one of the best parts of grad school is being around other smart people and learning things from them.  this essay was recommended by a classmate of mine, and i find it incredibly interesting.  it's a bit of a long read, but worth it: the disadvantages of an elite education.

the parts i found most spot-on:

I learned to give that little nod of understanding, that slightly sympathetic “Oh,” when people told me they went to a less prestigious college. (If I’d gone to Harvard, I would have learned to say “in Boston” when I was asked where I went to school—the Cambridge version of noblesse oblige.)

um, i do this.  ugh.  "i went to school in north carolina."  only if pressed do i say i went to duke.  i am incredibly proud of my duke education, but you get a lot of reactions.  it stalls a lot of conversations.  i am fearful of sounding like i'm bragging.

...students from elite schools expect success, and expect it now. They have, by definition, never experienced anything else, and their sense of self has been built around their ability to succeed. The idea of not being successful terrifies them, disorients them, defeats them. They’ve been driven their whole lives by a fear of failure—often, in the first instance, by their parents’ fear of failure. The first time I blew a test, I walked out of the room feeling like I no longer knew who I was. The second time, it was easier; I had started to learn that failure isn’t the end of the world.

so accurate, both about the experiences of my very bright students, but also about my experience: this year i was a finalist for two jobs that i did not get.  the first rejection was like getting punched in the face.  then i ate a lot of bad food and laid in bed for many hours feeling sorry for myself and then i was okay.  the second rejection was so much easier.  learning to deal with academic or job-related failure is something that bright kids don't often have to learn how to do - something that i didn't have to learn how to do until i was 30.


We live in a society that is itself so wealthy that it can afford to provide a decent living to whole classes of people who in other countries exist (or in earlier times existed) on the brink of poverty or, at least, of indignity. You can live comfortably in the United States as a schoolteacher, or a community organizer, or a civil rights lawyer, or an artist—that is, by any reasonable definition of comfort. You have to live in an ordinary house instead of an apartment in Manhattan or a mansion in L.A.; you have to drive a Honda instead of a BMW or a Hummer; you have to vacation in Florida instead of Barbados or Paris, but what are such losses when set against the opportunity to do work you believe in, work you’re suited for, work you love, every day of your life? 

preach it.


there are many more fantastic passages in the full essay - i'd highly recommend it, especially to those interested in education!