I attended the flagship state university where I grew up; it was certainly not a destination school for many out of state students. There was plenty of challenge for me there. My kids when to a private University that is widely respected. I would say what they had was marginally better than what I had, but I cannot tell how much of that is due to standards going up everywhere (yes they definitely have in my field - Math). U of I has similar courses with the same optional tracking to accommodate different levels. I don't think the private university was worth the extra cost.
Try putting the question a different way: If you are hiring someone to work for you, how much preference would you give to an applicant from a big name university than one from a respectable state school?
Consulting for sure, since their product is their people. Tech varies. For programmers, you don't even need a degree.
Another situation where a prestigious university helps is if you are pursing an academic career. My understanding is that the letters of reference matter more than grades in terms of getting into grad school, and a letter of reference from a highly respected academic can make all of the difference.
It will be interesting to see what the effect will be if there is an increase in the number of high status jobs that do not require a college degree.
I had a superior who wouldn’t consider “inferior” college degrees when I was hiring people in my area. (Product development in plastics.) Guess I was lucky to have been hired before he was…
Famous victory? Trump is, in effect and in MAGA eyes, the incumbent. On a bitterly cold night, 110,000 of the most committed Republican voters braved the elements to vote. Trump won ca. 51% of those voters against piffling opposition. I am not impressed.
PS In 1980, Jimmy Carter won 59% against the much more formidable Edward M. Kennedy.
My wife observes that if the FPOTUS had won in 2020, we’d almost be forever done with him by now. Arguably, there would have adverse consequences of his winning, but we may get them anyway, along the the current miserable four-year stretch featuring him.
True, but we have a chance of avoiding the calamity again. If he had "won" in 2020, who knows what appalling state we would be in or even if there would be a 2024 election permitted by the Orange gaulieiter.
We wouldn't be done with him as he would've named himself king, had all the Democrats in Congress, SCOTUS, Democratic governors, mayors, legislators executed & made either his drug addled son Junior or his pinhead daughter, the one he molested, his heir apparent.
A “fancy” college degree matters, or does not, depending on the long term goals of the student, it seems to me. For example, attending the University of Chicago for a degree in social work may not be the fiscally intelligent choice, despite its world renown program, if the student doesn’t have long term goals in that field. However, if becoming a leader in that field is the objective then the degree is likely immeasurably helpful.
My son attended NU and from there went to U of C for his law degree. His goal was a job at a large law firm. He works at a firm that wouldn’t have interviewed him without a degree from a VERY short list of schools. He might not have been accepted to UC without coming from NU. Most of his classmates also went to selective schools for their undergraduate degrees, or had already proven their abilities in the workforce before pivoting to law. Many had a prior graduate degree.
My husband and I went to city law schools and had very different experiences from our son. Prior to retirement, my husband was a successful entrepreneur and I worked for the State of Illinois in a job I loved. Our classmates were also some people who pivoted to law as well as those directly from college. Many were locally politically connected and went on to work for the City of Chicago. Only the rarest of classmates ended up in “big law”. So we counseled our son to get the “fancier” degree based on his long term goal.
Yikes, tell us more! How hot do you heat it? Do you add anything to it? Do you eat anything with your drink? Do you watch football with it? Do you drink more than one at a sitting?
Have you tried heating other sodas - Coke,Pepsi or Fanta?
Sorry for all the questions but you caught my attention.
Was it good? Will you drink it again? Is it worthwhile to stop asking questions and try it myself? Or is like Malort, you try it once never to touch your lips again?
My immediate reaction is "Yuck!" (But then, I hate Dr. Pepper.) Now if you want to talk delicacy, try a country club "Mix" Vernors and chocolate milk, about 50-50.
This brings to mind my college days in Ann Arbor. In Michigan, the go-to ginger ale was not Canada Dry, but icky-sweet Vernor's, whose advertisements said Drink it Hot. Yuk.
I am bemused by Dr. Pepper's cult following (which includes one of my sons). Personally, I never liked the taste. At least cold it dulls your tastebuds a little.
Agree with you Eric that no one thinks that the professors themselves are pedagogically superior at an Ivy vs Flagship State U. But the student population will make a difference and the Ivy /most selective degree will open doors that other degrees won’t. I have a kid that works in big tech and they don’t even recruit from anywhere but highly selective schools. All of her coworkers in her department come from the tippy top schools.
This speaks volumes about our state of culture. I have never advanced educationally beyond high school, yet it never ceases to amaze me at the number of students from “tippy top schools” who seem to exhibit an unabashed grammatical retardation that wiould never have been tolerated in my day. This, folks, is not progress.
I'd say that's true if the plan is to go directly from school to big tech. Once you have some good experience, I know plenty of people working for big tech who didn't go to tippy top schools, depending on the job of course.
My wife also went to U of C and it gives them credit for the huge of amount of development she got. She later went to grad school at public university and what she saw of undergrads confirmed that U of C was of much greater quality.
The question for high school students and their financial backers is whether or not U of C is worth the 100k per year for them compared to lower cost options. Employers also have to decide how much preference to give to big name universities. In my job the work is all internal, so I only want to hire people who will be good at what they do. I would definitely look at resumes from places which have a reputation for strong mathematical programs, but not exclusively.
If money were not an issue, where would you choose to go? I was the first Argonne Scholar from Idaho, making U of C comparable in cost to state university. It was not a difficult choice. Honestly, I get tired of the idea that college is a vocational school which has to justify itself in the job market. I was ecstatic just to go a great school. I went to law school to make money. Hated every minute of it.
My choice was not so much about money as it was my own lack of initiative at the time. Our family took our kids to visit schools across the country and they applied to multiple places some of them top schools for what they wanted to do. A few of the schools with big names impressed us, but not all of them. Of course, it is hard to tell based on a campus visit.
I agree that college is so much more than vocational training. I think some people get a substantial amount of value out of attending a top school vs an average one, but not everyone. Probably not me. It sounds like you did get a great deal out of U of C, which is great.
Loved the sports bonding. My brother and I are graduates of S. Dakota State (Go Jacks) and text one another during big events such as the FCS championship 10 days ago. It’s a small thing but meaningful to me!
AND, even though the school isn’t Harvard or U of Chicago, we were both successful in our careers and are comfortably retired, able to do pretty much whatever/wherever we want.
As someone who is *just* self-aware enough to know I often write too long, I vote for the Sentinel staying at its current length. Granted, I don't understand why anybody feels like they *must* finish something split into unrelated sections, rather than scrolling down and reading what they want. It's the equivalent of the (old) Sunday paper--take the sections you want, throw the rest on the floor until later. Also a longer newsletter means you have some breakfast reading and some lunch reading too.
A political tweet against a democrat! Thought I logged into the wrong site! What a shocker it had by far the lowest vote total. If you changed the caption to “Donald Trump hush payments…” it would have had a chance. 😉
All this discussion brings up a memory for me. I served on a Destroyer Escort when I was a 3rd class midshipman.There were 5 other 3rd class and 4 first class midshipman. As 3rd class, we dressed as enlisted sailors, did scut work and slept in enlisted quarters. The first class midshipman were baby officers, dressed as officers and lived in officer country. Two of the first class were from the Naval Academy, 1 from Purdue and 1 from Harvard. The Harvard guy kept letting everyone know that he went to Harvard and yet the Naval Academy midshipman got all the respect and attention from the senior officers. We made it a point to mess with him… you go to Harvard? Where is that? There is a Harvard, Illinois…is it near there? This would always piss him off much to our delight.
Yo, moron, if you want to impress senior officers in the Navy, go to the Academy…not Harvard
The elite schools for a military career are completely different than for other careers.
I find the length and scope of your writing just right! If I don't care about regulations for sports, etc., I just pass over them and read the sections I find more interesting. And sometimes it forces me to learn something I hadn't considered. Also. on the issue of illegal immigration. I'm a naturalized citizen, my grandmother had to prove she could provide my mother and I with a home and feed and clothes us. We had to wait until we were permitted to immigrate and faithfully followed all the laws and rules regulating our situation. That's what you do when you are an invited guest in a home/country. You do not sneak in, break the laws and demand benefits. Wanting to earn more money is not an asylum category, nor should it be a reason to illegally enter our country.
People who, through no fault of their own, live in desperate circumstances do desperate things in order to survive and provide a life for their children. I’m glad that your grandmother didn’t have to do that. Jean Valjean broke the law by stealing a loaf of bread to feed his sister’s starving children. I think the world would be a better place if, instead of condemning people who are different from us, we tried to understand them. Didn’t Eric just have a PS edition on empathy?
A dystopian view if Trump is elected: The people who vote for Trump think he’ll be a strong leader and solve all of what they think are the USA’s problems, well not problems, but problem – the immigration of non-whites. The reality is Trump was and will be a do-nothing president, and with large numbers of the public stockpiling weapons, there will be out-of-control carnage in the streets. While Trump currently finds ways to constantly be in the public eye, once the chaos begins, he will be nowhere to be found or seen. Trump and his very rich friends will live in luxurious protected enclaves.
Back in 8th grade I played boys basketball and never started a game. I typically only got to play when our team was obviously going to win. The one time I was called on for my defensive prowess to stop the other team's best guard in a competitive game, the first time I touched the ball on offense I was called for traveling and immediately yanked off the court by my coach. It must have hurt me pretty bad because I can barely stand to watch and NBA or NCAA game as I see players traveling all the time worse than I did and it drives me crazy enough to scream out at the TV: THAT'S A TRAVEL! CALL IT REF!
Traveling non-calls in the NBA is a joke. I don't watch pro basketball because of it. And don't get me started on what used to be called "palming" or "carrying" the ball - once Magic Johnson got away with it in almost every possession, there was no turning back. Indeed, from Magic Johnson onward, the acceptance of the "crossover dribble" - which caused the NBA to explode in popularity and raise 1-on-1 basketball to its heights - caused basketball to devolve from a team game to an individualistic one. (Sorry for letting my curmudgeonly side show through . . . . )
Yes! LeBron James see seems to be one of the worst as I consistently can count 4-5 steps when he has an opening through the lane to the basket, and it is never called! On a related note, I am also disgusted with all the flopping that goes on in an attempt to draw calls. LeBron James is also the king of these as any incidental contact will result in him launching himself backwards to land on his butt with his arms extended and looking at the ref incredulously for a call which he unfortunately all too often gets. The NBA has unfortunately devolved into players wanting to play one on one to dunk on and posterize their opponents. I much prefer to simply see basketball skills and sportsmanship on display. It's a refreshing pleasure to see Caitlin Clark and her teammates simply play the game the way it was intended.
I attended the flagship state university where I grew up; it was certainly not a destination school for many out of state students. There was plenty of challenge for me there. My kids when to a private University that is widely respected. I would say what they had was marginally better than what I had, but I cannot tell how much of that is due to standards going up everywhere (yes they definitely have in my field - Math). U of I has similar courses with the same optional tracking to accommodate different levels. I don't think the private university was worth the extra cost.
Try putting the question a different way: If you are hiring someone to work for you, how much preference would you give to an applicant from a big name university than one from a respectable state school?
It depends where you are working. Many big tech and big consulting companies ONLY recruit from the most selective schools.
Consulting for sure, since their product is their people. Tech varies. For programmers, you don't even need a degree.
Another situation where a prestigious university helps is if you are pursing an academic career. My understanding is that the letters of reference matter more than grades in terms of getting into grad school, and a letter of reference from a highly respected academic can make all of the difference.
It will be interesting to see what the effect will be if there is an increase in the number of high status jobs that do not require a college degree.
I had a superior who wouldn’t consider “inferior” college degrees when I was hiring people in my area. (Product development in plastics.) Guess I was lucky to have been hired before he was…
Famous victory? Trump is, in effect and in MAGA eyes, the incumbent. On a bitterly cold night, 110,000 of the most committed Republican voters braved the elements to vote. Trump won ca. 51% of those voters against piffling opposition. I am not impressed.
PS In 1980, Jimmy Carter won 59% against the much more formidable Edward M. Kennedy.
Numbers in the NBC News Iowa entrance poll:
56% of last night’s caucusgoers were men – up from 52% in 2016.
41% were 65 years old or older – up from 27% eight years ago.
52% said they were “very conservative” – up 12 percentage points from 2016.
55% identified as being white evangelical Christian – down from 62% in 2016.
Oh, and 66% of Iowa caucusgoers last night said they believed President Joe Biden did NOT legitimately win the 2020 election (when, in fact, he did).
My wife observes that if the FPOTUS had won in 2020, we’d almost be forever done with him by now. Arguably, there would have adverse consequences of his winning, but we may get them anyway, along the the current miserable four-year stretch featuring him.
True, but we have a chance of avoiding the calamity again. If he had "won" in 2020, who knows what appalling state we would be in or even if there would be a 2024 election permitted by the Orange gaulieiter.
Ooh, good new word for me!
We wouldn't be done with him as he would've named himself king, had all the Democrats in Congress, SCOTUS, Democratic governors, mayors, legislators executed & made either his drug addled son Junior or his pinhead daughter, the one he molested, his heir apparent.
Trump in 2024 will be Trumpier than 2020 Trump would have been; probably muchly so.
A “fancy” college degree matters, or does not, depending on the long term goals of the student, it seems to me. For example, attending the University of Chicago for a degree in social work may not be the fiscally intelligent choice, despite its world renown program, if the student doesn’t have long term goals in that field. However, if becoming a leader in that field is the objective then the degree is likely immeasurably helpful.
My son attended NU and from there went to U of C for his law degree. His goal was a job at a large law firm. He works at a firm that wouldn’t have interviewed him without a degree from a VERY short list of schools. He might not have been accepted to UC without coming from NU. Most of his classmates also went to selective schools for their undergraduate degrees, or had already proven their abilities in the workforce before pivoting to law. Many had a prior graduate degree.
My husband and I went to city law schools and had very different experiences from our son. Prior to retirement, my husband was a successful entrepreneur and I worked for the State of Illinois in a job I loved. Our classmates were also some people who pivoted to law as well as those directly from college. Many were locally politically connected and went on to work for the City of Chicago. Only the rarest of classmates ended up in “big law”. So we counseled our son to get the “fancier” degree based on his long term goal.
My favorite book from 2023 was Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin.
I use the microwave to make my delish hot Dr. Pepper!
Learned about hot Dr P from a radio ad back in the 1970s.
Yikes, tell us more! How hot do you heat it? Do you add anything to it? Do you eat anything with your drink? Do you watch football with it? Do you drink more than one at a sitting?
Have you tried heating other sodas - Coke,Pepsi or Fanta?
Sorry for all the questions but you caught my attention.
I've only tried hot Dr P. 3 & half minutes in the microwave for 16 ounces.
Was it good? Will you drink it again? Is it worthwhile to stop asking questions and try it myself? Or is like Malort, you try it once never to touch your lips again?
I've had it twice this morning & drink it all winter. Try it sometime!
Thanks, will do.
My immediate reaction is "Yuck!" (But then, I hate Dr. Pepper.) Now if you want to talk delicacy, try a country club "Mix" Vernors and chocolate milk, about 50-50.
So you created your own Yoo-Hoo!
Yeah, but Vernors gives it that extra "bite".
This brings to mind my college days in Ann Arbor. In Michigan, the go-to ginger ale was not Canada Dry, but icky-sweet Vernor's, whose advertisements said Drink it Hot. Yuk.
I am bemused by Dr. Pepper's cult following (which includes one of my sons). Personally, I never liked the taste. At least cold it dulls your tastebuds a little.
I remember when Dr Pepper bottles had three numbers on them, 10, 2, and 4, I think it was, and words something like “Try It Hot.”
The 10, 2 & 4 was supposed to be the time to drink it.
Agree with you Eric that no one thinks that the professors themselves are pedagogically superior at an Ivy vs Flagship State U. But the student population will make a difference and the Ivy /most selective degree will open doors that other degrees won’t. I have a kid that works in big tech and they don’t even recruit from anywhere but highly selective schools. All of her coworkers in her department come from the tippy top schools.
This speaks volumes about our state of culture. I have never advanced educationally beyond high school, yet it never ceases to amaze me at the number of students from “tippy top schools” who seem to exhibit an unabashed grammatical retardation that wiould never have been tolerated in my day. This, folks, is not progress.
I'd say that's true if the plan is to go directly from school to big tech. Once you have some good experience, I know plenty of people working for big tech who didn't go to tippy top schools, depending on the job of course.
I went to the University of Chicago. I'm glad I went there instead of the University of Idaho.
My wife also went to U of C and it gives them credit for the huge of amount of development she got. She later went to grad school at public university and what she saw of undergrads confirmed that U of C was of much greater quality.
The question for high school students and their financial backers is whether or not U of C is worth the 100k per year for them compared to lower cost options. Employers also have to decide how much preference to give to big name universities. In my job the work is all internal, so I only want to hire people who will be good at what they do. I would definitely look at resumes from places which have a reputation for strong mathematical programs, but not exclusively.
If money were not an issue, where would you choose to go? I was the first Argonne Scholar from Idaho, making U of C comparable in cost to state university. It was not a difficult choice. Honestly, I get tired of the idea that college is a vocational school which has to justify itself in the job market. I was ecstatic just to go a great school. I went to law school to make money. Hated every minute of it.
My choice was not so much about money as it was my own lack of initiative at the time. Our family took our kids to visit schools across the country and they applied to multiple places some of them top schools for what they wanted to do. A few of the schools with big names impressed us, but not all of them. Of course, it is hard to tell based on a campus visit.
I agree that college is so much more than vocational training. I think some people get a substantial amount of value out of attending a top school vs an average one, but not everyone. Probably not me. It sounds like you did get a great deal out of U of C, which is great.
Loved the sports bonding. My brother and I are graduates of S. Dakota State (Go Jacks) and text one another during big events such as the FCS championship 10 days ago. It’s a small thing but meaningful to me!
AND, even though the school isn’t Harvard or U of Chicago, we were both successful in our careers and are comfortably retired, able to do pretty much whatever/wherever we want.
Credentialing with degrees has gotten out of hand. Things used to be simpler:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IV_6RYVbNaw
As someone who is *just* self-aware enough to know I often write too long, I vote for the Sentinel staying at its current length. Granted, I don't understand why anybody feels like they *must* finish something split into unrelated sections, rather than scrolling down and reading what they want. It's the equivalent of the (old) Sunday paper--take the sections you want, throw the rest on the floor until later. Also a longer newsletter means you have some breakfast reading and some lunch reading too.
Best book read in 2023: The Wolf at Twilight by Kent Nerburn
A political tweet against a democrat! Thought I logged into the wrong site! What a shocker it had by far the lowest vote total. If you changed the caption to “Donald Trump hush payments…” it would have had a chance. 😉
To be fair, that spending was not seasonally adjusted.
All this discussion brings up a memory for me. I served on a Destroyer Escort when I was a 3rd class midshipman.There were 5 other 3rd class and 4 first class midshipman. As 3rd class, we dressed as enlisted sailors, did scut work and slept in enlisted quarters. The first class midshipman were baby officers, dressed as officers and lived in officer country. Two of the first class were from the Naval Academy, 1 from Purdue and 1 from Harvard. The Harvard guy kept letting everyone know that he went to Harvard and yet the Naval Academy midshipman got all the respect and attention from the senior officers. We made it a point to mess with him… you go to Harvard? Where is that? There is a Harvard, Illinois…is it near there? This would always piss him off much to our delight.
Yo, moron, if you want to impress senior officers in the Navy, go to the Academy…not Harvard
The elite schools for a military career are completely different than for other careers.
I find the length and scope of your writing just right! If I don't care about regulations for sports, etc., I just pass over them and read the sections I find more interesting. And sometimes it forces me to learn something I hadn't considered. Also. on the issue of illegal immigration. I'm a naturalized citizen, my grandmother had to prove she could provide my mother and I with a home and feed and clothes us. We had to wait until we were permitted to immigrate and faithfully followed all the laws and rules regulating our situation. That's what you do when you are an invited guest in a home/country. You do not sneak in, break the laws and demand benefits. Wanting to earn more money is not an asylum category, nor should it be a reason to illegally enter our country.
People who, through no fault of their own, live in desperate circumstances do desperate things in order to survive and provide a life for their children. I’m glad that your grandmother didn’t have to do that. Jean Valjean broke the law by stealing a loaf of bread to feed his sister’s starving children. I think the world would be a better place if, instead of condemning people who are different from us, we tried to understand them. Didn’t Eric just have a PS edition on empathy?
A dystopian view if Trump is elected: The people who vote for Trump think he’ll be a strong leader and solve all of what they think are the USA’s problems, well not problems, but problem – the immigration of non-whites. The reality is Trump was and will be a do-nothing president, and with large numbers of the public stockpiling weapons, there will be out-of-control carnage in the streets. While Trump currently finds ways to constantly be in the public eye, once the chaos begins, he will be nowhere to be found or seen. Trump and his very rich friends will live in luxurious protected enclaves.
Re: refs making "bad" calls.
Back in 8th grade I played boys basketball and never started a game. I typically only got to play when our team was obviously going to win. The one time I was called on for my defensive prowess to stop the other team's best guard in a competitive game, the first time I touched the ball on offense I was called for traveling and immediately yanked off the court by my coach. It must have hurt me pretty bad because I can barely stand to watch and NBA or NCAA game as I see players traveling all the time worse than I did and it drives me crazy enough to scream out at the TV: THAT'S A TRAVEL! CALL IT REF!
I can't stand basketball, but I'm always seeing complaints that the NBA refs have no idea what traveling is, especially for the stars.
Traveling non-calls in the NBA is a joke. I don't watch pro basketball because of it. And don't get me started on what used to be called "palming" or "carrying" the ball - once Magic Johnson got away with it in almost every possession, there was no turning back. Indeed, from Magic Johnson onward, the acceptance of the "crossover dribble" - which caused the NBA to explode in popularity and raise 1-on-1 basketball to its heights - caused basketball to devolve from a team game to an individualistic one. (Sorry for letting my curmudgeonly side show through . . . . )
Yes! LeBron James see seems to be one of the worst as I consistently can count 4-5 steps when he has an opening through the lane to the basket, and it is never called! On a related note, I am also disgusted with all the flopping that goes on in an attempt to draw calls. LeBron James is also the king of these as any incidental contact will result in him launching himself backwards to land on his butt with his arms extended and looking at the ref incredulously for a call which he unfortunately all too often gets. The NBA has unfortunately devolved into players wanting to play one on one to dunk on and posterize their opponents. I much prefer to simply see basketball skills and sportsmanship on display. It's a refreshing pleasure to see Caitlin Clark and her teammates simply play the game the way it was intended.