[tempest67]

I find it interesting that the reports tend to consistently state that college prestige is indeed important for students from lower income families. I found that to be enormously true, myself. I am from a working-class background -- did my undergraduate degree at a state school, and found it boring and, really, a waste of time -- much like high school. But I also think now that a lot of this was my own fault -- I had no idea how to approach college, and how to really make it work for me.

Later, I then did a graduate program at an Ivy League school -- and the scales fell away from my eyes. The most important thing I learned there, I think, was how successful people work in the world -- how to resourcefully make the most out of every opportunity, how to seize the initiative, how to make connections. I have the feeling that if I hadn't been brought up in the class I was, I would have inhaled these things at my parents' knee -- as it was, it took me much, much longer than it should have; but it was an enormous lesson, and almost worth the ridiculous student loans I now owe. ;-)

(I am also by no means saying that an Ivy League school is the only place for lower-class kids to learn how to work the world -- far from it! I was just not talented enough to figure it out myself, and the experience made all the difference in the world for me.)

[jsomers]

Cool. I'd be curious to know some of what you picked up in grad school. Care to elaborate?

[tempest67]

Good question! I have tried to answer this before, and always fallen flat -- I think that the reason is that if it could be transmitted by writing, I would have picked it up without the need to have spent all that money and time. But that sounds like such a cop-out! So I'll try:

At the Ivy League school I went to (and I did not study a technical subject here -- it was an architecture school), I was surrounded by people who had an agenda for their lives -- in fact, they often already had their career plotted out, and many were already working on the side. School was for them a set of tools (people, information, opportunities) to be hacked resourcefully to get what they wanted. At Big State U, the kids seemed to think of themselves more as subject to the whims of an institution, and to think of the institution as something they needed to please to get "a degree." The degree was hardly worth mentioning at Ivy League School; the professors were seen as either equals or, in a sense, servants/tools. The Ivy League kids also seemed far more ready to create their own programs and experiences; they would see a niche, form a group, and suddenly the school was filled with minority kids learning architecture on the weekends; or suddenly a local youth group had a student-made meeting place.

Of course this kind of volunteerism and spirit of service happened at Big State U as well! What I thought was really different at I.L.S. was the self-assurance and lack of self-consciousness involved; these kids saw ownership and power in the world as their natural right -- they seemed to act and take command as naturally as another young person might turn on the television.

I hope this doesn't sound arrogant or somehow fanboyish; I am trying to explain how being thrown together with these people for years changed me deeply -- made me both able to see beyond where I came from and to be more proud of it, and of myself. It was really almost more a matter of physical knowledge -- of mimicry and group identification, perhaps -- than of something you could pick up in a book.

[TJensen]

That is really interesting. Just out of curiosity, how much could be attributed to maturity? Was this change in behavior just within the graduate program or throughout the entire school?

FWIW, I went to Big State U (had a nationally ranked CS program, though), and I agree with much of what you said. However, I don't have anything to compare it to.

Edit: learn grammar.

[tempest67]

Another good question -- some of it definitely might be, but I also did find the behavior at Ivy League School was characteristic of the entire school.

Then again, I did some grad-level coursework at the B.S.U. before I switched to the I.L.S., and found the same sort of differences that I described in my note above. In fact, after I.L.S., I wanted to go back to my former classmates at the State University and bring the message "you have power! You can change things! You are in charge!" But, of course, this is what every commencement speaker in the world tells every graduate, and you can't really understand what it means until you've felt it in your own bones, one way or another...