Quote:
Originally posted by Mike AI@Feb 9 2004, 10:38 AM
Colin, would you work hard to help your kids go to Yale? Would you push them?
I have always wondered about this. I went to a public university, then to Loyola for Law School. I have done fine, but there is something about an Ivy League school that could open up big doors.
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Cool question.
I will encourage them in the direction of their interests. When I wanted to be a rockstar, my parents encouraged me. When I wanted to be a physicist, my parents encouraged me. When I wanted to be a pornographer, my parents encouraged me. I admire that in my parents and plan to do the same.
I want for my daughter to be happy - whatever she chooses to do. Same goes for my sister, who is now 16. My sister is a straight A student. She was president of her elementary school for a number of years. She was in student government for years. She's not showing much interest in college. She will find her way.
I had a great experience at Yale but not everyone does. What I liked most was the intensity of the environment, being surrounded by students who were valedictorians and some of the best in the world at their age. You also have access to some of the most published professors in the world. I was a little disappointed that Yale professors were not, on average, better teachers than their non Ivy league counterparts. I attended Syracuse University for a year first so I do have a good base of comparison. The competitive environment more than compensates for that though. Most classes are graded on a curve with maybe one or two students in a class getting an A. Some of the texts I had in the undergrad courses was being used as grad level texts in some other Universities. One of my professors. who published a popular textbook on Quantum Mechanics, distributed his rough draft of his new book to the class to use as that semester's textbook.
The connections you make in academia and in corporate America are worth it for most people. The largest corporations in the world recruit Yale heavily and many students that I knew took this route. I was a physics major and yet one of the first jobs I was offered was at Dean Witter. One of my friends got a great job at Motorola landing a managerial position at one of their Asian offices.
Some of my professors were on the selection committees for academic journals and they were easily approachable. They would be more than willing to guide one in preparing a paper for acceptance.
I loved the experience. It was one of the defining periods of my life and probably the one that I look back upon with the most pride. As with most things in life, you get out of it what you out in.