Reddit reviews Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life

This needs more upvotes. If your son makes education a priority, he'll be fine. If he doesn't, there's nothing OP can do to change it.

The son models the behavior of the parents. Sounds like the parents think college is the end goal, which it must. not. be. College is a shitty end goal.

A life well lived is the end goal. And that can be done with or without college.

I highly recommend Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life

The author talks about just this thing. OP, read the book, then give it to your wife. Might save the three of you hundreds of hours of fighting, tears, heartache, wasted time and money.

A friend of mine in high school went to Harvard and I visited him in Boston frequently.

From what I saw, if you are above a certain threshold of intelligence then it can actually be easier to make As in certain subjects at Harvard than at lower ranked universities due to the leniency of Harvard's administration and its grade inflation. My friend had armies of tutors and advisors watching over him to ensure that he graduated with a high GPA and he could turn in late homework in most of his classes, while my advisors barely knew my name and if I missed a deadline then I knew it would impact my grade. These kinds of things are even more important when you are college aged, learning how to be an adult, and generally in need of support, mentors and role models. My friend was guided, and coddled, by Harvard's administration, whereas I eventually learned to think of mine as a cold, uncaring machine that only valued me for my test scores and spit me out after 4 years.

This isn't true for all subjects, but if you are smart enough to make As in a subject like English at both Harvard and a local university, then you will probably have an easier time at Harvard.

Edit: Also, if anyone is interested in the book the quote in the comment above mine came from

No offense, but Churba is misremembering. The idea that miners should learn to code was endorsed by journalists from all over the ideological spectrum.
Just off the top of this search results page:
Forbes,
NPR,
Bloomberg News,
PBS,
CBS,
the CBC,
and Wired. It also had the support of the IEEE and, at least obliquely, the Obama White House. You could find plenty more examples with only very limited digging.

There was some criticism from the political right, as e.g. the Wired article points out, but certainly not from any Vicesters.

In any case, it's not just miners, or just journalists, or even just coding. Blue collar workers have been told to quit whining and learn to tech by politicians and the media since at least the early 1990s. Bill Clinton famously expressed support for the drive in his original primary campaign. His early speeches on the subject were widely hailed as one of the reasons his campaign took off.

Nobody complained as long as the advice was directed at unfashionable people with dirty hands, but the intellectuals got pretty angry pretty quickly when they later found themselves at the receiving end. William Deresiewicz wrote an entire book about his unhappiness with "the empirical kids" and the whole HURR DURR JUST BECOME A STEMLORD YOU LOSER theme. The book was widely reviewed, sold approximately 80 billion copies, and is considered fairly influential in the humanities, liberal arts, and J school crowds. In theory, most journalists should have heard of it.

Check out Excellent Sheep. It's a great examination of the college admissions system. Hopefully, it will shake some of the high performing students out of their assumptions.

Sounds like you have a great opportunity, one that deserves a good deal of consideration. Congratulations!

Your father has it right. If you're planning to attend medical school, the prestige of your undergraduate institution is not critical provided you get the preparation you need to go to a good medical school. And it sounds like you will.

>At a fundamental level will the courses at a typical T120 private college (say Temple) cover the same material and at the same depth as say NYU (29) school?

For the most part, they'll cover the same material for the same courses. A lower ranked university may emphasize teaching more from their faculty than a top ranked university, meaning that the quality of the education you receive as a student is likely to be better (heretical as it is to say on this sub). Whatever time they're spending chasing research grants, recruiting postdocs, and cranking out sausages (research articles) is time away from considering how best to teach. I know when I taught at the university (at a top-20 research institution by most rankings), I was told that I just needed to check the teaching box, do a good enough job to get by, avoid complaints, maybe win a department teaching award or two, but don't go overboard, that for a junior faculty member it's far better to spend that energy building your research program.

Your peer group may be more diverse, academically, socioeconomically, spiritually, at your "lesser" school than at an Ivy League university, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Some, such as Deresiewicz, have argued that this is a generally positive thing, that the Ivy League calibre schools are turning out "leaders" preternaturally good at conforming to expectations, avoiding risk, and validating the norms that have led to a manifestly unequal and unfair society.

That is exactly how this book explains it.

Part 2:


People often read Horkheimer and think, do these imbeciles think some group of evil people is controlling society (in a conspiracy type of manner)? how idiotic of them.

actually, individuals in the collective are the cause of this,

parents push engineering on to you because it will lead to a good life

people choose majors for extrinsic reasons now

men view themselves in monetary value because they need to be providers (this is true, howev,er the happy normal life exacerbates this)

as a student success is by grades not by what you learned

the moment you ask a kid, what do you want to be when you grow up?

these are all examples of how we, the collective of individuals, cause it

More:

Impact of Colonial Rule on Todays Educational System of Pakistan

>The British ruledIndia for more than 150 years. They came as a separate entity with a different religion, language, culture, style of politics and economic system. They colonize India for financial benefits. They institutionalized the systems more efficiently. Their focus was more on to facilitate their own rule than to work for the social welfare of the natives. They came to India as traders, however within short span of time they realized the weaknesses in then system of governance and planned to capture India. Local segments joined them to weakening the cohesive forces and asthey succeeded in capturing Indian lands bit by bit and weakening the existingsystem, ultimately capturing Indian sub content in 1857. They built their own kind of education system. The aim was to produce work force which follow the mindset of the rulers without causing any problems. They philosophy behind the system was to educate the people in such a way to think like rulers and oppress their own countrymen. In the beginning they adopted the language and culture of India and their tone was liberal and neutral but as they got dominating force they became harder in promulgating their systems. In 1835 English was made the mediumof instruction and whole of the education system was handed over to the missionaries. It is a general perception that educational system of Pakistan is still under the influence the colonial mind set.This system does not give the sense of independence as the educated people try to enslave their own countrymen. This system teaches to hate fellow beings. This study aims at to see the impact of colonial rule on today’s educational system of Pakistan.

The Lingering Impact of Colonization on Pakistan: Negative or
Positive?

>The British rule had a lasting Impact on the lives of the Indian people. They exploited the
Indian territory for their own interests and left the land in more disorder and confusion than
they found it in as (1) their attitude of superiority shattered the confidence of the people, (2)
their agrarian revolution did not help improve yield and caused landholdings to become
more fragmented, (3) the Indian industry was not protected and many traditional ones were
ruined , (4) education was not made easily accessible , (5) construction of railways although
improved transportation however was not done keeping the Indian interests but the British
interests in mind and (6) the new political system which lacked personal element was not
more effective than the old one.


also to relate the objective mind to colonialism,

the quote "The British rule had a lasting Impact on the lives of the Indian people. They exploited the
Indian territory for their own interests and left the land in more disorder and confusion" is the product of thinking with an objective mind

basically okay how can we the brits make hella alot of money in India


the root cause of the objective mind is from enlightenment style thinking which is why Frankfurt school is also called critical theory.

i gave a mini khutba about this how we cannot understand the Quran because of the underlying assumptions that are in a society that are the byproducts of enlightenment style thinking (NOT THAT WAY SPECIFICALLY). Like today in in my religious class, i went toe to toe with stark atheist on the meaning of "evidence"

because Horkheimer says "Our minds are closed to a different world, we will get upset of people to violate the rules of the game, but we do not question those rules"

basically we don't question the rules, for example, what is and is not evidence and why is it that way, instead we are on the defensive with the Quran like omg we're nice people stop hating on us, look Scientific miracles, we're rationally scientific people like you!

edit:

Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life

>A groundbreaking manifesto about what our nation’s top schools should be—but aren’t—providing: “The ex-Yale professor effectively skewers elite colleges, their brainy but soulless students (those ‘sheep’), pushy parents, and admissions mayhem” (People).

>As a professor at Yale, William Deresiewicz saw something that troubled him deeply. His students, some of the nation’s brightest minds, were adrift when it came to the big questions: how to think critically and creatively and how to find a sense of purpose. Now he argues that elite colleges are turning out conformists without a compass.

>Excellent Sheep takes a sharp look at the high-pressure conveyor belt that begins with parents and counselors who demand perfect grades and culminates in the skewed applications Deresiewicz saw firsthand as a member of Yale’s admissions committee. As schools shift focus from the humanities to “practical” subjects like economics, students are losing the ability to think independently. It is essential, says Deresiewicz, that college be a time for self-discovery, when students can establish their own values and measures of success in order to forge their own paths. He features quotes from real students and graduates he has corresponded with over the years, candidly exposing where the system is broken and offering clear solutions on how to fix it.


Edit

read the articles/studies/journal entries for sure, then pick a book that interests you the most and run with it and have fun!


edit:

related kinda but in a different way,

Inglorious Empire: what the British did to India

>In the eighteenth century, India’s share of the world economy was as large as Europe’s. By 1947, after two centuries of British rule, it had decreased six-fold. Beyond conquest and deception, the Empire blew rebels from cannon, massacred unarmed protesters, entrenched institutionalized racism, and caused millions to die from starvation.

>British imperialism justified itself as enlightened despotism for the benefit of the governed, but Shashi Tharoor takes on and demolishes this position, demonstrating how every supposed imperial “gift”―from the railways to the rule of law―was designed in Britain’s interests alone. He goes on to show how Britain’s Industrial Revolution was founded on India’s deindustrialization and the destruction of its textile industry. In this bold and incisive reassessment of colonialism, Tharoor exposes to devastating effect the inglorious reality of Britain’s stained Indian legacy.

This dude did something amazing (i can go into detail why it was amazing given the ethnocentrism, academic, power, and cultural structure present and just uh it makes me drool in awe) but basically he questioned what people view as a genocide and said mister Winston Churchill, the one who helped stopped the genocidal Nazis promoting freedom and democracy committed a genocide himself in continental India

relevant article https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/world-history/winston-churchill-genocide-dictator-shashi-tharoor-melbourne-writers-festival-a7936141.html

because other people came out and rebuked him which shows he challenged a pharaoh

edit:


sorry but here's an interview of the Indian historian and the lady who supports him says about the Britain education about their vicious imperial past till 6:11