Oberlin did the same to me, a guy from Waco, Texas. After 4 years among kids from NY and Chicago suburbs, I learned to talk faster and was not afraid of anyone. Including Ivy grads.
> >On Oct 14, 2011, at 10:01 AM, Jim Devine wrote: > >> The usual critique of the ivies (and I went to one, BTW) > >So did I - same one you did - and I'm very glad I did. It was a great >experience. Terrific students, professors, physical plant, etc. Plus it >instills you with a confidence towards the world that sticks with you for a >lifetime. I went to what is now called a "public Ivy" - the University of >Virginia - for graduate school, and the contrast was pretty strong. I was at >Yale from 1971 to 1975 when the English department was really cooking - Bloom, >Hartman, de Man, Derrida sometimes. You may find that gang to be full of it - >I didn't, and still don't - but it was intellectually very alive. And so were >conversations over lunch. I was at Virginia from 1976 to 1979, and though the >English dept. was ranked very highly at the time, is was torpid by comparison. >And the students were OK, but really no match. > >Something I noticed when I got to Virginia was that you could tell what kind >of college people went to by how they addressed the teaching staff. People who >went to elite colleges called them either "Mr" or "Ms" or by their first >names. People who went to nonelite colleges called them "Doctor" and >"Professor." The confidence thing. > >Yeah, I know that places like Yale are stinking rich in a time when public >universities don't have a dime to spare, and that they reproduce a ruling >class (and, not unimportantly, recruit the upwardly mobile to the elite). But >there's no denying that they're an excellent experience for the lucky and/or >privileged. To quote Terry Moe, the right-wing education reformer whom I >interviewed during my Hoover Institution fellowship last May, "Everything is >better when you're an elite." > >Doug >_______________________________________________ >pen-l mailing list >[email protected] >https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l > > _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
