Friday, September 25, 2009

Another Article

This time a little bit different. Someone sent this to me and I had to laugh (I fit about 80% of the descriptors on Stuff White People Like, I guess I am officially a yuppie). Enjoy, or disagree vehemently and get violently offended.

http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2009/01/11/120-taking-a-year-off/

I especially like the part about haggling with street vendors.

Monday, September 7, 2009

Chris' Article

Hi Chris, thanks for sending along the article. I haven't spent a lot of time thinking about all the opportunities i will be loosing by going to an institution like Stanford. Definitely puts things in a different perspective.

Living in China i feel so incredibly stupid most of the time, which is both a little frustrating and wonderful. For a while, i didn't know the adress of my apartment because i couln't read my contract. This made getting home by taxi a little difficult. It took me two days to figure out how to connect to the internet because the installation was all in chinese, and my computer would just show it as seemingly random symbols. I still haven't figured out my washing machine. that's next on the to-do list haha here i have to spend so much more time thinking about the little things in life, like how to buy a small clothesline. right now, my extra ipod cord is acting as a nice subsitute.

I think just about every high school student has full-heartedly criticized the college admission process. I know I hated it when kids signed up for ap courses and extra curriculars just to bulk up their resumes. But although we all complain about the inherent unfairness of the system, and the way we end up playing it in order to be sucessful (well sucessful by general society's standards), can you think of a better solution? obviously a random selection would not be pleasing to our ssense of meritocracy. Did any of you recieve the books stanford sent out to this year's freshman? i was taken off the list a little late, so i stilll got them. I found The Outlier's especially interesting and would love to talk to someone about it.

it's so true that it's too easy to loose sight of the fact that our education can be so much more than a platform for college or a profession. the professor writing the article probably justly criticizes the complacency of students, and universities' lack of encouragement on education as an intellecutal journey. looking back to my experience in what could probably be described as a mediorcre public highschool, i think that although most kids had no interest in doing so, if you wanted to explore different academic passions, it was possible. Although i found many of my teacher's lack of interest in this frustrating, there were also a few teachers who helped me study their subject beyond the curriculum independently simply because i wanted to. So, i definitely think that no matter what the institution, or lack there of, your education is entirely what you make of it.

Meredith, i too would love to hear more about egypt! Chris, that's amazing that your mom dogsleds. maybe it just seems amazing to me because in ct, i can't say we have many dogsled races around haha.

Alright, i'm off to buy a bicycle. wish me luck

Thursday, September 3, 2009

Thanks Meredith! :)

I wish comments were more visible, but they're pretty inconspicuous, so I'm making a new post :)

I'm really happy you read the article and gave a thoughtful answer, thanks!

I'm supercurious about what you're doing and experiencing in Egypt...are you keeping track of it all in any way, or posting photos anywhere? I think I really want to just get to another country, but I can't really leave until March, because I'm flying up at the beginning of March to see my mother start the Iditarod (dogsled race) in Willow, Alaska. So everyone who's on a year-long exchange, I really envy you! You had a smart idea. On the other hand, you have a little less opportunity to wildly change plans halfway through your year...

I absolutely see the one-sided focus of the article on English, the liberal arts, lonely freedom, pondering great books in silent study, blah blah blah, and I definitely have a weakness for all that because I can relate to it. HOWEVER, what about science, what about social geniuses who really aren't interested in solitude but can motivate the masses, what about math...although he mentions "multiple intelligences", he really focuses on the forms of intelligence reflected by his own strengths. Which is a very human weakness, to conflate your inner life with the lives of everyone on the planet.
A final thought: I think it's OK to criticize your institution. Even though we are "damn lucky to be going to Stanford" -- only a few people get that privilege, it is an expensive privilege, etc. -- self-congratulation is something we want to avoid. Especially if the name of an institution becomes a substitute for self-esteem: it's our talents and (often) academic leanings that matter, not the college admission they delivered. You are you, not the college hoodie you wear.

Hope everyone who's already begun their gap year is loving it. I'm still working and saving money, which is maybe why I still have time to post on the blog :)

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Disadvantages of an Elite Education

So Chris sent the link to this article, which I found really interesting even though I disagreed with parts of it...I'll share it here in case anyone wants to discuss it. http://www.theamericanscholar.org/the-disadvantages-of-an-elite-education/

My take: I thought the bulk of the article was really interesting, but I did feel it romanticized the idea of the liberal arts education while simultaneously treating the pre-professional approach with derision. I feel that ultimately the point of education at any university is as a means of exploration, but the liberal arts approach isn't the only way to achieve this, and that the author's bias as an English professor factors into his unilateral praise of liberal arts. I definitely agree with the author in that I don't feel that the college admissions process is necessarily indicative of intelligence, just the ability to "play the game", so to speak. I also agree that the elitism associated with university education is off-putting to say the least, and though I feel it is less prevalent at Stanford than in the Ivy League, it still exists. For those of you who went to Admit Weekend, there was a good dose of "You are the chosen ones" ego-stroking. In Egypt I eat a large slice of humble pie almost every day, and it's refreshing in many ways to have my ego diminished. One of my non-academic goals for this gap year is to explore my interests because I am passionate about them, not because they were assigned to me (someone said something to that effect in an earlier post). After "playing the game" for so long, it's nice to be in a place where I'm still learning the rules.

Hope that was coherent! Ramadan is altering my circadian rhythm...I'm not really sure what time/day this is anymore.