/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.8704791]

does anyone else here go to a top uni and feel tremendously underwhelmed by the whole experience?

I hate the job-oriented curriculum, and I'm constantly disappointed by the limited intellectual capabilities and narrow academic interests of my fellow students.

No one is capable of engaging in a serious and meaningful debate; free speech is dead, and I have doubts as to whether there is a single person here who has willingly read both a Socratic dialogue and a book of the New Testament.

It feels as if nobody is interested in learning, only in the university brand. The professors tend to be great, but access is limited, and that limited access is limited even further by driveling try-hards who squander scant resources.

How do we fix academia? How do we become educated? Does Harvard or Oxford avoid these pitfalls?

if you want to shitpost about your stem degree please refrain. community college supremacists need not apply.

[Anonymous No.8704808]

>>8704791
What kind of people do you expect universities to produce in this kind of mode of production exactly?

[Anonymous No.8704828]

>>8704808
The hope is that they would admit people with spark, and shepherd them along their path towards understanding.

In reality, they mostly produce up-and-coming wagies. The remainder tend to be misguided ideologues, armed with a hodgepodge of theoretical knowledge, who set out into the world like bronze-age children with a book of matches.

[Anonymous No.8704829]

>>8704791
>why are people who go to top schools so unbearably optimistic? Go fix a car or something instead

[Anonymous No.8704864]

If you aren't doing STEM, you're wasting your time. The humanities automatically selects for the people who couldn't make it in STEM:

http://www.payscale.com/career-news/2013/07/which-college-major-has-the-highest-iq

I don't know if you've ever gone around listening to different people with different degrees talking about different things - but a discussion of mathematical theories and their real-world applications is infinitely deeper, abstract, and more complex than anything some humanities major could come up with. Analytical philosophy can be similarly deep and abstract.

Like, you people read literature so you can come to a closer understand of the world right? That's what mathematics is - especially if you talk with the people who deal with fractals or recurrent patterns in nature. Except it's
"tangible", and not some pseudo-profound DFW-tier sentence about human nature.

-------

Another thing, a question you have to ask yourself is, what is the value of Greek myths or dialogues today, besides the historical or referential - what do I read them for really? Just so that I can say "yoooooo, I know that name from Greek myth or dialogue #1012" or "yoooooo, I know that biblical reference from this part of this chapter of this book of the new testament"?

What's the value of being able to discuss that sort of thing with another person?

[Anonymous No.8704873]

>>8704791
the solution is to constantly look down on the job seeking imbeciles and pigeonhole yourself further into academic hell by pursuing only the most esoteric knowledge

[Anonymous No.8704893]

Go to a small scale university, not a factory-degree university. My professors are also my friends, I've even been to the homes of some.
>>8704864
IQ is a STEM-created nonconcept created to reflect STEMsperg ideals.

Mathematics is not an understanding of anything, it is a presumption.

[Anonymous No.8704949]

>>8704864
>Another thing, a question you have...
The works of the Greeks and the text of the Bible are intellectual common currency, and ground the entire oeuvre of many a great mind. Without that background knowledge, comprehension is a pipe dream. I'd rather not be precluded from partaking in the grand dialogue of western thought.

>>8704873
this really isn't me at all. i just want a decent liberal arts education.

>>8704893
>Go to a small scale university, not a factory-degree university
I'm not an undergraduate, and I already said I go to a top university, as in top 10.

[Anonymous No.8704952]

>>8704893
>>8704864
>separating stem and humanities
knowledge is knowledge

[Anonymous No.8704957]

>>8704864
Why do people care so much about IQ?

[Anonymous No.8704978]

I went to university to escape being an unfulfilled working class guy, went to pretty good schools and eventually postgrad. It's really disheartening and shitty all around, for so many reasons that all pile up on each other and become hopelessly entangled.

The only thing I can say is that the system still has some throwbacks within it, usually old-ass professors from different eras or from less globalized countries, who still received traditional educations and weren't thinned down into mediocrities by the publish-or-perish bureaucratic model of intellectual life. Find those people. The system can also still be used as a vehicle for pursuing your own goals, especially with help from those types. But you have to be very diligent about reminding yourself of how small and shallow the pond has become.

>Does Harvard or Oxford avoid these pitfalls?
Jesus Christ, no. They're worse. Someone on this board recently described it as "finishing schools for the rich," which is 100% accurate.

>How do we fix academia?
The problem isn't with academia itself, it's with deep structural causes that can only be solved from the bottom up. Right now we just have to keep the flame alive and thank God there are still people who care, in spite of everything.

We are living in the collapse of the bourgeois attempt at civilization in its own contradictions. Don't try to reconcile the contradictions for the bourgeois, who can't even see it themselves. Definitely don't go wading into the worst of the worst of bourgeois soul-deadness, like a Harvard or Oxford, and expect any sympathy. Those people are the pinnacles and ultimate expressions *of* the contradictions inherent in their own system. They are the maximum outgrowths of their own failure. At least the dregs of the failing order can faintly tell something is going wrong. Its rulers and beneficiaries will keep deluding themselves that their order is eternal until the last second.

t. ivy

[Anonymous No.8704990]

>>8704949
>I'm not an undergraduate, and I already said I go to a top university, as in top 10.
Top does not mean good, it means glorified by factory idiots.

Grad school is no different.
>>8704952
Knowledge doesn't exist.

[Anonymous No.8705001]

>>8704791
Should have gone to St John's and started with the Greeks.

[Anonymous No.8705006]

>>8704957
It's the current method used by clinicians to estimate a person's intelligence. Concrete, easy to perceive as being factual. Most people want to be smart. Simple.

[Anonymous No.8705010]

>>8704864
>Materials Engineering
>104
Something's definitely fucked there.

[Anonymous No.8705014]

>>8704990
Where is it better? Military academies? Jesuit schools? Feel free to elaborate.

>>8704978
the old professor thing is real, too bad you can't carry those contacts on for too long in life.

[Anonymous No.8705018]

>>8704791
Nobody goes to uni for that. They just want a degree.

[Anonymous No.8705021]

>>8705014
Small-scale universities. I told you.

Or you you really think they're all gigantic?

[Anonymous No.8705024]

>>8705006
an IQ score is like being tagged to only operate at a certain capacity and no more but possibly less. Admittedly I care about it as well, although I really wish I didn't

are some people just dumb and that's that?
disregarding IQ tests and scores, how would someone know that they're dumb?

anon to you, what are some key characteristics of someone who is dumb?

[Contemporary /lit/ No.8705048]

>>8705014
>Where is it better? Military academies? Jesuit schools?

Being 34 and seeing which of my friends enjoy life the most, I would say:
A. Being a bartender in the Caribbean or the north coast of australia
B. Going to state school premed, and then graduating from medical school and doing a residency in emergency medicine, and traveling around the world with a girl out of your league who is a legit /lit/ qt
C. Retiring from your junior executive position at a fruit juice factory and making maple syrup and whiskey in the maine woods with your qt wife and kid.

[Anonymous No.8705051]

>>8705010
>http://www.payscale.com/career-news/2013/07/which-college-major-has-the-highest-iq

There's two Materials Engineering it seems, one is 129, another is 104

[Anonymous No.8705058]

>>8705024

It gives you a estimate for the depth of comprehension you're able to work with. Its importance isn't apparent in the humanities - since everything's so "subjectified", but in Math, IQ straight-up determines how far you can go in the field.

Think of it like a sphere with a radius = (IQ meters) * some function. The more IQ you have, the bigger that sphere of comprehension gets.

[Anonymous No.8705070]

>>8705048
Old hags aren't attractive.

[Anonymous No.8705075]

>>8705058
Knowing there are things I don't and never will have the capacity to do, or there are things that others excel at when I fall flat makes me feel bad about myself to a worrying degree. Is this normal?

[Anonymous No.8705076]

>>8705058
IQ doesn't exist, though.

Mathematics is also subjective, as are all fields. Even the use of bodies as an object (sports?) is subjective.

[Anonymous No.8705121]

>>8705024
For starters, my cousin scores low on IQ tests, but was admitted to a gifted charter school. They invited him, which is incredibly rare.

These tests are designed based on concepts psychologists have researched and found to be essential to cognition, how the brain should ideally function. However the IQ tests designate answers, leaving out realms of subjectivity and the fact that in highly intelligent brains information flows so quickly one understands many complex ways to approach a presented problem (excluding the verbal portion, which is more or less axiomatic). If IQ tests are testing processes and outputs, why not examine them intuitively and discover their complexity by discussing with your client how they approached it?

Aside from that what makes a person dumb essentially is imperceptibility and an inability to penetrate problems in some innovative fashion. It's an absence of divergent thinking. Intelligent people see more. They're known to be more emotional, they care more about the world, they experience reality differently (and if one experiences reality differently, how can they be expected to agree with the consensus designed by someone who doesn't perceive things the way the smart person does?), they understand information in a very unique light. There's also the aspect of learning, but in creativity one processes information as well as connects ideas within its confines. Why this is? The denser the brain, the faster they're going to run over different conclusions in their minds. This leads to an entirely different outlook on things in the mind of a highly intelligent person. They don't only see, they create.

.... This is all just my opinion though from having read a lot about psychology. Ask a psychologist, one that knows what they're doing. I could be completely wrong.

[Anonymous No.8705161]

>>8705075
The format of information is important. Like, some people are god awful at math... but I think we forget that one can think sequentially/logically and still be bad at math due to the way the field is structured in order for it to serve its necessary functions in the world... a student has to adapt accordingly to learn it well. Kind of like how they tell you to 'get in the test's mind' in order to take it well. Philosophy for example requires a huge amount of logic but is not presented as though it's a foreign language. If you did well in your logic classes then you don't have to really feel stupid over being bad at math.

[Anonymous No.8705186]

I think the problem is university's got too big in order to accommodate more students who believe they have a right to such education.

It's turned into a business, and most students see education as a stepping stone to get where they want. Stoner touches on these things

[Anonymous No.8705197]

>don't want to attend state school cause of its sports and party culture
>want a hard rigid academic environment
>not sure if I could afford anything else

[Anonymous No.8705216]

>>8704791

I've been to that statue, it's ridiculously large and extremely impressive.

[Anonymous No.8705226]

>>8705197
You won't get that rigid atmosphere anywhere except for very few places these days, and then those places usually suck ass anyway for other reasons.

Most people who want rigid academic training aren't like you, with a clear idea of it. Most just have some vague good intentions that they want to do their personal best and go to an environment that fosters it. But the rich ones and the ones with good parents just end up going to expensive or exclusive prep schools, assuming that it's "the best" because it's the "best" that money or a high SAT score could buy them, and the majority end up petering out and becoming boring fucks without even realizing it.

When you have a really clear lucid idea of what YOU want in an objective sense, like rigor and hard work, and not just some vague idea that there must be a "most rigorous" school out there that will impose what's "best" for you, you are a lot less subject to fate and luck. You're kind of better off in a way. Plus you get the satisfaction of sticking it to the spoiled brats who had more opportunities and easier starting positions, and did less than you.

You should apply to schools that have the atmosphere you want. Chicago is interesting for example. But even if you end up at an "OK" state school, you can absolutely find what you are looking for by creating it yourself, and then you can go to any school you want for grad school if that's your ambition.

The party atmosphere is a problem, but a much bigger problem is that "good enough" mentality of most people at elite schools. They assume that because they're at Chicago or Johns Hopkins they are future elites. Most of them end up as boring middle managers living fake lives. But someone who values rigor for its own sake can create their own ascetic life even at a community college.

Our society sucks fucking dick for systemically favoring the rich for high intellectual training, and degrading high intellectual training to accommodate them as a result. But the one nice thing about it is that you really can go to virtually any institution, from where you are now, as long as you really really give a shit.

Undergrad goes by surprisingly quick, everyone squanders it, no one remembers it, it's never the Hogwarts anyone wants it to be.

[Anonymous No.8705270]

>>8705226
well said

[not the guy you responded to No.8705273]

>>8704893
>IQ is a STEM-created nonconcept created to reflect STEMsperg ideals

This. IQ tests are not some magical sheets that tell about your mental capabilities or "how much smarts you have".

Back in elementary and HS we had age-appropriate IQ tests, and schools were ranked based on the results. Welp, what does the school-leadership do? Assign IQ test worksheets to students, to be completed during math lessons. Surprise surprise, the results were comparable to high-tier schools for talented kids. We had experience, we looked at an exercise and said: "Shit dude, we've done this before". It was routine.

The results are based on former education and experience, not simply "smarts". IQ tests are glorified math/logic exercises. You can study for them the same way you can study for an exam.

[Anonymous No.8705590]

>>8705273
google g factor you retard

[Anonymous No.8705629]

Who else went to a lower ranked university or did a subject they hated and regret it massively?

I went to my nearest university. I feel ripped off even though I paid literally nothing for it. Compared to good universities the courses were light on content and depth. In the UK all universities and subject courses arent standardised. You dont always have maths / physics / engineering students all taking the same Calc 1 (etc.) class in first year. You get "[Subject] for Engineers" and so on. So they feel free to skip shitloads of stuff (at the bad universities). They skip shitloads of stuff. I remember being in the third or fourth year of my degree, doing this really stamp collecty course and then having this crushing demoralised feeling when looking at the exam papers for Cambridges maths degree in third and fourth year. It was like staring at the secrets of the universe in comparison with my own course, which was a big fat joke.

I remember overhearing two students talking in my first year. One of them said that people who go to the library were "weird". Of course when the new shiny library opened up it was a normie haven. The old library was too small and run down yet had a lot of free space because nobody went there.

Of course your university matters a lot for how many job interviews you get. Why does /sci/ or /biz/ never mention this factor? Someone who does history of art at cambridge would find it easier becoming an investment banker / other high paying job than someone who does mathematics at a lower ranked place.

[Anonymous No.8705632]

Also I hated my subject. Engineering degrees, even at good places, are, at best, just introductory chemistry / physics / mathematics introductory classes along with a shitload of stamp collecting corporate wagecuck training courses after the first year or two. Who the hell cares about that crap? Theres nothing fundamental about it. It is telling that Harvard and Oxford dont offer Engineering degrees, they offer Engineering Science degrees. They agree with me. Only fucking monkeys go to university to learn skills for jobs.

Someone with a physics or mathematics degree can do a PhD in engineering but not vice versa. That sums it up. Why would you want to limit your options with an engineering degree? For an engineering job, when all the smart engineers go in to higher paying finance jobs? top kek.

[Offensive paragraph] At universities like Cambridge and MIT, where students all enter with equally perfect grades and high intelligence, engineering has zero reputation for being difficult. Maybe it has more grunt work than other degrees. But at shit universities where people with varying levels of intelligence attend, many lower class (not judging them, but they do have less career advice than others) people go in to engineering because they see it as leading straight to a job. These are the types of people who get scared by Calc 2 and claim that it is a conspiracy to make them fail. That is why you hear so much about the "difficulty" of engineering.

Notice that I am not denigrating engineering PhDs or research, of course they have intellectual worth. But I have said that you would have to be stupid / uninformed to think that physics / maths degrees are not the best option if you plan to do an engineering PhD. On a side note, many engineering PhDs seem to be funded by corporations in what seems like a clear case of outsourcing work to PhD students at stipends at the same levels as low paying graduate jobs.There is a cucky dimension to it that cant be denied.

[Anonymous No.8705652]

>>8704828
They don't produce "wagies", mediocre people just go to University now.

[Anonymous No.8705669]

>>8705273
>The results are based on former education and experience, not simply "smarts".


That's exactly what IQ tests are not you retard. IQ tests measure your analytical capacities, which are quasi constant through your life. You can't train "more smarts".

Every single fuck who cries about them simply doesn't understand it or doesn't get an satisfaying result.

Fucking pleb infested board.

[Anonymous No.8705672]

>>8704791
Most people don't read anything at all, but you can always find someone who does. Most of my close friends are patrician as fuck.

[Anonymous No.8705712]

>>8705669
>People can't get smarter.

Jesus christ, kill yourself.

[Anonymous No.8705742]

>>8705669
Indeed, Feynman should've killed himself over his pathetic 125 IQ score lennyface.jpeg

[Anonymous No.8705744]

>>8705712
People can learn shit, but there isn't any evidence based method to push your IQ. Either your capable of high analytical problem solving or you're not. You can't change that, only use what you've got (or neglevt it).

You can train your muscles to your max potentual but they won't outgrow your genetical boundaries. Fucking humanities, don't they teach you basic fact in there?

[Anonymous No.8705746]

>>8705742
>125 IQ Points
>pathetic

100 is the northern european average, you potato.

[Anonymous No.8705805]

>>8705744

>People can learn shit, but there isn't any evidence based method to push your IQ.

There is though: Fucking study the type of questions asked.

Do something enough times and you'll get better at it. Analytical problem solving is no exception. It can be learned and practiced.

> which are quasi constant through your life.
Actually believes that shit and calls me a retard kek. Do an IQ test right now and do it again a few years later if you want to prove yourself wrong. Better yet, find some kid in your family and make him do the test. Repeat 5 years later.

[Anonymous No.8705810]

>>8705746
fuck you're smart

[Anonymous No.8705816]

>>8705744
What the hell are you talking about, of course you can teach critical thinking, it's not a magic power.

[Anonymous No.8705827]

>>8705805
>There is though: Fucking study the type of questions asked.

You can study the type of logical questions, this will lead to better results - yes. But as I said, in this way you can only max out your potential.

Given the fact that no body really does that, every one is on their own "middle ground" which makes them perfetely comparable. With learning you might gain 1-2 points (which isn't really that relevant) but so would everybody else, making it useless.

The point in IQ is, that it whil show how quick your brain is able to process analytcal questions which has (with our current scientific knowledge) its boundaries. Just like the amount of your fingers is fixed. You can train them for specific tasks, but that will not make you grow more fingers or give you the genetical potential that your neurals will tranport given information quicker. Someone whos genes expressed in a better way, given the same training will be better in every task than you.

You simply cannot go further with your IQ than what nurture and nature have given you.

>Do an IQ test right now and do it again a few years later if you want to prove yourself wrong.

IQ is contant, given you take it 10y upwards. As I said, you learn, but that doesn't change the way in which speed your brain functions.

But also as I said, you can max out or neglect (eg because of depression, which will fuck your IQ up badly) your "brain skills".

Sadly thanks to all the social egalitarianism out there studies on this subjects aren't really well funded and people who would like to study it to max out our knowledge get called rassist and what not.

[Anonymous No.8705829]

>>8705816
You can learn critical thinking, but you can not learn in that way that will lead to your brain being able to eg produce more neurons to convey information quicker.

That the reason why every real IQ test is taken under a stop watch.

[Anonymous No.8705830]

>>8704864
Can we stop with this stem vs humanities debate. It's petty and childish, both fields are striving towards greatness and understanding, they are two sides of the same coin.

[Anonymous No.8705841]

>>8704791
You just need to understand most of your classmates are retards who chose a major and are going to college only because they felt like they had too. Just act like they don't exist when they say stupid shit and become buddies with your professors. Professors love when students take an interest in the subject and most will happily discuss it with you.

[Anonymous No.8705845]

>>8705841
Never mind I didn't realize this thread had already devolved into IQ argument shit posting.

[Anonymous No.8705877]

>>8704791

I'm not at a "top" uni, but I go to a big state school and it's very underwhelming.

I've been here 4 years and I can't recall a single time I've ever overheard a remotely intellectual conversation.

On the other hand, the group of people who seem to still think of university as an institution of higher education tend to be pretentious try-hards or middle class strivers.

I have a feeling most people go to uni just to prolong their adolescence and to meet members of the opposite sex. There isn't anything really wrong with that because in this day and age there isn't really an alternative social organization for doing that, but it's very strange how it has come at the expense of what we are accustomed to think of as the supposed university experience.

[Anonymous No.8705880]

>>8705877
In my school we have people in the smoking gazebos always talking about astronomy and history. That's always pretty cool but it's the only place I've seen discussion about anything related to academics other than bitching about homework.

[Anonymous No.8705885]

>>8704791

There are gems out there. I feel the same way, but I was lucky enough to find some sharp crayons in the box.

I would hang around the campus bars and jump into conversations that sound non-idiotic to find some good people.

Also, see if you can find people in Classics. I feel that Classics is the least atrophied and pitiful department around university campuses - few people are willing to dedicate themselves to Latin and Greek for shits and giggles.

As for fixing Academia, we bring back the Trivium and the Quadrivium and we make everything in Latin again - I'm serious.

Fine small university that only hold humanities courses.etc

Find a 'Great Books Programme'.

[Anonymous No.8705890]

>>8705880

There are small pockets like that but their conversation tends towards autism rather than intellect or spirit.
Like, it's practically guaranteed that the group you are talking about is really annoying and constantly performing fake shriek-laughs calculated to get attention from passers-by.

[Anonymous No.8705897]

>>8705216

What is the statue for? To represent triumph?

[Anonymous No.8705901]

Serious question here: do employers care about your schooling credentials as long as you appear and can demonstrate competence?

[Anonymous No.8705902]

>>8705890
I wouldn't be surprised. The only one I've ever talked to just had a discussion about raising bees with me. They all seem kind of euphoric though.

[Anonymous No.8705907]

>>8704791
School hasn't been for education for a long time now. The classics, ANCIENT LITERATURE, is your friend. Wiser men said it first, and wrote it down. School dilutes it, turns it upside town, and teaches you fiction as fact. Oxford and Harvard have the same problem. It is the teachers, churned out of the education system themselves and thrown in front of impressionable minds while still children themselves, and the "curriculum," with a big focus on diversity and making everyone feel like they did a good job.

[Anonymous No.8705908]

>>8705901

Depends on what field you're going into.
For example, striver-cred is tremendously important for those practicing law, while in engineering, demonstrated competence via internships/personal projects are much more valued.

[Anonymous No.8705933]

>>8705907

[Anonymous No.8705934]

>>8704791
>How do we fix academia?

Academia never "worked". It was always shit. Anyone thinking differently are just nostalgic for their own childish fantasies of what they hoped academia was.

Higher education and wissenschaft is truly the greatest spook of our time.

[Anonymous No.8705936]

>>8705907
If this post rings true with anyone, they should read The Secret History

[Anonymous No.8705941]

>>8705936
>reading female autors

[Anonymous No.8705947]

95% of people are there to get a piece of paper that says they're allowed cushy jobs, not to learn.

[Anonymous No.8705973]

Not to sound like a memer but the only true education is self-education I believe.

At the end of the day no amount of lectures will awaken any understanding in you if you don't do the work yourself. University can only be seen as a scaffold that supports and surrounds your mind by pre-digesting knowledge and information, but in the last you have to do all the work.

School gives you the critic in the supervised learning model that corrects you when you go off track, which is the one thing you're missing when you educate yourself in an unstructured environment, but honestly google can play an analogous role.

All you need is a notebook, an agenda outlining what exactly you want to learn and you plan to learn it, and a shit ton of willpower and self-discipline.

If what you want to learn does not require expensive machinery or resources there's no limit to this method if you're smart.

[Anonymous No.8705979]

Don't expect the lectures at the top universities to blow you away. Professors are hired/tenured for their research more than their teaching skills. Two two main values of going to a top tier school are the pedigree and the people you meet. Hanging out with smarter people is one of the best ways to learn.

Talking about IQ is embarrassing and needs to stop. It's a way for NEETs to salvage self-esteem.

[Anonymous No.8705994]

>>8705897
its to commemorate the battle of stalingrad

[Anonymous No.8706016]

>>8705197
All schools are like that.
>>8705590
>>8705669
>analysis exists
>analysis is smarts cuz le science men sed so
>dont question muh dogma
>>8705744
>fact
top ideology

[Anonymous No.8706030]

>>8705973
>all universities are is lectures
Idiot

[Anonymous No.8706081]

>>8704864
>do a 5 year stem degree
>graduate
>cant get a job because every man and his dog did it too and there are no jobs left
>the few jobs left are outsourced to pajeet in new delhi for $1/hour
nice one bro

[Anonymous No.8706115]

>>8705941
>when neckbeards with politics formed by a video game consumer-rights movement think they can think about literature

[Anonymous No.8706131]

>>8706115
>when you're a fat burgerclap that likes sex too much

[Anonymous No.8706139]

>>8706131
>when neckbeards think you can like sex too much

[Anonymous No.8706154]

>>8706115
Listen my dude, most women simply aren't good writers. My life is too short to go out of my way to waste it looking for the needle in the haystack.

[Anonymous No.8706171]

>>8706154
You don't even need to look. He gave you one to read. Just handed it to you.

[Anonymous No.8706182]

>>8706154
read to the lighthouse or man who loved children or something

[Anonymous No.8706194]

>>8706171
I've read the reviews and my points have been confirmed once again. The exception proves the rule but ther propability with this book is not worth the hassle.

[Anonymous No.8706199]

>>8704791
you're just lucky you got in before Hillary makes it "free" and lowers the standards even more

>How do we fix academia?
by making it less accessible

[Anonymous No.8706201]

>>8705001
I'm at St. John's right now and it is no meme. All of you should feel ashamed and demoralized at your mistake

[Anonymous No.8706204]

>>8706139
>when flapbeards think anybody wants to have sex with them

[Anonymous No.8706211]

>>8706204
>not liking THICC

[Anonymous No.8706212]

>>8706182
Both books are a pain in the ass. Too many words without a point. Typical female writers (focusing on feelings and peoples thinking). There might be people who like this style, but it simply isn't what I would select although I'm a woman myself.

[Anonymous No.8706224]

>>8706194
You're embarrassing yourself compadre. Get a less self-pitying worldview or fuck off. And don't come at me with some Schopie or Nietzsche quotes either. They were both neurotic shutins who knew very few people and were financially abused by the few women they had in their lives. Not the best people for understanding people.

[Anonymous No.8706232]

>>8706212
>too many words without a point
>/lit/ in 2016

[Anonymous No.8706236]

>>8706224
Well, I simply don't like the style most female writers work with. Gender differences are a think, you know. Don't be so butthurt, desu.

[Anonymous No.8706246]

>>8705629
>>8705632
I think what you're touching on is the idea that people now see universities as a utility for, or obstacle to, getting a job rather than a place for higher education.

I grew up poor and my mom always taught me school was about hoop-jumping. So I always did bare minimum and never developed a love for learning until it was too late

[Anonymous No.8706248]

>>8706236
Not butt hurt, just perplexed as to why you'd voluntarily limit yourself. Most women don't write like one another btw. You're applying you're applying your meme-ideology to something that's way too complex for anything as primal as as sexual dimorphism.

[Anonymous No.8706260]

>>8706248
I don't see it as limiting myself, but as to not wast my time on books which have a high propability to not conform to my interest. Those women might not write "like one another" but nearly all off them write through a "female lense", if you will, which simply doesn't align with the way I prefer my books.

As I said, I'm a women myself and simply play with the meme because it fits, not because it's "cause vagina" in general.

[Anonymous No.8706273]

>>8704791

CCC Oxford here. No it does not avoid these pitfalls. This is what universities are now, even good ones. After nearly five years here, I have come to accept it.

[Anonymous No.8706284]

>I have doubts as to whether there is a single person here who has willingly read both a Socratic dialogue and a book of the New Testament.

I certainly hope that's not true.

[Anonymous No.8706288]

>>8704978

>>8706273 here again.

Quick not for >>8704978 with regard to Oxford being a 'finishing school for the rich'. I cannot speak for Harvard, but despite its failings, that is certainly not what Oxford is. If anything it is slavishly proletarian in outlook and in its admissions targets - primarily for the sake of virtue signalling. But nonetheless, the description you have given is very far from '100% accurate'.

[Anonymous No.8706312]

>>8706199

>>How do we fix academia?
>by making it less accessible

This. This. This.

/thread

[Anonymous No.8706324]

>>8706201
I'm going there in the spring. How is it? Pls give full review.

[Anonymous No.8706326]

>>8704791
>driveling try-hards
The worst. My roommate meets with one of our professors for half an hour after each class, even when he has nothing to say.

[Anonymous No.8706335]

>>8705058
Woah, hey, slow down there, Mr. Stem. What's a sphere?

[Anonymous No.8706388]

Who else went to a lower ranked university or did a subject they hated and regret it massively?

I went to my nearest university. I feel ripped off even though I paid literally nothing for it. Compared to good universities the courses were light on content and depth. In the UK all universities and subject courses arent standardised. You dont always have maths / physics / engineering students all taking the same Calc 1 (etc.) class in first year. You get "[Subject] for Engineers" and so on. So they feel free to skip shitloads of stuff (at the bad universities). They skip shitloads of stuff. I remember being in the third or fourth year of my degree, doing this really stamp collecty course and then having this crushing demoralised feeling when looking at the exam papers for Cambridges maths degree in third and fourth year. It was like staring at the secrets of the universe in comparison with my own course, which was a big fat joke.

I remember overhearing two students talking in my first year. One of them said that people who go to the library were "weird". Of course when the new shiny library opened up it was a normie haven. The old library was too small and run down yet had a lot of free space because nobody went there.

Of course your university matters a lot for how many job interviews you get. Why does /sci/ or /biz/ never mention this factor? Someone who does history of art at cambridge would find it easier becoming an investment banker / other high paying job than someone who does mathematics at a lower ranked place.

[Anonymous No.8706391]

Also I hated my subject. Engineering degrees, even at good places, are, at best, just introductory chemistry / physics / mathematics introductory classes along with a shitload of stamp collecting corporate wagecuck training courses after the first year or two. Who the hell cares about that crap? Theres nothing fundamental about it. It is telling that Harvard and Oxford dont offer Engineering degrees, they offer Engineering Science degrees. They agree with me. Only fucking monkeys go to university to learn skills for jobs.

Someone with a physics or mathematics degree can do a PhD in engineering but not vice versa. That sums it up. Why would you want to limit your options with an engineering degree? For an engineering job, when all the smart engineers go in to higher paying finance jobs? top kek.

[Offensive paragraph] At universities like Cambridge and MIT, where students all enter with equally perfect grades and high intelligence, engineering has zero reputation for being difficult. Maybe it has more grunt work than other degrees. But at shit universities where people with varying levels of intelligence attend, many lower class (not judging them, but they do have less career advice than others) people go in to engineering because they see it as leading straight to a job. These are the types of people who get scared by Calc 2 and claim that it is a conspiracy to make them fail. That is why you hear so much about the "difficulty" of engineering.

Notice that I am not denigrating engineering PhDs or research, of course they have intellectual worth. But I have said that you would have to be stupid / uninformed to think that physics / maths degrees are not the best option if you plan to do an engineering PhD. On a side note, many engineering PhDs seem to be funded by corporations in what seems like a clear case of outsourcing work to PhD students at stipends at the same levels as low paying graduate jobs.There is a cucky dimension to it that cant be denied.

[Anonymous No.8706420]

>>8706388
That's pasta? Cause I've read that shit already two times here.

[Anonymous No.8706423]

>>8704791
I go to an Ivy League and it's fucking awful. Everyone is pretentious as fuck and generally SJW as all hell

[Anonymous No.8706453]

>>8705226
This is exactly my train of thought. People from my class in high school never had an interest in genuine learning, but rather in
>the prestige/status of appearing learned
>the same thing but ultimately for a future career
>the same thing but for the brand name of a certain college
>partying

And, just like you said, they see themselves as future elites, but at the same time they're incredibly dull people. I hate to be so judgmental and cynical, and I certainly don't intend to portray myself as some righteous guy, but it's crazy how superficial most people are. You really do have to create your own version of what you want out of whatever is handed to you.

[Anonymous No.8706496]

>>8705830
Hear hear. I'm STEM myself, but I see all sorts of parallels between STEM and humanities. It's just a pity that humanities has degraded to the point it has. I'm not bashing all students of humanities here! But it cannot be denied that the average humanities student has become the "I don't know what to do with my life but I'm told I need a degree so here I am" student. By contrast, I find much more purpose and conviction in STEM; or at least in engineering. It really is a shame though because I find the atmosphere of humanities so unappealing due to the people that do it that I can't see myself taking the time to do a degree in philosophy or literature; despite the fact that my ideal is to be the "Renaissance man" who has studied both science and the arts to the point of mastery.

[Anonymous No.8706503]

>>8705973
>the only true education is self-education
i completely disagree. everyone needs some direction.

>google can play an analogous role
i dont agree.

>>8706199
>making it less accessible
yeah that would help, but we've opened the floodgates and its too late. i also dont trust adcoms to let the good people in, and "sink or swim" policies tend to favor workhorses.

>>8706288
>slavishly proletarian in outlook and in its admissions targets
this is how i feel at an ivy.

>>8706423
yea

[Anonymous No.8706746]

>>8706496
Sciences are useless.

[Anonymous No.8706773]

>>8706746
Like, are you even trying?

[Anonymous No.8706782]

>>8706773
>dude le technology is le useful

[Anonymous No.8706795]

>>8704791
>says he went to a top uni
>didn't go to harvard or oxford

lmao @ plebs

[Anonymous No.8706831]

>>8706782
i agree honestly.
technological development is a rat race. its only useful for making war, or for dealing with the realities caused by other peoples use of technology.

>but my ipad has improved my quality of life dude

no it hasnt. Man's lifespan is 80 years and we have always been equally satisfied by our available creature comforts. just because the modern world has made it impossible to get by without a computer, doesnt mean that the computer is your ally.

>infant mortality bro
the only thing technology has "fixed", and its not hard to see how this isnt necessarily a positive. its a negative selection pressure and has created all of the moral and practical hazards of family planning

[Anonymous No.8706836]

ITT: a bunch of undergrads realize that academia isn't what they expected

wow it's fucking nothing

[Anonymous No.8706837]

>>8706831
>>8706782
ascetics please go

[Anonymous No.8706847]

People go to college to learn skills for trades or to make connections with other elites. The great artists and poets of history were born wealthy, had a rich patron(s), or had a day job.

[Anonymous No.8706852]

>>8706831
I'm to drunk for his shit.
kys thb senpai desu

[Anonymous No.8706861]

>>8706831
I do not agree at all. Some technological advancements are destructive, and greater the divide between people and classes, but some are incredibly liberating. Take the internet for example. The internet is a ridiculous compilation of human knowledge and thought. Through it I have the resources to teach myself anything, to read any book that is on public domain, and to connect, interact with and learn from cultures that I would not normally have met.

Technological developments also further our understanding of the universe. Ex. telescopes, microscopes, etc.

To say that technology is "only useful for making war" is choosing to be ignorant. Like anything, technology can be used for both good and bad.

[Anonymous No.8706870]

>>8706782
>dude le technology is le useful
>spends better part of life shitposting on the internet

[Anonymous No.8706886]

I can't defend what the academy has become but you can have an education worthy of the name as soon as you stop acting like a consumer and start acting like a student (better still, a pupil). Believe me, that is what academics want for you. Problem is, you don't want it enough for yourselves.

We are at an impasse.

[Anonymous No.8706891]

>>8706870
No don't you get it, TECHNOLOGY ruined his life. He couldn't resist the allure of dank memes, and who can? No amount of willpower can prevent a grown man from logging onto 4chan for hours to post pictures of frogs then masturbate to feminine penises (not those gay ones). We're the victims of a vicious machine anon.

I wish they taught us this in college. They probably didn't because of all the black people they let in now. If college was exclusive I wouldn't be addicted to memes.

[Anonymous No.8706905]

>>8705897

Physical representation of bad taste.

[Anonymous No.8706929]

>>8706837
>>8706852
great posts!

>>8706861
you havent made a single cogent argument here. what direct benefit have telescopes (which have existed since the 17th century) had on our lives? Anything you can come up with will assuredly not be framed with reference to man's flourishing- his self-improvement.

>we can terraform mars duh lol

we're not even close to capable, and we wouldn't have any reason to colonize space if technology hadn't accelerated population growth and the destruction of the environment.

>le internet

amazingly enough, people were capable of learning before the internet. Do you really think you're any wiser or more satisfied because of your "learning" than the people of Athens, or Renaissance Italy? Doubtful. Literacy rates are no argument either; for most, learning only promulgates ruinous anxieties.

We are all subject to the vagaries of fate. If you think the internet has liberated you, you either overlook history, or are hopelessly misguided.

>Cultural exchange

You realize that before the radio, and especially before print media and the nation-state, culture wasn't homogenized across such broad realms, and you could partake in legitimate cultural exchange equally as easily? There have always been wanderers and envoys as well.

>good and bad
You paint a black and white picture of the world. Good and bad, gain and forfeit, progress and regression. It's simplistic, and assuredly informs your simplistic views on technology.

Wagies are no better, and perhaps worse off than serfs of centuries gone by. Just because I'm drinking coca cola instead of diluted wine, or sending my correspondence by e-mail rather than telegram, does not mean that my life is better than it would have been otherwise. I desire ambrosia; to have my messages carried off by fair Hermes himself.

[Anonymous No.8706946]

>>8706861
>to read any book that is on public domain
>public domain
>compilation of human knowledge and thought

[Anonymous No.8706948]

What has been is what will be,
and what has been done is what will be done,
and there is nothing new under the sun.

>>8706905
This. Nike does not smile upon the Russians.

[Anonymous No.8706969]

>>8704808
>>8704828
When the market under capitalism decides what is studied this will always be the case.

[Anonymous No.8706975]

>>8706905

The detailing on the fabric is impressive for it's size and the material.

I like it.

[Anonymous No.8706985]

>>8704791
i feel the same way. my father keeps shitting on me for going to a liberal arts school, and he can't comprehend the idea of wanting an education rather than a degree. probably because he's old middle class guy.

nice thread.

i think in most people's eyes, learning is impractical, and they just aren't interested. no one is interested in learning because they go through schooling, ironically.

[Anonymous No.8706987]

>>8706985
You sound like a chronic masturbator

[Anonymous No.8707001]

>>8706985
Agreed. Schools in some places are so caught up in so much shit that has nothing to do with learning. "Don't let school get in the way of your education." so they say. Although I just use that excuse so I don't feel bad about not finishing college, ha ha.

[Anonymous No.8707063]

>>8706987
yeah, of your sister

[Anonymous No.8707072]

>>8707063
*cringe*

Oh man...

*rubs forehead aristocratically*

Why do I still come here?

[Anonymous No.8707077]

>>8707072
that's what your sister said

[Anonymous No.8707085]

>>8707077
*winces patricianally*

Oh you peasants and your fornication humour. An classically educated nobleman like myself cares little for your crass attempts to please yourself at my expense. You probably learned to make such retorts at some second tier academy like Cambridge!

*guffaws loudly*

[Anonymous No.8707145]

When I went to the open day at The University of Edinburgh, I went up to the head of the Linguistics department and asked him
"Can you explain what I would study on the linguistics course and what jobs could be available to me if I study linguistics?"
and he said
"It doesn't really matter what it is, it doesn't really matter what you study. What matters is you get a degree from the University of Edinburgh"

That seems to be their general attitude. No part of University is actually really important, its just the overblown legacy which is running out of puff as it is.

I don't even reckon its very difficult to get a Uni degree now. In my opinion its just a means of class filtration in the UK at this point.

[Anonymous No.8707155]

>>8707145
Yes undergraduate degrees are basic first level things that should be the same at any university although they have more prestige at certain institutions. It is the master's degree or PhD where the university is significant. If they have a good department focused on your specialty.

[Anonymous No.8707164]

>>8707155
I dropped linguistics in first year because it was gay

[Anonymous No.8707172]

>>8707155
This guy is right. Undergrad rankings are based on brand recognition and alumni contacts. They are good schools because they are known as good schools.

Graduate studies are where universities stand out with many offering unique programs in specific fields that you won't find at other campuses.

[Anonymous No.8707194]

think its worth transfering from an ok state school to Harvard/MIT i fucked around in hs so I had shit grades, now my grades are good and i have the standardized test scores to go to a top school, is it worth the extra tuition/hassle of moving. Hoping to go to grad school for physics btw.

[Anonymous No.8707199]

I go to a regular (basically state) Uni, and its the same.

Every semester theres maybe 1 professor and 5-10 students out of like 300 that actually give a shit about really teaching and enjoy having intellectual conversations in class.

Its just college education as far as im concerned, especially american.

[Anonymous No.8707214]

>>8704864
>http://www.payscale.com/career-news/2013/07/which-college-major-has-the-highest-iq

What point are you trying to make with this? This article gives English majors a higher average IQ than engineers.

[Anonymous No.8707218]

>>8706929
Not him, but the fact that I can write

"What does STD stand for" or "How big is Mars" or "What did Plato say about X" and get a definite answer is pretty amazing. Without having to walk/drive to the local library and hope they have a book on it

[Anonymous No.8707266]

>>8707218
You would have been astounded by the sorcerers and wise men of Babylon

[Anonymous No.8707378]

>>8706870
Shitposting isn't useful.

[Anonymous No.8707393]

>>8707194
There's no such thing as "the standardized test scores to go to a top school." You can try, but there's never a guarantee that you get in.

[Anonymous No.8707402]

>>8705890
Jeez what's your problem dude?
>they're having a good time, that's obviously because they're dumb and unaware people / social rejects / nerds / care about something deeply
>Look at how wry and discerning and nonchalant I am
>I'm the best

[Anonymous No.8707413]

>>8705885
Fredy?

[Anonymous No.8707431]

>>8706773
It's what usually happens, when you debate with lib arts idiots, they realize that in actuality they are in inferior majors and get mad that they didn't study earlier in life and just reply with a stupid jab cause thats all they can handle.

They're supposed to be good at debating too, yet they never seem to win the STEM v fucknuts argument.

[Anonymous No.8707438]

>>8704791
>how do we fix this?
Send all the academics down to the countryside.

[Anonymous No.8707443]

>>8706831
muh heart pacer
muh cancer treatment
muh anti-biotics and drugs

easy to say you dont need technology now mongoloid, wait till your 50+ and need to rely on modern technology to live

>you guys are the ones that ate glue when you were kids werent you

[Anonymous No.8707447]

>>8706081
try harder

[Anonymous No.8707454]

>>8707266
The point is I don't have to request an audience and hope the moons align with google.

[Anonymous No.8707457]

>>8705121
My school had a orientation guide during high school, and she had me and some other people retake the test because it was impossible that people with our grades did as bad as we did, specially considering it's a really tough to get into institution.

Turns out IQ tests are fucking useless if you're not good at pattern recognition (figurative patterns, not textual ones), for example, which turns out me and two other guys did. When we took different tests with specific cognitive analysis (or whatever the term is, but specialized tests to different types of abilities), all of us went extremely well.

Add the fact that most students will blaze through any test ahead of them that won't raise their grades (and the fact that, at least in my country, it would be a scandal if IQ tests counted as even bonus points), so a lot of people put as little to no effort in their tests.

As far as I've studied about IQ (and most other intelligence measures, even specific intelligence ones), all sorts of little details can combine into a huge snowball of arbitrary failure.

[Anonymous No.8707502]

>>8707443
life expectancy has remained more or less constant for 2500 years.

Spartans didn't need Chemotherapy, and it's not hard to guess why. But yes, keep breathing air pollutants and microwaving food in plastic bowls while pretending that things are so very different now! Yes, American Civil War veterans had to have their legs and arms amputated because they lacked modern medical techniques! And yet Vietnam veterans lost their arms and legs too, not because of infection, but because of increasingly devastating ordinance.


If you legitimately believe in "progress" you are a fool. There may be peaks and valleys on the landscape of history, but that is all they are.

>>8707454
think about how Google encourages your flourishing: it doesn't. It may be a necessary part of contemporary life, but that does not mean that it has improved the quality of human life.

To put this in perspective: Landing on the moon is no greater an accomplishment than sailing to North America was in the 1400s. It was adventuruous, romantic, new, and fatal. The voyagers were daring souls and pioneers, venerated by their countrymen.

[Anonymous No.8707505]

>>8707443
also this is an absolute failure of a greentext. how new are you?

[Anonymous No.8707529]

>f3
>marxism
>0 results
interesting

[Anonymous No.8707583]

>>8704791
I've always thought that university would be a place of unconditioned knowledge and learning, but as it turns out universities were only like that during the medieval and renaissance periods seeing as education became a strictly utilitarian prerogative after atheists and protestants teamed up with satan to take over the world by beheading Louis XVI and making everybody believe that democracy was a good idea.

[Anonymous No.8707621]

>>8707393
assuming i can probably get in, should I even try was the question.

[Anonymous No.8707623]

>>8707502
>life expectancy has remained more or less constant for 2500 years

[Anonymous No.8707626]

>>8706391
I studied both an engineering degree and a science degree (started as mathematics and physics until I chose to specialise into maths) and I have to agree with you.

I did maths and some physics subjects from those faculties instead of the watered down versions my peers did and the difference was day and night, I had no respect for my peers in engineering who failed those subjects and I think that the more fundamental versions left me better prepared for the engineering subjects that followed. A strong physics or maths background would easily prepare you for an engineering phd.

However, I didn't find there was a lot of "stamp collecting wagecuck training" at my school, instead a lot of the engineering training was to make sure we were familiar with lot of very broad topics and also specific courses to teach philosophies and methods of design, essentially teaching us how to use theoretical knowledge in practical settings.

It all depends on the school of course, I know people who went to other schools and had nearly a whole year worth of Management Finance subjects.

[Anonymous No.8707627]

>>8707502
>life expectancy has remained more or less constant for 2500 years.

what? that was even part of your reply to me but im going to assume youre trolling.
You're reply to me doesn't actually argue anything, either. All you've said is "Google doesn't do anything good. Also perspective since the 1400s have changed"


Google does encourage 'flourishing.' Google is a quick medium for me to find answers to things I would otherwise have trouble finding. I can read books through Google, I can learn languages through Google, I can find the question to almost anything through Google.

[Anonymous No.8707629]

>>8707626
*Management and Finance subjects

[Anonymous No.8707657]

>>8707443
Still not useful brother.

Extending a life isn't a thin use.

[Anonymous No.8707662]

>>8705941
I'll take the bait shit stain

[Anonymous No.8707982]

>>8707621
No one can "probably get in."

Transfer rates are even lower than normal admissions. Harvard literally accepts 1% of transfer applicants. Feel free to actually look this shit up yourself

[Anonymous No.8708004]

>>8706975

Just because you can do something, doesn't mean that you should.

It's also appalling that the countries who build this kitschy garbage are also desperately poor. I'm sure that the average Russian in the 1960s could have used a basket of oranges or a string of sausages more than a giant statue.

[Anonymous No.8708037]

>>8704949
>this really isn't me at all. i just want a decent liberal arts education.
Get a job that supports you and your family for low hours, find friends doing the same, hire tutors. That's how universities started in the first place.

[Anonymous No.8708043]

>>8704791
Jesus fuck this board just gets dumber and dumber. I used to love coming on here because there were actual intelligent and thoughtful people who engaged in equally intelligent and thoughtful discourse; now it's just like every STEMfag or high school kid who thinks they're smarter than everyone else comes here to spout their uninformed opinions which they masquerade as knowledge. Martin Shkreli if you're reading this (I know you come on /lit/) can you make 4chan great again?

[Anonymous No.8708045]

>>8708043
>Martin Shkreli if you're reading this (I know you come on /lit/
Does he really?

[Anonymous No.8708079]

>>8708045
Yes. That's the only reason he wanted to save this God-forsaken website (along with the occasional /b/ thread).

[Anonymous No.8708342]

>>8707982
Except with PoCs or LGBTQs. They don't care one bit about education.
>>8708004
>oranges in fucking Russia
Why would they waste money on that.

Were bananas domesticated in the '60s? Those are much more nutritious and ship better.

[Anonymous No.8708380]

>>8708045

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2Zrk9MZWyQ

[Anonymous No.8708407]

>>8704791
read descartes' discourse on method where he describes a similar situation about his own education by the jesuits, at the time the foremost teachers. joyce was taught by them as well.

my thoughts? university gets you that piece of paper, but it will not, can not, and never will, make you an intelligent and thoughtful person by just meekly working through uni cirriculum like a whiny bastard. originally, universities were sought after for their libraries; now, i can find a scholarly work on nearly any subject i want and excel given time and effort. use the resources available to you to develop yourself and party your brain-cells into oblivion.

read, read, and read. don't dismiss other fields either; study economics, archaeology, languages, philosophy, classics, mathematics, biology etc. ON TOP OF your courseload. you're likely not as intelligent as you think you are, so do the work and make your pretension become your ordinary state.

[Anonymous No.8708583]

im in uni atm , nothing too good doing some shit degree i don't care about. Most people are like me especially as im on an arts campus ( i don't do art i just live here ) we picked something that we either enjoy or just came here for something to do like i really couldn't care less about my subject but the uni life has been extremely fun. People don't really want to constantly talk about their subject when they are outside of it, im not talking with my mates about my course when we're getting smashed. Don't be the weird kid , it's job oriented because aspie kids go uni and social skills are a massive thing in the real world and they have to help those kind of people.

[Anonymous No.8709191]

>>8706886
Underrated.

Remember it is the public, and students as individuals, who created a demand for the education we see that at universities. Universities have gotten bad, but ultimately it is still the best possible place to be educated.

Take personal responsibility, and do the best with whats at hand.

[Anonymous No.8709200]

>>8708045
He seems more like a /pol/biz/ kind of guy

[Anonymous No.8709205]

>im disapointed in the career oriented curriculum
Lol

>people prefer peer review to real time debates
And?

[Anonymous No.8709213]

>>8709200
>>8708079
>>8708380
Ok? Is there actually any proof he has been here? Shkreli is based, but I want to know if he actually goes on /lit/.

[Anonymous No.8709249]

>>8707413
It has to be you that wrote that. Come out of the ground.

[Anonymous No.8709744]

>>8704864
> tfw Arnold has 135 iq

[Anonymous No.8709898]

>>8708407
Not OP, but this is great advice. I've had to leave university behind due to illness, but this motivates me to take learning seriously for its own sake.

[Anonymous No.8710058]

>>8706288
I would say there's close to no point if you go to Harvard and do undergrad in then doing a masters in similar subjects areas. In fact there's only a mild distinction in a lot of courses between undergrad and postgrad.

[Anonymous No.8710080]

I haven't read the above posts but I just wanted to say I go to Harvard undergrad and no, it's not any better, and it very much might be worse.

Most kids came here for the brand name, and specifically, they came here to get into the best Investment Bank/Management Consulting Firm/Law School/Medical School they possibly good. While people are generally intelligent, there's no real intellectual curiosity for most students, and most people are so busy with grades and extracurriculars that nobody really has time for any serious intellectual discovery anyway. I've started to realize that I had to go to Harvard to realize that I never needed to go to Harvard.

Having said that, I'm on full financial aid and coming from a working class background, so I can't complain since this has been a massive socio-economic boost to both myself and my family, and I didn't come to college to better myself, I came to college because I didn't want to be poor, so I suppose it worked out (and I guess be careful what you wish for)

[Anonymous No.8710086]

>>8708342

They imported oranges from Cuba, except that they were more like limes. Hard, small, sour. They would have liked some real oranges better.

Bananas have been farmed extensively since the early 1900s, but they were always scarce in the Warsaw Pact. A mean nickname for East Germans was "bananfresser" or banana-feeder because the moment the country was reunited East Germans bought a shitload of bananas.

I'm a big fruit guy so I've always sympathized with the plight of Russia.

[Anonymous No.8710089]

>>8706335
Good one

[Anonymous No.8710105]

>>8704791
Anyone else feel like uni really gets in the way of their own studies? Its something I've thought about: how much time I waste doing mandatory arbritrary shit for my course when I could easily systematically teach it to myself. I'll be honest, I'm at uni because it's free where I am and because it's (maybe as a result) heavily socially expected. Just wish I could organise my own shit rather than stick to someone else's useless schedule.

Maybe it's just being a first year, and things will be different later. But it's the sheer time-sink for no real purpose (studying for exams etc) that gets me.

[Anonymous No.8710108]

>>8710105
Should mention that I'm doing English; I wouldn't expect this to be a problem for STEM folk

[Anonymous No.8710122]

>>8710080
>Having said that, I'm on full financial aid and coming from a working class background, so I can't complain since this has been a massive socio-economic boost to both myself and my family, and I didn't come to college to better myself, I came to college because I didn't want to be poor, so I suppose it worked out

congratulations man, be proud (and do both)

[Anonymous No.8710126]

>>8704791
I go to Fartmouth is that good enough
>muh Ivy League
I hate most people at my school

[Anonymous No.8710130]

>>8710105
It never gets any better, but if you're lucky you get better at manipulating coursework to service your own studies.

I'm at the fucking PhD level and I periodically break down in tears screaming "IT'S JUST MORE UNDERGRAD, UNDERGRAD NEVER ENDS AHHHHHHHHH"

Spoiler: It doesn't even get better at the professor level either. It's ten thousand pounds of bureaucracy and writing letters for students every day. Of course all this just means you have to find a way to beat it. In all seriousness, I've managed to torture 100% of my PhD coursework into being shit I wanted to read/research anyway, but it took some fucking doing.

[Anonymous No.8710134]

>>8707502
>life expectancy has remained more or less constant for 2500 years.
only max age has

[Anonymous No.8710148]

>>8710130
This is pretty disappointing man.

I practically never go to lectures as it is, just because the course is so badly structured and pointless. The way they've decided to do it is to open the course with a general poetry unit, which means skating over poets, poems, and entire poetic forms, in absolutely no detail. Add to that a complete frontloading of the course with the worst of the worst contemporary poetry, which I'm just not at all interested in. A good poetry unit like this would be chronological, or at least structured in some way that makes sense, but these lectures just jump from era to era between totally disparate poets. I also greentexted a story on here, which most people wouldn't believe, where I went to a lecture on Tradition and the Individual Talent, at which the lecturer decided she wasn't going to talk about the essay, and just had her poet friends read out the shittiest poems about how the canon is oppressive (I'm not wanting to get into a debate about this kind of thing, but this is a subject for its own lecture, not something that should take the place of actual teaching and it should be presented as an actual argument in an academic context, not as fucking free verse poetry).

Just give me some money to go teach myself this stuff. It'd be cheaper for the state than running me through the university system. Autodidacticism is the only way to learn these days I think.

[Anonymous No.8711322]

>>8704791
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvmUTeZvl6I

[Anonymous No.8711336]

yes

but i'm moving to a better one in january so i'll see how that goes

[Anonymous No.8711337]

>>8704791
God damn you people are pathetic.
>Poor tortured genius
>How come nobody socrates and bible

You don't get both. Even if you were some wizard of structuring an argument and your discourse was worth listening to/participating in, don't downplay stem degrees like somehow you are more capable. You and I both wish we could handle those advanced maths.

[Anonymous No.8711339]

>>8704864
autism

[Anonymous No.8711458]

>All this people with great degrees fulfilling their dreams
>Meanwhile you work in an undergrad low-tier factory job among ear piercing machines and goblins

(i call my coworkers goblins because they are usually very short, have soulless eyes and are quite feral... they are good hearted people tough)