/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.15899430]

why is this supposed to be the best university in the planet??

[Anonymous No.15899449]

r/askreddit

[Anonymous No.15899460]

>>15899430
Marketing, like everything else in America

[Anonymous No.15899466]

>>15899430
Same reason McDonald’s is the most famous burger joint. Its the name. A E S T H E T I C

[Anonymous No.15899468]

>>15899430
all American universities are homosexual, marxist, jewish brainwashing facilities that exist to turn young people into liberal debt slaves

[Anonymous No.15899470]

>>15899430
Because it's rich. University rankings are based on wealth and endowment size. Harvard is richer than many countries.

[Anonymous No.15899472]

>>15899430
kikes

[Anonymous No.15899481]

>>15899460
This. Also it's because of his its history in that the elite would go to Harvard to study, but it's mostly marketing considering the fact that the undergrad curriculum is the same at every college albeit Harvard graduate school is a different story.

[Anonymous No.15899584]

>>15899468
>marxist institution
>turns people liberal
What did he mean by this?

[Anonymous No.15899596]

>>15899584
he is a retard

[Anonymous No.15899632]

>>15899481
Yeah, they're an entrenched name brand due to their history, so other schools can't compete with their name recognition. It's similar how a vaccum flask is better known as a thermos, when that is just the name of the company that makes them. Harvard could become the university of Phoenix tomorrow, and it probably wouldn't really matter given how established it is.

[Anonymous No.15899637]

>>15899430
It isn't

[Anonymous No.15899658]

>>15899637
but its supposed to be

[Anonymous No.15899691]

>>15899584
i dont care about the fact that liberals don't go full commie; they accept many marxist presuppositions about reality and adopt marxist talking points
>>15899596
shut up nigger.

[Anonymous No.15899701]

>>15899430
>tfw Harvard used to be a seminary
>now it's a liberal athiest propeganda factory
How the mighty have fallen

[Anonymous No.15899702]

>>15899468
cope

[Anonymous No.15899705]

>>15899637
This is wrong, but it still highlights that Harvard isn't even the best uni in Massachusetts. CalTech is the best university in the world, if you're curious.

[Anonymous No.15899719]

>>15899705
if you like peepee poopoo numbers. not good for the liberal arts

[Anonymous No.15899731]

>>15899460
Thread.
plus everyone knows that Yale is where the real power is in America

[Anonymous No.15899740]

>>15899691
>Massachusetts
t. braz*lian monkey

[Anonymous No.15899794]

>>15899691
Do you even know what Marxism means or are you just parroting buzzwords you see on twitter?

[Anonymous No.15899817]

>>15899794
Do you know what reallity is, or you just a retard

[Anonymous No.15899823]

https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=73

no.1 endowment

[Anonymous No.15899832]

>>15899794
he is a b*lsonaro supporter for sure.

[今晚打老虎 No.15899852]

>>15899470
>>15899481
it isnt just because theyre rich, although being rich is a factor. being rich is a heuristic for other things, namely achievements of their alumni and general perception of the institution.
everyone wants to go to Harvard, students or faculty. this allows Harvard to be choosy. the primary criteria is scores. this is a rough heuristic for IQ and conscientiousness. they have enough applicants that scores arent enough. they can filter through stuff like extra curriculars, etc. this allows them to vet through culture and, once again, being hard working. you dont do extra shit unless youre hard working.
an environment where all your peers and all your mentors are of a higher caliber means that even though Lit 101 at Harvard is essentially teaching the same stuff as Lit 101 at Shit Hole University, the process and outcome is vastly different. anyone who's worked or had classmates with retards will know this is true. it's like playing a cooperative online game with players below your skill; the whole game is dragged down to their level.
people like to take a shit on Harvard because "muh rich daddy" but most people who do go to Harvard arent like that. the numbers are still there.
and anons like to take a shit on Harvard because they couldnt get in even though deep down they wish they could.

[Anonymous No.15899893]

>>15899817
Abolishing private capital and establishing a stateless society. No, it isnt BLM or the government turning people gay or free healthcare or whatever you probably think it is.

[Anonymous No.15899901]

>>15899430

connections

[Anonymous No.15900257]

>>15899705
cope

[Anonymous No.15900263]

>>15899852
>asian simping for big name schools
you'll never understand specifically why it's so pathetic, and why even if you went there no one will ever respect you for it.

[Anonymous No.15900299]

>>15899430
>best university in the planet
It's not. Definitely top 20, but not #1.

[Anonymous No.15900312]

>>15899852
Some Chinese student going to Harvard doesn't make them elite. That's what foreign students never seem to get. You have to be elite already, and then go to Harvard, for anyone to care. Some Chinese kid who goes to Harvard and then goes out into the world is just seen as a nerd, and not an interesting one.

The big scam is that elite universities don't bestow elite status; they merely reinforce it among the elite. People like you are just the dupes who go there full pay to subsidize the elite kids who can afford to pay but feel flattered to get a scholarship (so their parents will donate). You are never "one of them" even after going there, and those elite kids look down on you during your time there and afterwards.

But feel free to vigorously defend them and posture as an elite. Everyone can see through you and the real elite see you as embarrassing yourself but also being a good little useful idiot.

[Anonymous No.15900384]

>>15899705
Funny way to spell Cambridge there.

[Anonymous No.15900406]

>>15899893
>Marxism from 150 years ago is the only REAL Marxism
Marxcucks are pathetic and reject the most basic principle of reality, which is that things change over time in a chaotic way and not according to the path laid out by some 19th century G*rman NEET's prophetic pipe dreams

[Anonymous No.15900411]

>>15900312
cope. i don't give any less of a shit whether my dumbass son-of-oil-magnate sitting there in a daze from the pills he takes to aid his feeble mind in speedreaing cliffnotes to Greek Classics that I've thouroughly studied in my middle school days thinks of me, when I return to my hometown with my radiating Ivy League aura that prompts all the local investors to throw money my way for whatever project proposal shat out in five minutes and girls tired of their monotonous routines sleep with me at the mere mention of the Ivy League.

t. asian

[Anonymous No.15900431]

>>15900411
You're actually the one coping. You just conceded the point that no one thought of you as elite for going to Harvard, so you had to fuck off back to your shitty backwater to find someone who would be naive enough to be impressed with you. It's funny because you could command respect due to things like your education if you didn't have such a pathetic chip on your shoulder, but as it is you're just a gauche nobody, about as worthwhile and moral as the elite's son you take shots at. You're just as petulant, only you're not elite and he is.

Sad.

[Anonymous No.15900490]

>>15900411
This is the saddest post I've ever read. Just really pathetic in the full sense of the term.

t. Wheaton grad

[Anonymous No.15900523]

>>15900490
>Wheaton
now there's a based and redpilled school. is it the best university on earth?

[Anonymous No.15900812]

>>15900411
I never want my half Asian son to be like you. How do I avoid this?

[Anonymous No.15900854]

>>15900384
chad post

[Anonymous No.15900893]

Propaganda.

[Anonymous No.15900958]

>>15899430
Pure anglo politics.

[Anonymous No.15902463]

>>15900312
Nearly 50% of the incoming Harvard class last year were either Legacies, Athletes, or Students of Special Interest to the Dean. This isn't even counting Affirmative Action students- which west coast schools do not have. It's purely for networking purposes that it is so highly regarded. It's a brand.

[Anonymous No.15902831]

There is a lot of Harvard shitposting here and not all of it is totally unreasonable (legacies, leftist drift of the university, and so on). The university is definitely coasting on its brand at this point, but it is still the greatest American university.
>>15899852 brought up what no one else has yet: Classes are all structured more or less the same at Harvard or at state college. Yeah, reading lists vary from school to school but you're covering more or less the same fundamental questions whether it's lit, other humanities, or especially STEM disciplines. You could have decent access to a lot of ideas taught in Ivy League classrooms by just downloading scans of books and discussing them with others.
The big difference is who you're discussing those ideas with and how serious they are about them. Despite all of America's whining about rich kids and insiders, Harvard still attracts a generally more competent class of students than other universities. That isn't to say there are students out there who are maybe smarter than the average Harvard student at state college, but the average Harvard student is better than the average student at pretty much any other university (maybe some exceptions some years, maybe MIT, maybe Princeton, maybe Oxford/Cambridge. fuck yale)
But you don't become the best in the world by learning with less serious or less capable academics. You do it by having to keep up with the best, and having an environment that encourages you to succeed. >>15899852 gets it
It says something that even if Harvard is coasting on its brand, it still attracts the most capable academics in the world. All it needs is the faculty and the students, which it has, even if the administration is just a leftist hedge fund at this point

[Anonymous No.15902967]

>>15899430
Best university on the planet? In America? What an appalling suggestion. There's two, and they're both in England.

[Anonymous No.15903319]

>>15902967
cope

[Anonymous No.15903334]

>>15899430
Because it's the jewest

[Anonymous No.15903556]

>>15899701
>seminary to atheist think tank

Protestantism in a nutshell.

[Anonymous No.15903655]

>>15899731
yeah but the cool elite go to Dartmouth

[Anonymous No.15903689]

>>15902463
It's also why its brand is diminishing in value. It used to be a slam dunk that you'd get any job by going to the ivy league. But now, smart hiring managers are more likely to take a 4.0 from a mid tier school than a 3.0 from the ivys, as that 4.0 is likely a better worker.

[Anonymous No.15903690]

>>15900431
I'm about 95% sure that this seething zipper head is attending Cornell or Dartmouth

[Anonymous No.15903801]

Is rapture in this thread?
I feel like rapture is in this thread.
Where have you been?

[Anonymous No.15903822]

>>15903690
notice how he keeps saying
>ivy league
instead of the actual university's name.

>>15902831
As someone who attends Yale, I agree with this. I was real good at math in high school and won some awards here and there, which got me into H and Y* back when I applied. I don't have many illusions that my college experience has the same function as that of some legacy kid, but the students who aren't that are typically high-achievers who care about intellectual topics to some extent. In my mind, attending a state college probably feels like going to my shitty high school all over again, and I'm glad I got out of there. I don't expect to directly ascend to whatever heights of American elite, but I'm enjoying my /lit/ classes as of now, and having a good time. Hopefully this pandemic shit doesn't last until my graduation.
(I picked Y because quality of life seemed vastly superior, and in talking with friends who attend H, I think I made the right choice.)

[Anonymous No.15903827]

>>15902463
It's becoming a cringier form of nobility at this point.

[Anonymous No.15903842]

>>15903690

you realize those are still incredible institutions, yeah? not the poster you're quibbling with, but this is just a silly form of posturing at the highest levels.

that's like saying someone doesn't have a pininfarina--look, everyone! it's really just a ferrari. oh no.

[Anonymous No.15903886]

>>15903822
I'm just biased against Yale lol. It definitely fits in this category. It seems like you made the right choice for yourself, which is what matters. I'm glad you're enjoying it.

What is great about these institutions isn't that everyone is a staggering brainiac, but instead that every student and faculty member has at least one or two things really interesting or compelling about them. For you, it's probably math or lit-related. For others it might be their families, or their athleticism, or something non-academic, sure. But almost everyone has something special, and almost everyone is worth the time. It's just an underrated part of the institution.

>>15903689
If you end with a 3.0 at notoriously grade-inflated Harvard or Yale, you really fucked up tbqh

[Anonymous No.15904076]

>>15903842
For me personally, the cost even after aid didn't justify whatever intangible prestige I'd be associated with from thereon out. In-state was clearly the better the option for me personally.

t. cs student at uiuc

[Anonymous No.15904141]

>>15904076

"intangible prestige"

i went straight from undergrad into a great job through an ivy connection i made, and have since founded an incredibly successful startup with two buddies i met in school

the tangibility is there if you know how to coax it. everyone is ambitious, wants to change the world, etc. the ivy league separates itself on 2 fronts: 1. the tangibility of real capital and therefore investment opportunities that aren't abstract fluff that never get off the ground, 2. the understanding that labor > intelligence; or: the ivy is GREAT at producing the type of bean-counter that you absolutely want/need as part of any successful enterprise--people that will just shut the fuck up and get done whatever task you assign them. say what you will, the discipline involved at a micro-level (weber, foucault, bourdieu) is part of the social capital that is bestowed through the ivy league. ends up producing cookie-cutter yuppies--but cookie cutter yuppies also tend to produce a stable world, which great benefits people like me.

the tangibility of the benefits of heading ivy-wise is overwhelming. that some don't take advantage of that tangibility, that others deny that it even exists--well, i don't know what to tell you. i'm the counter-example.

[Anonymous No.15905375]

>>15899430
Because for two centuries it actually was. Now it is riding on the coat tails of its legacy and uses that to bait in the rich to churn them out as vapid elites for a sterile society.