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/sci/ - Science & Math

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12709275 No.12709275 [Reply] [Original]

Are so called "prestigious" universities really better than other ones?

>> No.12709288

>>12709275
It doesn’t matter. It just matters people see them as such.

>> No.12709303

>>12709275
If the end goal is a certificate to increase your chance of employment. Absolutely.

>> No.12709308

i dunno never been to one

>> No.12709311

>>12709275
kinda. you are much more employable for one. two the professors tend to be a little smarter or care a little more, they might have more interesting research in general, etc.

>> No.12709368

>>12709275
>Are so called "prestigious" universities really better than other ones?
I've studied at a couple of top 10 universities, and I've visited my high school friends universities (which are ranked much lower).
I don't know if the professors are better, but the resources and students are better.
Being around intelligent people really "exercises" your brain. When I first started, I would find myself tongue-tied because I wasn't used to talking to clever people who can think quickly.
I found that when I came home, it would take me a while to readjust to some friends and family who were quite slow-witted; I even thought one of them had developed a brain problem and suggested they see a neurologist, but I had simply forgotten how slow they were.

The point being: you can be as capable as students at a top-tier university and end up going to a non-prestigious university, but you probably won't develop as quickly or as much as if you went to a prestigious university

>> No.12709394

>>12709368
>you can be as capable as students at a top-tier university and end up going to a non-prestigious university, but you probably won't develop as quickly or as much as if you went to a prestigious university

This is either bait or just stupidness. Prestigious universities don't select for intelligence (except Caltech). They select for money and certain ethnicities. This has been known for decades.

>> No.12709399
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12709399

>>12709368
>I found that when I came home, it would take me a while to readjust to some friends and family who were quite slow witted; I even thought one of them had developed a brain problem and suggested they see a neurologist, but I had simply forgotten how slow they were.
holy Reddit

>> No.12709422

Depends on the field. Obviously more prestigious = more money so they can have better equipment a hire better research professors. But for shit like math and theoretical physics the difference isn't that big. For education whatever meme burgers call "college" is fucking shit even in mit.

>> No.12709489

>>12709368
you are such a midwit lol, shut the fuck up

>> No.12709541

>>12709275
They're kinda better, but it's still not really worth how expensive some are. You get more resources and the teachers care more overall, but it's still the same stuff being taught.

>> No.12709579

Prestigious universities are only good dependent on what your goal in education is. At least for my own situation, I am planning on studying EECS in uni and since I have ambitions to go to grad school for research in machine learning/control theory/whatever the fuck I care for at the time, a more prestigious uni is likely to be better than if I were to go directly into industry working at some company (although you can potentially be funded to receive additional education by your employer if such a situation were to come up).

For most people though, prestigious universities are overhyped and there are so many confounding factors in admissions which makes actual admissions such a shitstorm, especially when you consider the fact that the hardest part about getting into uni isnt having the qualification to attend, it is actually getting into the fucking school.

I think this may differ per major, since in my own experience people in CSE only really need to take the best classes they can and become adept with algorithms/data structures in order to get a entry level software engineer position out of university. In addition, there are shit ton of ways to gain exposure just based on your raw ability in CS with contests such as Facebook Hacker Cup, Google Code Jam/Kickstart, Google Hash Code, and others, which I found to be fun and actually pretty educational (especially Hash Code).

tl;dr prestigious universities are overhyped and admissions to university is cucked in 99% of cases besides in very select instances.

>> No.12709584

>>12709275
No. The clout is dropping hard, too

>> No.12709586

>>12709275
Yeah, they are better at helping themselves to your money.

>> No.12709593

>>12709275
mid-tier R1's are best for science, you'll immediately stand out while getting a high quality education and resources
only conmen and quacks care about (((prestige)))

>> No.12709606

>>12709489
I dont think they were trying to hide that. Merely sharing an observation that while they considered themself slow at the beginning of their academic career, going home showed progress in quick thinking.

>> No.12709653

You can look up the average wage after ten years for graduates of those universities and it's much lower than you would expect. The only reason people go is the prestige of the universities. That prestige is already long gone but some people haven't accepted it yet.

>> No.12709727

>>12709394
>>12709399
>>12709489
Seethe and cope :)
I was able to get into these top universities, and I suspect none of you were able to. Stay mad and jelly :)

>> No.12709740

>>12709727
Such an effimate response, kys

>> No.12709765

>>12709606
No, I don't think I was slow at the start. We had some work to do in the first few weeks of my first year, and a professor commented that my work was one of the best they had seen. I'm saying strictly that I wasn't used to being around quick-witted and clever people, and so I was literally unable to speak as quickly as I was able to think or write. And that after a few years of being around quick and intelligent people (people who went on to do PhDs at harvard, oxford, etc) that the people I had grown up with and some of my family were much slower than I remember.

I'm not trying to flex on the pseuds that browse /sci/, and I'm not trying to make myself feel smarter than I am. I'm literally answering OPs question with my own experience. If some pseuds here think that I'm a midwit, based off a few sentences I wrote, I honestly don't care. They're probably never going to have any meaningful impact on my life

>> No.12709767

>>12709740
>Such an effimate response, kys
No u :^)
Also, it's "effeminate". Don't worry, your spelling will get better the further you get through K-12 :3

>> No.12710121

no, they are worse. i went to cornell and the entire faculty is a hodgepodge of 2-3 geniuses, and the rest are there because of nepotism and are pretty much incompetent.

so basically everything youd expect out of undergraduate admissions is also present in the faculty selection.

>> No.12710141
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12710141

>>12709275
it's like brand name clothing, people perceive you as a higher quality person. in terms of actual education, it won't matter unless it's a graduate/doctoral program - where your advisors make or break your academic contribution.

>>12709368
unironically, you actually went to a top-tier school. most fags on fag-chan are self-acclaimed geniuses, but they've clearly never been in environments where they're merely a small fish in a big pond.

>> No.12710178

>>12709275
Yes.

>> No.12710188

caltech and cmu school of computer science and to some extent the school of engineering are the last bastions of legitimate uni admissions.

>> No.12711811

>>12709275
The prestige of your university will make or break your career almost surely, no matter your skill set and intelligence.

>> No.12712230

>>12709275
depends, prestigiousness attracts money, and money can buy research in niche things. in my field, some of the prestigious unis have profs on things that maybe 6 people research in the world, and in such case, you kind of have no options if you want a supervisor in that field. i doubt that quality would differ a lot esp. in bsc.

>> No.12712266

>>12709275
For education? No. On the contrary.
For networking? Fuck yes.
For being smug about your extremely hard work, whether or not it's justified? You bet.

>> No.12712275

Ivies are a meme, top state schools and "institutes of technology" are legitimately excellent. (+CMU and a few others).
>>12709394
This is mostly only true of the ivies. UC system is required by law to admit only on merit (aside from a few sports recruits) so UCLA and Berkeley are extremely intelligent environments. MIT i would argue also will not compromise their academic quality in that way. The ivies will.

>> No.12712278

>>12710188
Are you ignorant or just brainwashed? UC system admissions are perfectly fair and meritocratic.

>> No.12712354

>>12709275
Dunno about the US but in France, yes definitely. The ENS are leagues above the other unis.
The students are smarter, the courses are more dense, the problem sets are harder. The department is also very small so it is much easier to just hang out with the faculty, have them know who you are, ask them for advice etc.
At a larger uni (like Sorbonne Universités, which ranks 1st among french unis), you hardly ever meet the faculty outside of class as a student.
Moreover, the power of the brand is huge. You can find research internships anywhere just by asking or having a prof recommend you.
Lastly, they have PhD funding reserved for their students regardless of where they do their phd, so it is much easier to find an advisor (because you come with your own money)

>> No.12712404
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12712404

Yes, they are better for acclimating yourself into academic life. If you're expecting to come out of it more intelligent then you're pissing into an ocean.
>>12709765
> And that after a few years of being around quick and intelligent people (people who went on to do PhDs at harvard, oxford, etc) that the people I had grown up with and some of my family were much slower than I remember.
You are a pretentious oversocialized midwit.

>> No.12712468

>>12709541
won't they be better in the social networking aspect?

>> No.12712476

>>12712404
better that than being a rebellious sub bitch for some prison guard lmao

>> No.12712497

>>12709275
better for networking

>> No.12712512

>>12709275
For undergrad not really, for grad school yes.

>> No.12712574

>>12712404
Wow Ted was really a clueless idiot.

>> No.12712663
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12712663

>>12712476
>>12712574
Your adult day care program isn't here to protect you, get bent.

>> No.12712680

>>12709584
lolling at all the fags who put themselves in a life of debt for some zoom calls

>> No.12712708

>>12712404
Holy shit, Ted was actually right. Think about it - most people in academia follow one route - undergrad school, grad school, PhD - all in the same field. As a result they become very effective parts of the system, but not capable of independent thought. People who are both smart and deviate from that plan fail at academia, but become better at everything else.

>> No.12712760

>>12709275
yeah, because people stereotype graduates from these unis as smarter so you'll have an easier time finding a job after graduation

>> No.12712778

>>12709368
What the fuck....

>> No.12712837

>>12712404
It's the delusions that come with working every hour, every day for years so you get the best possible results on your report card, hoping that this will allow you to go to an Ivy league university and thus become part of the economic elite.

You will have already noticed by now that this guy repeatedly confuses credentials with intelligence or, for that matter, any other kind of innate quality. To some degree, he's trolling, but this kind of delusions occurs to a lot of top-performing students. It is the result of a life-long conditioning that often already starts when they're toddlers. You need to outperform your class-mates, have a clean record etc. Be part of the cultural elite, partake in "haute culture" even if your parents are peasant immigrants. Realizing that you have essentially wasted your whole childhood doing things that were forced upon you, you try to rationalize this by distancing yourselves from those people that did not choose (or weren't forced to choose) your own life path.
>You are a pretentious oversocialized midwit.
The pretentiousness is ultimately just coping. And coping means believing in a variety of illusions or "false-truths" for the sake of your own psychological health. Someone who copes is by definition not aware that he's coping. Leading back to what I wrote above.
>>12712708
> most people in academia follow one route - undergrad school, grad school, PhD - all in the same field.
Professional academia specifically selects for the kind of hypersocialized and hard-working person that conforms to dogmata regardless of their relevance or truth. Academia is always one of the first things that get purged when a government (especially an authoritarian one) takes control over a land. Academia has to conform to political guidelines and think-tanks, both of which ultimately fund the whole academia project. There's a reason why modern academia is the cesspool of pseudo-marxism, moral nihilism, relativism and globalism.

>> No.12712847

>>12712404
>You are a pretentious oversocialized midwit.
I'm not oversocialized. I actually kept to myself most of the time during my studies, most people would probably call me antisocial or undersocialized (which is why I spend time on /sci/). I suspect you simply want to find a convenient label for me, so you can find a way to cope with your own mediocrity or failings. That doesn't bother me, but if you can't face your own inadequacies head on then you're probably never going to actually be successful in any intellectual domain. Hopefully you take this advice, if it is applicable to you :)
Have a good day anon

>> No.12712866

>>12712847
>I'm not oversocialized. I actually kept to myself most of the time during my studies, most people would probably call me antisocial or undersocialized (which is why I spend time on /sci/).
This is not what oversocialized means. No one here uses it that way. Maybe you will understand the term "hyper-domesticated".

>> No.12712869

>>12709275
No.

I work with losers with degrees from MIT, Caltech, etc. I went to a small liberal arts college and studied STEM there for a tiny fraction of the price. Turns out, autistic spergs are the same everywhere you go. Your "pedigree" literally only matters to the other people who went to those places as a way to justify their decisions to themselves. The real world doesn't give a shit.

Can you do good work? That is what matters.

>> No.12712910

>>12709368
This is what happens when mommy and daddy say you are "very smart."

>> No.12712921

>>12712866
>This is not what oversocialized means. No one here uses it that way. Maybe you will understand the term "hyper-domesticated".
I don't recall ever reading anyone on /sci/ use the term oversocialized, I can't find a dictionary that uses it so I just used the first wikitionary result.
I don't think hyper-domesticated applies to me either, but you avoided defining yet another term. A google search returned a /r9k/ thread where they discuss autism, schizophrenia, and bipolar disorder. They say autism is "undomesticated" whereas schizophrenia is "hyperdomesticated". If that's what you meant, then you would expect academics to be more autistic and so relatively undomesticated.
But I don't think that's what you meant, and you didn't bother to define your term. I think you meant that I'm too adapted to society, meaning I'd be underdeveloped for a less technological society; your posting of kaczynski would support this idea.
If that's what you mean, you'd be incorrect about putting me in that category, though I would agree that a lot of academics would fall into that category.
I've personally given a lot of sincere thought towards becoming a farmer, living a monastic life style, joining the military, becoming an athlete, becoming a surgeon, and so on. I have an interest in being a generalist but I believe academia, finance, and exercise to be the best uses of my time. So I study and I trade on the stock market, I'm up about 7.6% these last two weeks, but the market has been relatively bullish so I doubt I can maintain that ROI long term.
But anyway, like I said, if you want to label me some way or another so as to ease your cognitive dissonance then feel free to do so. It honestly doesn't make a difference to me :)

>> No.12712922

>>12709584
100% this. There are also many up-and-coming universities that are so much easier to get into and afford that have top-tier departments and a shitload of funding. Going to an ivy is essentially a diversity competition. Off the top of my head: OSU, UCSB are doing really cool shit right now, growing like crazy and are not that hard to get into.

>> No.12712926

>>12712910
It's what happens when I score highly on university aptitude tests, perform well in my class, have professors remark on my ability, and so on, and so on.
But feel free to cope :)

>> No.12712936

>>12709275
The cope on this thread is off the charts kek

But yeah it's nice to go to a top school where the other students will likely be more motivated/intelligent than state school, community college, etc.

Also a lot of cope about college admissions in this thread. Anyone who has gone to a top school that colleges admit x amount of legacy/donor kids, x amount of diversity recruits, x amount of athletes, etc. but the rest will be valedictorians of their high schools with perfect GPAs and test scores, and if you have half a brain these will be the students in your classes.

>> No.12712946

It depends on what you consider a prestigious uni to be. I'm from Mexico and we have a public education system in place for uni as well as private education, the autonomous uni of mexico holds 1st or 2nd place most of the time in the best univerisity rankings competing with two private schools.
The key difference is that the autonomous univeristy has protests and student strikes when the administration does something they don't like, for example, not paying professors on time while the other two have never had any strikes at all. This makes employers think twice before hiring you, even if the uni ranks top three, they don't wanna risk hiring the "type of person that would go on/ support strikes".

>> No.12712960

As a professor I had came back from MIT to teach at a decent European uni, I remember him saying that those prestigious students at the top unis aren't necessarily smarter than others, but they're much more consistent and harder working than the average. Where the average stuuent puts in x hrs, they put in 1.5-3x hours a week combined with better sleep patterns, healther nutrition/diet, better peer support, more physical activity, etc. It's also that the smartest kids in the class have had their talents likely cultivated from a young age. Think of a middle to upper class kid going to piano class and getting extra tutoring in math. Whether they're talented or struggling, there's always a support system to help them either pull up to the average or excell and go beyond.

There are many variables at play and I think I'd rather be privileged than smarter. Being smart helps, but working consistently and harder is better. Combine that with fewer mental issues, better self care and nutrition, etc., you get more out of your brain than anything really. Those that are actually smart and privileged go on to become professors and CEOs in my experience. There are really talented, smart, and succesful people in "smaller" universities, though. Don't be blinded by prestige. It's mostly marketing for starting students looking for a job. Working experience trumps that desu, and you don't necessarily need a top uni degree to work at a top company.

>> No.12712970

>>12712926
No cope here, I accept my limitations, know my capabilities and am honest with myself. Every word you've written in this thread is artificial, self-glorifying pseud slop. The fact that you will never see this means you are so far gone in your addiction to praise and your own ego that you will never realize your actual potential. That's your own fault, which determines your stupidity more glaringly than any test ever could.

>> No.12712973

>>12712869
as someone currently studying STEM at a small/medium-ish liberal arts college, this made me feel better about myself. thanks

>> No.12712982

>>12712960
To add to this, the funny thing about ivy leagues is as if it's Hogwarts where they teach you magic. There is no magic, just lectures, labs, and tests/exams, that's it. Just like every university. You can have great docents, great curricula, etc., but at the end of the day (and your study) it's 99% your own responsibility to study the material and ask good questions. If you can make it at a mid tier uni, you can make it at an Ivy. Maybe with some extra work, but that's the point, you need to work hard and not rely on some innate IQ to carry you through.

>> No.12713028

>>12712973
My school had 4,000 students. My physics program had 3 professors when I started, and only 2 when I left. My graduating class of physics students was 8 people. Very little actually gets done in academics. The people and ideas that are advancing our world all happen in government and industry.

There are some cool professors out there, but ultimately they have no understanding of the real world or really anything outside of the miniscule bubble they have made for themselves.

You can tell when the occasional PhD student or recent post-doc comes in to work at the program (I work in aerospace). They are all very intelligent people, but they have arrested development. They are stuck in an "academic" mindset where the institution treats you like children (their primary goal is to sell a product to children). Some of them don't adapt well to life outside of the daycare they have spent their lives in.

It is what it is. I'm not changing the world, and I don't want to. I get to work on some interesting problems and push science and technology a tiny bit further, but I don't really care about any of that. I hated my studies. It has only ever been a means to an end, for me. Getting a good job. I studied hard and graduated top of my tiny class out of spite. I was going to eat a bullet if I had to spend another 3 years making $12/hr in a drive thru.

>> No.12713164

>>12712663
it's not me serving a fucking life term in prison though. if your psycho idol was so clever, how did he get caught?

>> No.12713991

>>12709275
For undergrad, no. I went to a small state school with 20-30 people in my classes for undergrad and i think recieved a better education than many of my friends who were in 100+ person lecture halls for the majority of their classes. For gaduate programs yes. You'll have infinitely many more resources to work with compared to smaller schools

>> No.12714049

>>12712663
Neither is your daddy Ted here so get your head out of your asshole.

>> No.12714381

>>12709275
go watch the thousands of hours of MIT open course lecture recordings and find out for yourself. The answer is not really, you just get more professors who constantly shower their students with praise for being in a prestigious university

>> No.12714443

>>12709275
In my experience, all that matters is your individual drive to learn.