in my life influence me (family pressures, significant other). G'Luck!
 

FDG

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My colloge is great, although in Italy the system is somewhat different (about half of the students live at home while going to college, given that the average distance beween any two places is much shorter here). Here in Italy it's also very cheap - around 1000 € a year. I have a BS in Economics and Complex Systems, and most of my teachers held PhDs from Cambridge, Yale, Princeton or LSE - most of them are extremely knowledgeable. There is also an enormous library, which contains a great quantity of volumes of Economics, Maths, Literature, History - almost everything.

I have to clarify: it's great from an educational point of view, however given that there is also a Business department, the students there tend to be very stupid/idiotic.
 

Jae Rae

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Thank you for chiming in, Viv.

I've told her if she's accepted to Chicago she can check it out before saying yes or no. My friend's daughter was courted by Macalester; she took the trip and saw it wasn't for her. She went to Stanford.

We're happy with Chicago for her if she gets in. The main thing is choosing some good back-ups.

We'll probably do a college tour of California and possibly Oregon/Washington. A Boston family tour isn't in the budget, but if she's accepted to Tufts, she can certainly fly there and see what it's like.
 

ZiL

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I go to a pretty large school, Florida State, and it's alright. It's the only school I applied to (I was poor and worried about not being able to afford living costs elsewhere and they + the state is paying all my tuition), so I'm not too versed with the college search experience.

I wasn't too jivin' about the couple of liberal arts classes I took in my first year (they were large and uber-dumb), but I got a lot of AP credit from high school, so I didn't have to deal with that for too long. If your daughter is doing IB, she'll probably be able to skip a lot of the massively large B.S. courses too. I've started to enjoy things a lot more since I've gotten more into my majors (Anthropology, Spanish, German). My professors and classmates are starting to repeat, so I'm becoming more familiar with them and they're becoming more familiar with me. Some of the professors are difficult to access at times, but I think that's more due to their own individual ego problems than the size of the school, because once you get into your upper-level major classes, the class sizes shrink by a mile. Right now the largest class I have has 25 kids in it (and it's an intermediate Spanish class, so that's not unusual).

Basically, large schools can be frustrating academics-wise early on, but once you get into your major, class sizes shrink up and the setting becomes more intimate, especially if the major your daughter ends up choosing is in a smaller department.
 

Grayscale

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if your daughter's primary concern is receiving the best class of education on her subjects of interest, i think it's worth saying that the largest factor, by far, in getting that will be her, not the college she goes to. some of the most accomplished people in history did not go to a well known university... and as the catalyst for coming to the front of her field, it won't make a huge difference until grad school.
 
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I think it's important to visit the college before deciding to attend, and to take the size of the college into account with the personality of the student. I had great experiences at both my colleges (Rider University for undergrad, Syracuse University for grad), but I would not have been ready for the size of Syracuse as an undergrad...it would have eaten me up. Rider was a small school with a 5,000 member student body that was about half commuters. It was just right for my personality at the time. By the time I went to grad school I was ready for the experience of a humongous university.
 

Jae Rae

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if your daughter's primary concern is receiving the best class of education on her subjects of interest, i think it's worth saying that the largest factor, by far, in getting that will be her, not the college she goes to. some of the most accomplished people in history did not go to a well known university... and as the catalyst for coming to the front of her field, it won't make a huge difference until grad school.

Thanks for weighing in, Grayscale.

I have an ENTP friend who argues just the opposite. He says you should choose the "best" (most academically challenging) school you can get into because the calibre of student peers determines the level of mental stimulation you'll get. This doesn't mean aim for the top mindlessly, but in a toss-up between two you've decided fit your fields of interest, you should choose U of Chicago over say, a Cal State.

But I agree with you, a person's education and success is largely up to him/her. Malcolm Gladwell makes this point in his new book Outliers - working hard has been shown to be more important than being talented in terms of meeting ones goals. Discussing the Beatles, he emphasizes how hard they worked. They weren't the best musicians, at least in the early days, but they practiced constantly.

I see the two ideas coming together well. Working hard in high school (or college, whenever you catch on fire) to attend a college or grad school that offers great programs of interest, etc. seems worthwhile. She may not get in, but I'm not going to discourage her from aiming high.
 

Grayscale

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I see the two ideas coming together well. Working hard in high school (or college, whenever you catch on fire) to attend a college or grad school that offers great programs of interest, etc. seems worthwhile. She may not get in, but I'm not going to discourage her from aiming high.

agreed :) i just remember when i graduated highschool and a lot of my peers were going off to college, when someone wouldnt get into their college of choice they seemed to think it was the end of the world... when it's vastly more important what you do with your education as compared to where it comes from.
 

Jae Rae

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I think it's important to visit the college before deciding to attend, and to take the size of the college into account with the personality of the student. I had great experiences at both my colleges (Rider University for undergrad, Syracuse University for grad), but I would not have been ready for the size of Syracuse as an undergrad...it would have eaten me up. Rider was a small school with a 5,000 member student body that was about half commuters. It was just right for my personality at the time. By the time I went to grad school I was ready for the experience of a humongous university.

Thanks for your thoughts, FM. It's funny, the rather high-strung daughter of a friend of mine is waiting to hear from Syracuse; she's interested in musical theater. Fortunately, she has a number of other choices in the wings, too.

Chicago might not be a good fit for my daughter. We'll have to see when and if she's accepted. She seems to be leaning toward large universities vs. small liberal arts colleges. Not sure why; she's never even been away from home to attend summer camp. But a lot of growth takes place between 16-18; I knew a girl who went to Italy for the last two years of high school who'd been a very reluctant day camper. She loved it! :shock:
 
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