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Success Despite College Rejection
selan writes "Are those who are rejected by prestigious schools destined to lead mediocre lives? Or are great people more likely to succeed if they were rejected by top universities? An inspirational column in the Washington Post discusses the "Spielberg Effect", a theory that it really doesn't matter where you went to school."
I would go to the best college, that I can afford to go to. I dont think UnderGraduate studies matter that much. It is for the higher degrees that you need to go to the prestigeous institutions....
Consensus is good, but informed dictatorship is better
That's stupid. Most fraternities are just a bunch of retarded jocks who aren't secure enough to live by themselves. They need to join a group of other retards who are also scared to be independent. Safety in numbers. Most college students in the US are not members of fraternities or sororities.
I think you need to look at the definition of "succeed" in this instance. I'm betting that it will come from the same kind of place as all that "having a life" and "making the most of yourself" nonsense.
E.g. if you become the head of a medium-sized business selling widgets worldwide then you have "succeeded". Big Fucking Deal.
The point of life is to have fun. That's it.
I recommend not working. Why give most of your life to an unfeeling corporation ?
I also recommend not getting married. It always ends in tears.
Forget what society expects you to be. Ignore what your parents want you to be. Be what you want to be- for yourself and no-one else.
graspee
OK, but what do they do when HTML becomes obsolete? I know it's a hackneyed point, but education really does - in my experience - broaden the mind. After a degree in physics (because that was what I found interesting) I got a job in electronics without too much problem. Others, with more vocational electronics qualifications, found it easier. Since then I have moved fairly easily into systems design and control systems; some people who (over-) specialised in electronics are now struggling.
freedom, n. Allowing people you don't like to do things you disapprove of.
Why does this sound to me like "Observational selection" that Carl Sagan listed in his Baloney detection kit ? What about those who got rejected and did not exactly shake up the world later in their life ?
The effects of a rejection could be positive or negative. There could be many reasons why Greg Forbes Siegman did what he did...too many variables and circumstances. "theorising" does not seem to be the right thing to do.
Science as a way of life.
Why should he be? Is there some requirement to always write glowing recommendations when describing students to colleges?
If your makeup is that of someone who is entrepreneurial, creative, takes initiative/risks and works at it, college just becomes a formality to please the business mentality at large when you're starting. You're likely to succeed anyway.
The college you go to doesn't matter*
*Elitist wall-street and legal firms not included.
I don't think the degree is as important as the process. It's your personal challenges that count. Of course, you still have to give the teacher exactly what is asked off you, but hey, that's the game.
;P ).
After failing high school miserably, I wasn't able to get into any university. While all my friends started their degrees, I was forced to go to a 'lower level' form of tertiary education (let's just say it's not a university).
Anyway, long story short, I used that 'failure' as the reason for kicking everybody's ass. I made sure that I beat everybody in all my classes (academically of course
More importantly, I started thinking positively to attract positive energy. I figured, if I do bad things, bad things will happen to me. If I do good things (or just don't do bad things), then karma will kick in.
And it worked. That was 5 years ago. Now I have a diploma, and degree with Honors! (I found a way to a university). My final year was under scholarship, during which I also had a full time job doing R&D. Now I work for a very large, solid global company doing exactly what I want.
Along the way I learned a lot of things. But more importantly I learnt about myself - when to apply pressure, when to relax, when to go out, when to study, when to spend time with my family.
Hard work and enthusiasm. That's all it takes. If you do your part, God will do the rest.
Now I plan to get lots and lots of money, and then show all the rich people how they should be helping others instead of buying unnecessary things (like expensive shit). I don't know how I'm going to do it. I just know it will happen.
If your wicket's not already sticky in reverie, I have two more words taken from the British Boy's Own Lexicon: soggy biscuits, a treat seemingly unique to the cuisine of that northern island country of queens.
I'm not serious, of course - I love England, and we'll pretend I didn't wish I could have spent my formative years in boarding school there, myself. The point is, you're making (ethnic?) prejudicial slurs against "the Greeks", begging comparison back to your own quirky system. In the U.S., the partying buffoons are allowed to expose themselves, have a good time, burn out, and eventually become used-car dealers and fast-food restaurant managers; in yours, they seem rather more likely to become "captains of industry." That's only natural, since you've had a few hundred more years to build up the Old Boy (bedsheet) Network.
Get off my launchpad!
You need to wait a few more years, and perhaps you need to more actively make value from your education. By the sounds of it, you're expecting the rest of the world to pay you back - life just doesn't work that way.
Take interest in professional associations, ensure that in your work assignments you make use of the skills you learnt (analytical, critical thinking, good judgement), retain connections with your peers in the industry from university, etc. Make better use of your education.
Studies show that after 5-10 years, university educated students catch up and surpass those that didn't go to university. University pays off eventually, but you have to make it work for you.
Also, one attends university to learn how to think, not to learn how to be creative. Note that the people quoted in this article are primarily successful because of their creativity. If you are an incredibly creative person, not going to an ivy league college won't take that away from you (i.e., Michelangelo!). However, look at people in professions which require intelligence. Doctors, lawyers, supreme court justices, senators, and the list goes on. The top people in these fields are mainly top tier grads.
Two things wrong here. The first is assuming creativity is not a thinking process. It is. You don't think a film Diector's job is primarily about solving problems? Because I can assure you it is. The problems are to do with how to evoke an audience reaction, but as Hollywood's output proves, not many people are able to do it well. The number of people who can do it well and consistently are few indeed.
The other thing I would dispute is that University teaches you to think. In my experience, University does no such thing. The number of incurious, unintellectual, ignorant unndergrads I met at college surprised and disappointed me. The number of undergrads who actually apply critical thinking skills to anything outside their narrow degree specialisation, is few indeed.
In theory you go to University to feed a passion for learning. In practice, you go to improve your chances of getting a job, and for the most part, this involves learning a lot about a narrowly-defined area. Fine if your job is a technical one, hopeless if your aim is to get an education.
Everything else depends on how you answer my programming questions. If you have an MIT Ph.D, what good is that if you don't know answers to rudimentary programming questions? I don't care about "capacity to learn" at this point, I want someone who can produce. Being a big thinker is far less important to me than the ability to crank out good code fast. In fact I have found the big thinkers to be more useless than the humble trench soldier.
I have NEVER heard anyone say hire person A over person B because they went to an Ivy League school. The discussions center around oral and written skills and personality. Specifically, whether the person's personality would be a good fit in the corporate culture.
Thus the best course of action would be to goof off by socializing where-ever you can. Socialize, socialize, socialize. Go to a cheap school and save yourself the money.
Jobs that one can do without much interaction are slowing being shipped overseas to people who are paid $2 an hour. The lone geek is going the way of the factory worker.
That's just life.
Table-ized A.I.
The thing that struck me about this article is just how obvious its conclusions should be. The article starts of as if the rational assumption is that your destiny and accomplishments are somehow pre-determined by what some ivy league university thinks of your application. I'm sure the ivy league universities would just love it if everyone believed that, but it is patently false.
I really shouldn't have to be saying this, but the things that lead to sucess are character and hard work. Where one goes to school makes no difference at all. The ivy league schools get a good reputation because they are able to pick and choose applicants who they believe have the character and intelligence to suceed. From there it becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy. Going to Harvard no more gives you character and discipline any more than not going there deprives you of them.
When one looks at history it is evident that most of the great discoveries and accomplishments were achieved by those with mediocre academic records. Einstein was working as a patent clerk because he couldn't get a teaching job. Edison didn't even have a sixth grade education. Both Newton and Maxwell were undistinguished prior to their major discoveries.
Once upon a time people understood that it is character and hard work that lead to greatness, why our culture has forgotten that I just don't know. Nowadays people seem to think that success is some kind of trick, or is achieved though one's image. So people chase after degrees from the ivy league because they think that if other people think that they are great then they will be. Sorry Charlie, the most someone with that approach will achieve is the ability to con everyone including themself. True greatness comes from within and it is not something that can be bought, faked or manufactured.
Lee
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.