What's like studying on a top 5 university, /lit/fags? How is the daily life? How much hours do you put into actual study?
As a student of a top university within a third world country (something like top 200 overall), I'm really curious.
Is there shit like these in your humanities department?
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEyjpBRae1I
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-i66_24eJg
>>7403025
>Implying anyone on /lit/ is actually smart
I am a student at McGill University in Montreal,Quebec. McGill is currently ranked number one in Canada and 25th in the world, It is said to be the Harvard of Canada. I have to say its pretty hard I study like all the fucking time. People here fucking love to drink and smoke weed. Also poutine is a dietary staple. I don't put in enough hours of studying
>>7403040
lol.
>Canadian
>educated
pick one.
OP said top 5. Not top 25.
>>7403040
McGill is one of those for profit online universities though?
>>7403025
I don't go to a top 5, but my university is consistently ranked in the top 25 in the United States.
There is no shit going on here like those videos, at all. Although I guess I wouldn't really know, because I'm a classics major. Everybody in my department is basically white and non-SJW. The English classes I take do have their share of SJWs, but the vast majority of people there are just well-meaning liberal girls. Sure, they're a little confounded, but they don't bite.
>>7403025
USP, anon?
I'm from UFCG.
Pretty much all humanities deparment are fucked up in Brazil.
>>7403025
Study habits are about the same for the top schools in the US
Which means STEM students generally study and most others don't have to
I went to Columbia for undergrad. I did Engineering though.
I didn't really love it. A lot of pretentious people, people who are obviously compensating, and it costs a lot of money (although they do give good aid if you're poor) and especially in STEM you have to work really hard since professors are just hired based on their ability to produce research, not based on their ability to teach.
I'm in a PhD program at UCSD now, which is a state school but still top 20 in Engineering and I don't see a noticeable difference in the quality of instruction.
New York City is cool though.
>>7403102
let me guess... Johns Hopkins?
>>7403164
Nope. UVA. I might have been able to get in to Hopkins, but I would have never been able to pay for it. I'm in state for UVA, and have a job lined up right when I graduate, so I'll be debt free very quickly, which is cool.
I did my undergrad at Cambridge. It's not that different to a 'regular' university, don't idolise it so much. There's still people who are good at passing exams but are basically idiots really, and there's plenty of SJW, especially in the humanities departments. The biggest differences to other unis are probably the supervision system (actual one-to-one contact with academics, sometimes leading researchers in their field) and the short terms - you have to cram a lot of work into a short period of time. But it's not like I was hunched over books all day every day.
>>7403182
UVA is good public state school, easily one of the best in the United States, but it is really not comparable to Harvard or MIT or any other possible Top 5 university in the world. UVA is nowhere near as selective as those schools, UVA is not producing heads of state on a regular basis, UVA is not a globally recognized leader in a vast array of scientific disciplines, UVA is not historically linked to dozens of artistic movements and scientific innovations, UVA researchers and professors are not uniformly considered number one in their respective fields. It's a good school, great even, but it's not Oxbridge (contrary to the belief of many of its students).
>>7403226
umich here, you hit the nail on the head.
>>7403194
yeah but the one on one stuff is incredible. literally the ideal way to learn about something, at least for me.
>tfw rejected from oxford because of shit amerifat school grades
>>7403226
Yea. Uva alumn and I agree with you. School has a huge we're-a-special-snowflake-complex probably to compensate for the lack of its reputation. Although they have to sell something otherwise they won't attract good students.
>>7403102
Classics at UVa is cool. What other classes do you take? I loved German and English classes (and there were plenty of SJWs including Felski) There was this weird kid in Classics who eventually went on to attend Cambridge, do you know him? (Both of us graduated in 2013)
Currently at Oxford.
I cam
t speak to how different it is from other UK universities, but it is, as one would expect, wildly different from the US system, in both structure and content. For those that aren't familiar, in the UK you don't take classes in a range of subjects, but rather apply to universities for a specific subject and study it all the way through. It's essentially like you have to 'declare your major' before you start.
I am curious about how it stacks up against US universities in terms of work. You would expect 'Oxford = no free time', but most weeks I have two classes and a tutorial, for a total of 3-3.5 hours classtime. You write one ~2000 word essay a week, and occasionally do other bits of work (commentaries, presentations, etc) at the same time. I am a terrible procrastinator (everyone says this, but believe me) so I usually end up marathoning my essays in this final 5-8 hours before they are due.
That said, exam periods during first year and the exams/dissertation of third year have a buildup.
There are consistent lectures available but they are no more than a suggestion to go to, as only a handful have any direct relevance to your coursework at all. Going to lectures is more a matter of personal interest and seeing exemplary methods and ideas that might help you in your essays.
The single best part, and as far as I am aware one of the major advantages over the US system, is how up-close-and-personal the tutorials are. In the US you are often in a large lecture hall or at least a class with a dozen people and you can meet with the professors personally in their office hours, whereas in tutorials you are often having one-on-one time with renown scholars to discuss your work.
In terms of community--you can tell that the other students care about academics and will discuss it on their free time, and I have never met anyone who genuinely seemed 'dumb', but then again I have not met many people at all because I am an autist. It seems like most everyone is what you would call a 'normie', enjoying partying and clubbing and whatnot.
currently senior in high school (before flames start, I went to preschool late so I'm 18). I want to go to a big school, maybe not top5-tier, but I was pretty mediocre freshman and sophomore year (B's and C's). But I've always been a more independent learner, so I know a lot about the subjects I studied (especially the one I want to major in, which is psychology). Do colleges value someone who can show intellectualism outside of grades more than the 4.5 GPA paragon student?
>>7403386
That's an interesting look into Oxford, I appreciate it. Sounds like the environment is way more geared towards learning as a passion rather than learning as a tool for a career and money.
I go to a senior military college in the US. Certainly not top-tier academically, but certainly a different experience than your usual college. Most guys here have contracts with the military and are very focused on their studies. A majority of students here are athletes in some way or another. Nobody here does drugs, at least not during the semesters. The honor code also plays a big role in the student culture.
>>7403408
Did you write anything? Saying you have an interest and read about subjects isn't enough for admission officers, who are all about spooks (leadership, initiative, anything that has utility and is tangible, etc.) Unless you have a website to show them or an extracurricular related to it or include the interest in an essay I doubt admission officers are going to care.
The good news is that if you all care about is going to a big school regardless of quality then plenty will take you even with B's and C's.
>>7403025
Who /amherstcollege/ here?
>>7403025
>in state school
>tfw studying under a nationally renowned Joyce Scholar
Get your elitist memes out of here senpai
>>7403441
probably going to end up there next year. how is it? also, how are the physics and philosophy departments? I'm hoping to dual major and then d postgrad at oxbridge.
>>7403025
I feel like I'm learning a lot less at college than I could be on my own.
>>7403025
I'll bite. I'm at the very end of an English PhD ranked top five in my field.
>What's like studying on a top 5 university, /lit/fags? It's been a phenomenal experience for me.
How is the daily life?
A mix of exhilaration, terror, and very hard work.
How much hours do you put into actual study?
Most of them. Don't plan to do anything else with your life other than your program. There's time for sleep, some exercise, and maybe a relationship with someone who understands the rigors involved. The sheer volume of reading means you should expect to spend most evenings reading or talking about your reading. Don't plan to have kids at this time (there's little support for it) and keep your interests very simple and minimal. English departments are not particularly flamboyant or scandalous places, despite rumors to the contrary. Most people are just working very hard.
>>7403386
Just curious, what happens if you want to change your major? Do you have to reapply to the university?
>>7403491
If it's like Brazil, either you reapply to the university or you can apply to a "voluntary transference" and may change majors if there are enough vacancy.
For example, there are 5 vacancies in electrical engineering and you are comig from civil engineering, you can apply to "voluntary transfer" and try to change majors.
Also, is harder to transfer between different areas (e.g STEM to Humanities)
>Wake up at 6
>Cycle half asleep to river, row for 2 hours
>Classes at 9. usually two hours in the morning
>a few hours for lunch, usually have a supervision or an hour of lecture in the afternoon.
>Get home around half 3
>Library until 7, take an hour for dinner in 400 year old hall
>back to library until 11
>go to room, fap, watch an episode of the simpsons, fall asleep.
It's fun really, and most people are happy. If you're good at managing time there are plenty of social activities, but I've always been slow and take up as much time as I'm given.
I'll give you guys an idea what its like at a mediocre university in the U.S.
My university is in the "top 150" (whatever the fuck that means, but there is a REALLY BIG drop-off after like the top 20). It has a large attendance because of its geographic location, but probably like 50%+ of the students commute. I am studying 2 STEM majors. Most students are really fucking lazy and not bright. Average exam scores in upper-level STEM courses is like 50% - 60%, despite the fact that they're really not that difficult.
Faculty is a tossup. There are some brilliant people who went to top universities for graduate school, but then slacked off. They have a lot of faith in the students, despite the fact that the students consistently let them down. The university itself is very bureaucratic and consistently screws over students, especially in regards to tuition.
Cheating is rampant. Basically 80%+ of the students are copying available solution manuals/Chegg and turning that in as homework. Most people just aspire to graduate and get a job, then never go back to school again.
You will never, ever walk into our engineering building and seeing students working past, say 6pm. I've heard that at top unis, the libraries are still like half full, even at 3am. Basically, people here have little passion for what they're studying and choosing to come here has been the worst decision in my life.
>>7403441
What year are you in? I have a close friend there.
How was it dealing with all the protest shit?
>>7403504
Can you tell me about these tutorial things? You guys get to spend time with a scholar in your field?
Also, it sounds like people don't go to lectures much. So how do exams/homework work? Do you get assigned homework on the web? Is learning mostly just reading the book?
>>7403519
The tutorial system is the central part of your academic life. In tutorials you discuss your weekly essays with the 'professor' for the respective paper (e.g. 'Literature 1350-1550' or 'Shakespeare').
Lecture attendance will fluctuate wildly based on how relevant the lecture is. If there is a lecture for first years that is on something in their prelim exams, the hall will be packed. If you go to a lecture on Byzantine monasteries on Crete, there might be like 6 other people in the room.
'Homework' isn't really a thing because the university is your home. The vast majority of your work is reading-- both primary texts and secondary texts. An insane amount of reading every week, so you need to learn how to manage your time and discern what you can skip and what you really need to go through.
t. Oxford
Cambridge already sounds a bit different so I have no idea.
>>7403025
Since we're talking about rankings a lot itt, I want to ask: would it be more worth it to take a graduate degree from a "top 150" university with a perfect fit of professors and extremely fun courses available but no certain funding (yet likely for me), or should I go with the low top 50 university that isn't as much of a fit (only two professors for me) but also guarantees full funding?
I know you'll never get to teach at a better university than you took your degree, but is a low-top-50 really much different than a low-100s in that respect?
>>7403513
Why did you think people ITT would be interested in a description of a mediocre university?
Kind of off-topic but I have my Oxford interview for PPE in a week (shout out to the Classics student on /lit/ who talked to me about my personal statement and Oxford a couple months back).
Any tips on preparing for interview? What are the dons like?
>>7403542
Do the tutorials/homework/lectures work the same in a field like physics?
>>7403545
I wanted to show them how horrible it is
>>7403546
Give up now, you won't make it, no one gets in,
Just enjoy the interview and visit the town, because you will probably never come back except as a tourist.
Don't revise, what's the point. Just say the edgiest answers possible at the interview, who cares. Then go home and forget ever attending Oxford. Check if UCL or Southhampton have answered, do some maths homework on the train home.That's how I got into Cambridge
>>7403512
boaties are the worst
>>7403544
Funding is crucial. You can't study properly without good funding (you need to hours to read massive piles of books).
People from top 150 grad programs rarely get academic jobs afterwards, because most of those go to people in top 20 programs, in part because those programs are set up to train people to be the most competitive for those jobs.
Depends on what your goals are after the degree. I'd also be wary that even a top 50 PhD might not help you much with getting an academic job. The job market in the humanities is still very bad at the moment, so I would discourage someone from doing a middling PhD if they really want an academic career.
>>7403562
>Applying to Southampton
>>7403512
>fap
I'd be careful, that kind of behaviour isn't tolerated at Cambridge you sexist pig.
>>7403566
I'm not very serious about it, it's just otherwise I wouldn't get much exerciseAlso I'm trying to make my father proud of me ;_;
>>7403491
You can't really change your major in Europe without starting from near-scratch.
>>7403546
im being interviewed @ hertford, 13-16 dec.
but other than the obvious shit, the main advice is: 1) read all the books you lied about reading on your personal statement, 2) think out loud, they want to know how you think, 3) just be glad you're there. if you are glad then they'll tell, if your not then why did you apply?
anyway, where abouts you from? uk?
>>7403546
1. Don't try to be chummy with the dons
2. Say something unusual/ interesting/ provocative. You have no idea how often they hear the same things from interviewees.
2a. Back up your unusual thoughts with some actual joined-up thinking (obviously)
3. Read around your subject. Don't talk about your A Level syllabus. They might even be mildly impressed if you've thought about what papers you'd want to take, and if you've read anything off the reading list for that paper - these are a good start http://www.spc.ox.ac.uk/study-here/information-new-students/undergraduate-reading-lists
Which college, out of interest?
>>7403558
At Cambridge where I am, you don't do straight physics. Undergrad Natural Sciences students tend to have 2 or 3 lectures a day, and worksheets to do for each topic. You go over the worksheets in supervisions which are 2 or 3 times a week, and are a few students with one supervisor.
There's also a lot of lab work and some coursework too. My NatSci friends tend to be back from uni at about 6pm most days and then spend a lot of time working at in college.
>>7403582
Better ways to get exercise, I reckon. I played Rugby League - much more fun
>>7403572
Money's not my biggest concern, otherwise I probably wouldn't be doing this major. I don't really need an academic job afterwards, but I've always thought it would be very fun. I'm fine with independent research too. I'm probably never going to be good at the actual teaching part.
I guess the decision is really between whether I just want as much fun out of it as possible (the top 150), or if I still want a slim chance of getting a teaching position down the line (top 50). Thanks for the input, anon.
>>7403602
>but I've always thought it would be very fun
Everybody I've ever seen with this attitude got bored halfway through their masters and dropped out with a honours.
>>7403578
>Rejected from KCL, Southampton and UCL
>SOAS and Cambridge both give me offers, the SOAS one actually being higher in absolute terms.
I still have no idea what happened with my application for things to turn out this way.
>>7403602
Fair enough. Personally I wouldn't recommend a US PhD if your goals are personal fulfillment or being an independent writer. I'd just start out on that project yourself. Doing a PhD means many years of TAing or teaching composition classes (not much fun) and a whole bunch of professionalization activities (learning how to do conferences, how to publish). If you have independent means and want to be a freelancer, then follow the model of someone like Alain de Botton (who doesn't have a PhD). Completing a PhD is too painful to be worth it unless you're an insane masochist or you really want an academic professional future afterwards. Just my thoughts.
>>7403585
Yep, from Bucks so it's only a 40 minute drive for me. That's all along the lines of what I've been hearing from everybody else, thanks
>>7403607
I've already done a Masters, but I didn't do any teaching during.
The dedication I feel for my area of study isn't something that's faded over the half a decade I've already devoted to it. I don't really feel like it'll fade anytime soon; I still often feel myself teetering on the edge of never reading any book except the ones related to my study again.
>>7403586
Cheers, I've read around it well and I'm very familiar with a lot of the stuff on the reading lists so thats good. I'll have to think about any unusual/interesting/provocative idea I hold now.
Applying for Lincoln, staying there for 4 days is pretty nice
>>7403620
Well good luck. Lincoln's nice - make sure you check out the library, its a converted church.
Final tip - go to the pub in the evening, have a drink or two. Makes the place seem more normal and less arcane, I think
>>7403138
>tfw got talked into studying the STEM jew and went to RPI for two years
Engineering undergrads really are the most uninspired people out there. Just imagine a whole school filled with people who spend all of their free time playing video games on steam and watching shitty anime instead of actually studying to further their education goals. I transferred to some shit tier college in NYC for Economics (my life is basically fucked at this point), but man at least not everyone there is a one-dimensional sperglike me.
>>7403610
I already attend a few national conferences yearly, where I do have to put myself on as an independent scholar. I'll probably stick on this path, as you recommend, in the end. I know it's not something to put yourself into only part-time, which I would have to do, with family.
>>7403040
I'm at McGill. It really doesn't require much studying. In most of my conferences/tutorials you only need to skim the readings for 30 minutes and you'll be far ahead of anyone else in the classroom. The papers are jokes as well.
It's a meme university. I'm good friends with many people in honours maths and honours physics (two of the hardest programs) and even they have a lot of free time to drink, smoke, and do other drugs. Granted, they do have ~30 hours of homework a week, but when you add everything up it's hardly more of a time commitment than working at Mickey Ds. There's nothing like EngSci at UofT. Plus there's just many legitimately bad people here. Almost everyone I know who's "constantly studying" is honestly really bad at school. I have several friends who live in Redpath and study 8+ hours a day yet still get Bs. McGill attracts the tryhards who aren't smart enough to get into an actually good school.
There's a reason why McGill isn't top-10 in the world anymore. It doesn't attract good students and the administration doesn't care enough to fix that.
>>7403620
>unusual/interesting/provocative
Be /pol/ incarnate.
I did an interview half way through my first year (last year) to switch to PPE when I realized I hated my course, and they asked me about my views on immigration, islamification.
I feel giving them wishy-washy aswers that I thought they might like to hear is the main reason I got denied
>>7403025
Oxford here.. first year physics student. I tried to change to physics & philosophy but was unsuccessful :/
Daily life is okay except for Thursday, because that's lab day. 6h of tedium.
I don't go to lectures. They don't do much for me. I prefer to learn alone where I can follow up questions in my own time. Well, that's the idea. In reality, I just try to learn everything as I go through the problem set, which I inevitably end up starting the day before it's due (and usually finishing on the day it's due..)
I really am an awful student. I don't know where most of my time goes.
I like it though, aside from being horribly disorganised. The people here are great. Practically everyone smokes weed (even some of the professors) and there are a few people who have done more interesting drugs. A substantial number of people play instruments as well; the average social evening includes a jam at some point.
I'd say socially it's pretty perfect, and course/work-wise I'd probably enjoy it more if I was doing English (a far easier subject for me than physics.. we all make mistakes).
>>7403602
Be aware that appearances can be deceiving. The department might look fun from the outside, but actually being a student there could be very different.
>>7403620
>any unusual/interesting/provocative idea I hold now
You don't necessarily have to truly hold it. It helps, but if you can understand and back up the point of view then that's mostly what they look for. Go full Hobbes and say freedom is a frippery and government should be omnipotent - that's what I'd do
>>7403645
Whats the difference between physics and physics & philosophy? Is the latter like history of science type stuff or is it like theoretical physics while the former is experimental physics?
>>7403638
My experience in college has pretty much been that if you do the minimal readings required, then you'll do well if you're actually smart. The people who wind up spending more time in the library than anywhere else on campus aren't doing that to get ahead of the rest of the class; they're doing it so they won't fall behind when they could be using their time more wisely somewhere else.
>>7403544
>youll never get to teach at a better university than you took your degree
this is bullshit. Look up Junot Diaz just off the top of my head. Rutgers to MIT.
>>7403579
Is Cambridge known for being 'sjw'? I read a lot of ridiculous stuff related to Oxford online (it was the Oxford women's union that invented the 'jazz hands' things after all) but I have never encountered it in real life.
First year involved reading some Marxist and feminist lit but it was minimal compared to all the other subjects we read on.
>>7403645
>Oxford here.. first year physics student
>Practically everyone smokes weed
>I'd probably enjoy it more if I was doing English
Hello Oxford Girl
>>7403650
That's true. Course descriptions are addictive though. It's hard to find programs with courses as diverse within one degree as Epics, Zen thought, Magic & Science, Iberian culture, history of prisons, Shamanism, Wagner, Ulysses, hermeneutics, and viral media in the same semester.
How "useful" a degree that diverse would be is obviously arguable. But then, I don't /really/ need to use it.
>>7403645
are you that qt booktuber?
>>7403664
SJW is a /pol/ meme for a tiny minority of basement dwellers. In the outside world, almost all decent people care about justice in some form. And most people who pursue academic research do so because they wish to improve the world in some way. If they just wanted to become rich, they'd be working for some exploitative corporation instead. Every respected university in the world is completely full of people whom /pol/ would class as SJWs. But this is what makes the /pol/ meme so hilarious -- it's marginalizing the very people who use the meme and consigning them to irrelevance. It's a self-inflicted wound, so I encourage the meme's continuation. It's like the chaff sorting itself from the wheat!
>>7403653
Perhaps something along the lines of equality of opportunity being neither good nor achievable?
>>7403698
have you found happiness yet?
>>7403698
In what context did you find out your professors smoked weed?
Also, I think I passed you at that intersection near Blackwells a few weeks ago. If it wasn't you this will be extra embarrassing, but I sort of gawked in surprise and you nodded to me.
>>7403610
>many years
Is this really standard fare? I know people who were in PhD programs for what seemed like a decade but that seems excessive.
>>7403676
Hello /leftypol/, please don't.
>>7403664
They literally just unpersoned Starkey.
>>7403723
For talking about statistics of all things. Higher education institutions continue to baffle me
>>7403713
The average to PhD completion in English literature in the US is over six years. It's a massive commitment and only worth doing if you're really serious about getting an academic job, I think.
>>7403714
Thanks! My view is that almost everything that happens in universities, especially in the humanities, would be classified as /leftypol/ in 4chan terms, but this would even include some pretty conservative material like Matthew Arnold pursuing "sweetness and light" or John Milton pursing "Things unattempted yet in Prose or Rhime."
>>7403697
Sounds like a fun discussion. Maybe throw in Aristotle's concept of natural slavery?
>>7403040
>the harvard of canada
Sorry m8 that's U of T and that's where I am. Maybe once you frenchie cocksuckers secede, you can be the #1 university in Quebec :^)
>>7403731
I don't really understand what point you're trying to make? It's extremely well-known most professors are Leftists and it isn't just limited to humanities; 96% of despite Dentistry professors being Democrat actual practising dentists are overwhelmingly republican, you see similar trends in economics and agriculture.
University of Birmingham, Political Science BA chap reporting in.
I'd show you my card but I'm at my parents for the weekend to discuss a few matters and pick up the rest of my stuff. Birmingham is 76th in the QS rankings and it does feel very prestigious. I've found that the people who go here are eloquent in speech, knowledgeable on their particular subject but peculiarly retain sense of norm, I come from a very poor school and this level of academic interest is unusual - sometimes discomforting for me. That aside, you tend to always feel at ease with everyone, heck even the big muscular folk who studied BTEC's and are now studying Sports Science are friendly likeable people and were total brothers throughout freshers.
I've been a draconian procrastinator throughout my entire life, and from posts of my peers in this thread, it appears I'm not the only one. To this effect I've had to install a rigid schemata of my daily routine. Every detail has to be meticulously planned and contingencies thought through the day before. After evening prayers (Sedvacantist), I meditate for twenty minutes over what I am likely to do the next day. I have a little diary in which I record all the things that need to be done and by what hour I should be done. I recommend everyone adopts this method, it is good at keeping you task-oriented throughout the day.
I wake up at 6 at the latest. At this point I either make food or fast till lunch. I then read for pleasure, currently some Quo Vadis, some Hoppe. I open up the Libertarian Alliance page to see if any new blog posts have been put up. I then pray at sunrise. Meet up with my Orthodox friend before lectures. We make sly politically incorrect comments throughout the lecture, raise very discomforting questions, criticise teachers we don't appreciate etc. After this we go to eat something, exchange notes and have a little debate with our wider circle of libertarian/right wing friends, and believe me, there isn't that many of us. I then either go to the library, or back home, read until sunset, pray again, read, write, wash, make plans for the following day and then sleep while listening to Millennial Woes or another alt-right figure.
I have to say, I've never been so productive in my life. For instance, I have numerous assessments that need to be done for January, these are ones that will have a grade put on them and will affect my results. Unlike everybody else I have asked, I've pretty much done all up-to-date additions to my plan, at this point lectures simply serve to refresh my memory and make notes on the personal approaches of the lecturers. Heck, I even tutor my room-mate to some degree, (although he will never admit this), and lend him my annotated copies of the political texts we are supposed to be studying. I think, if I wasn't already highly politically aware since ages 9/10, and been reading Rothbard/Mises/Tocqueville/Burke/Spengler since 12, I would be needing to put much more effort into uni.
>>7403723
>"I had not heard about his racist views, and it was not until after the video was released that I learned of his deeply problematic opinions.”
ayyy
>>7403916
If this isn't pasta, bravo.
>tfw fedora but in several religious orgs
>>7403916
Currently my only real hardship is resisting the urge to masturbate over the memories of all the fit broods I've met throughout my time so far. It's a real shame they're all left-wing Marxists, They all probably think that property is theft, but I wouldn't mind stealing their hearts.
My final gripe with the University of Birmingham is that it is teeming with Asians. I don't only mean Hindu's, Sikhs and Moslems; I mean East Asians. Normally I wouldn't be bothered by them, I'm close friends with a few pious Moslems and one Sikh even let me to goof around with his Kirpan. But these EA's, they always form their own little exclusive clique that is unavailable to us. What is even stranger is that when alone, an EA will be really nice and charming, but as soon as they're as another EA appears in proximity, the one you were just talking with will become more intimidating in tone. Honest to God, I'm starting to believe they're all a hive-mind.
I'm particularly bothered by the way they try to mooch information and services of everyone else, but won't reciprocate. I once foolishly helped my campus neighbour plan and write one of her papers a week back, but just on Thursday, when I asked her if I could have a page of notes from a lecture I missed, she refused. These fuckers even have a drop-box specifically for them, in which they compile all information to help themselves out. Luckily, one of my EA buddies form Sixth-Form will download their notes and forward them to a few of us trusted individuals.
Oh and night-life kinda sucks. You have to take a train journey to central Birmingham in order to have fun as campus entertainment is that in name only.
>>7403911
Do you know how much oxford values american high school grades?
>>7403967
birmingham is neither impressive nor prestigious. No one cares about your shit uni or your shit experience at said uni.
>compensating this hard after getting btfo by actual good unis
>>7403967
Beautiful campus, btw.
>at uni that's mostly East Asian students
>suddenly develop voracious attraction to Asian women
Seriously, being Asian adds about 3 points to attractiveness for me now.
>>7403441
I w-went to Umass, but i took 3 classes at Amherst. Unbelievable courses! The first was American novels with Dale Peterson (Prof Peterson was DFW's thesis adviser for Broom). Tons of work, huge expectations for preparation and discussion, intimidating. My favorite class was with Ingrid Nelson, Autobiography in the Middle Ages. 6 students in the course, with guest speakers (Medieval lit scholars) who she was colleagues with. Study with her if you can.
>>7403977
Comparatively it is. Birmingham alone is better then the best university in my homeland.
Tell me, which non-Oxbridge university is better than Birmingham? I'd like you two name another university that has a clear and thorough progression in relation to its political thought modules.
Birmingham has three; classical, modern and contemporary political thought modules. For someone who is almost solely interested in political philosophy and doesn't give a rats arse' about practical politics modules, Birmingham was the best choice.
>>7403969
Nope.
>>7403969
I am Amerilard. They are much more willing to ignore poor grades in subjects outside your application area than an American school would. IE, if you are applying for English, a bad semester of Chemistry would not be so devestating.
>>7403545
I'm interested in the description.
I'm studying at the best university in my country.
It's a shame my country is shit.
Do I count?
Who /irish/ here?
I'm in Trinity doing a masters. I think it's ranked top 100 globally but I'm not sure, depends on the rankings. Always in the top 150 worldwide anyway. It's good shit. I like it, but I have to do a fucking assload of work and have no free time.
>>7404253
I've been to trinity before. Apparently there is a dorm there (right in the center of campus, past that big monument thing) where you have to walk outside to get to the bathrooms as it's hundreds of years old. Know which one I'm talking about?
>>7404227
lol no. Med school is entirely different experience and all pre-meds in US are unliterary keks.
>>7404265
Yeah, I know the one, it's the one for the scholars, next to the debate building. If you pass an exam you get a scholarship, but it's graded to restrict who gets it. They made them new accommodation recently though, and I think the old accommodation has been renovated so it has toilets and stuff now.
I wouldn't knowI didn't pass that exam
>>7403663
You don't know jack shit. Diaz wrote extremely successful fiction, he's not an academic with PhD at Rutgers who went to MIT.
Take the funding.
I went from a 5th rate university to a 1.5th-rate university and now I am doing graduate studies at a 1st rate university
Lousier universities
>working class kids who are there for trades degrees and to become human resources managers by saying their study of gender sociology embiggened their ability to manage human resources
>fundamentally closed off consciousness of working class, hard to meet anyone who is a walking chunnel into something spiritually or intellectually bigger than themselves
>pretty good weed dealers
>professors mostly professional from-the-textbook teachers, occasional genius who has gone completely insane because he is in limburgatory at Chet Wisconsin Technical Diarrhea Institute for the Totally Fucked
Better universities
>rich kids who are there for high education and to become human resource managers at their daddy's companies by saying their study of gender sociology embiggened their ability to manage human resources and they say the word "foucault" more often
>fundamentally closed off consciousness of rich prep school faggots whose entire weltanschauung is built of blocks called standardised testing and parental pressure set with concrete made of cynical careerism
>shitty weed dealers who think they're good
>professors who are occasionally brilliant but whose brilliance has been either lopped off at the neck around the same they got tenure and had sufficiently memorised the standard canonical ideas of their field, or bottlenecked into mindless careerism and the belief that being "second best sociologist who studies that one dead sociologist" and attending conferences means their spirit has been actualised and their life is complete
>can still pry genius and spirit out of them nevertheless, or find occasional eccentric geniuses who have eluded being smushed into careerist poo, but you have to dig for them and not be a shit-eater yourself
the latter is the only benefit of going to a good university
if you go to a shit university, keep your soul alive and you can make up for it through dogged independent research and contact with brilliant people over the internet or however you can, and even get into a good university for postgrad
>>7404341
>dogged independent research and contact with brilliant people over the internet
How the fuck does this work?
>>7403386
Hey anon, I have an interview for Keble.
What are the girls like? I've been told I'm handsome, and my pretty hot ex is applying there too. Will the pussy game be easy? I've got a good sense of humor and you wouldn't know I browsed 4chan since I was 12 unless I got really, really drunk. I have a friend going to Oxford Brooks as well - are the girls hotter/more slutty?
Will girls drop their pants if I recite pages of Kierkergaard at them?I realize this is a fucking waste of a question to someone from Oxford
>>7404341
I've never understood why /lit/ loves weed, but most of 4chan is terrified of it. You can get a 100+ angry replies on /v/ if you start a weed thread and the mods will even delete it.
>>7403040
>tfw go to Brock, the Brock University of Canada
>>7404428
Probably because we're the 4chan equivalent of r/fullcommunism, we're a fucking embarrassment to the site, even /tg/ hates us.
>>7404450
The actual Marxists are a joke though and /tg/ just hated our shit HUMANITY FUCK YEAH stuff, which breathed autism.
>could have gone to University of Chicago
Are there any on /lit/ that do actually go there? I'm curious as to what it's like.
>>7404497
They're so many reasons, but probably the most obvious is because of how unread /lit/ is in regards to genre fiction, if it isn't Miéville, Vonnegut, Guin or some other heavily politicized author /lit/ hasn't read it.
>>7404403
I don't know anything about Brooks, but I know there are a lot of attractive girls here. I remember during my first year there was someone who had a threesome with two fresher girls during like the first week.
As I said though, I'm an autist, so I'm probably the worst person to ask about this.
>>7404450
Hello reddit!
>>7404499
One of my close friends goes there. He really seemed to enjoy it but then he actually ended up going on leave for depression. It comes off as rather STEM-oriented
>>7404557
>It comes off as rather STEM-oriented
Huh. I'm in English, so perhaps it's for the best then. I may yet go there for grad school, if that ever happens
>>7404539
I would rather talking about philosophy and "pretentious" authors than genre fiction any day.
If /lit/ needs to hated to have that discussion, then I see it as a worthy trade off.
>>7404557
Nice - if I'm lucky, hopefully I'll meet you and show you a really great night out anon.
>>7404403
Don't go to a third tier university in the same town as a top tier one. You will be stigmatized and degraded by those who go to the actual Oxford university.
>>7404616
I'm just trying to fuck them, not learn from them.
>>7404585
It is rather interesting to consider why /lit/ developed such an 'elitist' board culture versus something like /tv/. And originalfags have insight?
>>7404361
it's hard and basically amounts to saying "if you're special, keep being special and you can be special," but if it's any consolation 99.999% of the awful hipster trust fund kids at fancy universities are just as braindead as the lower class people at lower level universities, they just wear nicer clothes and have better training in radiating "I AM FROM THE WEALTHY CLASS" in all directions
for poor people, university is either a temporary delay on admitting they have to work 9-5 forever, or it's job training for working 9-5 forever. for rich people it's basically just a finishing school. it's pretty amazing how you can hand the tools of enlightenment/self-enlightenment to rich kids with infinite leisure to make use of them, and all they manage to do for 4 straight years is bourgeois masturbation and ideological jargon training.
>>7404634
Weaponized memes, and probably the fact that more mature people are attracted to books over television.
>>7404635
>bourgeois masturbation and ideological jargon training
Could you give an example of this? I'm curious what the typical top 5 student is like, I need ego inflation.
>>7404660
ever watch laurie "meme" penny and realise you're looking at a marxist who has never actually had an authentic moment of understanding or interacting with marxism at all
rich kids at fancy universities are the spiritual equivalent of your redneck cousin on facebook who thinks she's a buddhist because she watched a documentary on youtube
is she REALLY a buddhist man
>>7404672
With people like these it's one of two things:
Either they really believe their ideology and simply see themselves and their privilege as vectors towards obtaining their goals. Or they see through the lies of Marxism but keep with it as it is a good game that pays well.
>>7404635
Pro-tip: Those "hipster trust fund kids" aren't truly rich, they're "well-off". If you want to see real rich kids you have to study business and accounting, tons of Russian billionaires' kids everywhere and they fully intend to strike gold on there own.
>>7404635
Will brilliant researchers really consider a random email from someone who isn't at a top institution?
>>7404672
>laurie penny
But I just watched her yesterday, and I want something fresh. I need an anecdote, not just an example. I'm a young, impressionable, pretentious dolt and I need something to credit myself on. My grades are a fluke, my university is shit, I'm an inconsistent worker, I only have a intermediate understanding of things I claim to love, I have no friends, I can't open up to my family members, and the last time I touched a girl was 6th grade. I only think about suicide not as a solution but rather a cry for attention. Any time I set aside for self-improvement is spent here, wasting away. I just want a story of some total loser at a top university so I can feel better about myself. It doesn't even have to be real, I just want it to be true.
>>7404634
because most of the memelords dont care enough about books to even shitpost on this board. Honestly though, the shitposts on /tv/ are fucking hilarious, as long as they dont metastasize to /lit/ im happy
>>7404706
god damn anon, take some drugs or something.
pleb who couldnt hack cambrdige with offers from york and manchester here
choose my future for me /lit/
>>7404634
that's just how people who like books on 4chan are
the very first days of /lit/ we had asoiaf threads and many, me included, were immediately talking shit about it
>>7404730
masturbate on your face and eat your cum tonight
>>7404738
planned on doing this regardless
Anybody here at Tulane or University of Vermont? I applied to both and want to know which one I should go to.
>>7404434
kek
Who /communitycollege/ here?
>>7404730
Do you care about politics?
If so, are you left or right wing?
Right - York
Left - Manchester
It's okay, I got rejected by Cambridge too, as long as you secure your place in a Russel Group institution you should be fine.
>>7403025
u of toronto is dope af . lotta studying (15hrs week) but if you're not an idiot you can still find time to exercise and socialize
>Never went to uni
>It's as if everyone and their dog goes or has gone to university
>mfw reading threads like this
>>7404754
The cheaper one
>>7404687
it depends what kind of email but generally you can just email whoever you want. one time i got drunk and called chomsky while in a voice call with my friends on skype and we all called him gay and he got mad and hung up.
professors have to check their emails and they're generally cool about responding. i have gotten replies from super "famous" people like dan dennett and harold bloom but then been snubbed by a random chinese teacher at my own university because he didn't care to respond to someone outside of his actual courses. it's also normal for students to email potential supervisers when applying to grad schools, which means they get tons of emails from randoms anyway.
they're just people. if you're earnest and especially if you are actually interesting intellectually, there's no real reason why they'd be offended or anything. i had the same weird deference for higher academia once but, aside from basic professionalism, at best it's misguided, and at worst it comes across as sycophantic.
>>7404706
it's hard to give anecdotes because it's just white noise after a while
after you see the ten thousandth person who is finishing his phd in something but who has zero passion or originality even within his own topic you just realise these people are ordinary rich guys who did this because it was easier than law/medicine or they didn't want to go work with their sister in their dad's company, supervising people with 30 years of seniority over them and making three times their salary at 21 years old
>>7404768
You probably made the right choice either way. STEM is the only wise choice for westerners, but as I plan to return home with my swanking degree which no domestic university graduate can compete with, I will get a job anyway. Also nepotism.
>>7404557
Don't know where you got that about UChicago, they don't even have an engineering dept, just a few isolated programs.
how hard is it to go from a decent universityUmass Amherstto a top one such as Oxbridge?
>>7404789
I toured there when applying to universities. Was just my impression, and I know my friend is a pure mathematics major.
>>7404780
But you can learn more STEM from reading the textbooks and teaching yourself rather than going to lectures and wasting time at a uni. Unis only give you a degree so you can work if you're in STEM. The people you meet are people you don't want to know and professors, though intelligent, don't add much to the experience when you have texts and papers at your fingertips.
Only beneficial thing is access to online databases for papers.
>>7404780
I doubt it, I'm doing nothing with my life and would likely have excelled at and enjoyed university.
>>7404793
Perfectly possible. Grad schools are looking for promising applicants. There's a tiny amount of bias toward people who went to baller undergrad universities but it's mostly because they simply tend to have more promising applications. If you have a really high GPA and GREs, even from a mid-tier or low-tier university but especially from a mid-high tier, your application will be looked at, if it's good.
Oxbridge sucks dick for postgrad though. Don't go unless you have very specific reasons or you are British. Talk to your professors about where to go for your field, way ahead of time. And of course ask them for infinite advice on what makes a promising grad application, and start looking into that.
>>7404803
De facto you just described the whole point of a STEM course. That's all it is, a formality and an inconvenience to get a certificate displaying proficiency in your given field. You mustn't underestimate the level of support a university can give you, which you seem to have done.
My father was an idiot and got his engineering degree only through massive amounts of help from his polytechnic tutors.
>>7404819
If you're disciplined enough, you can learn so much more on your own. College really slowed me down and wasted my time. The best things were research, which they let even high school kids and non-uni people engage in nowadays, and private info access.
I never really got support from my uni. It was too big a place.
>>7404776
But those rich people must have worked hard to get to that uni. Regardless of your wealth, you do need to meet certain criteria (high grades being one) to get into a top uni, right?
>>7403182
fellow Hoo here. what's your major?
>>7404831
>But those rich people must have worked hard to get to that uni.
daddy made me take the SATs 317 times
daddy flew me around the country to do activist internships
daddy groomed me to write good application essays
daddy put me in the private school where i had a macbook and organised kwanzaa raffles for homeless shelters
daddy made sure i got at least a B+ average in private high school english lit where we read 17 pages of emily dickinson and i had to write an essay about social issues
yale was my first choice but [private seven sisters college] is good too
would you like to see my tumblr
judith butler was very influential on my work
i was moon princess of the gender equity symposium four years running
my ideas intersect substantially with activism
would you like to see my twitter
>>7404776
Do you include essays and links to theses in your emails or do you just email them about ideas and concepts? Let's say I had an essay lined up about failure to achieve self-appointed meaning and degradation of existentialism. Should I just email the concept or the whole essay and ask for critique?
>>7404755
Thanks for laughing at my pain ;_;
I'm doing Creative Writing with a minor in Classics.
Our Classics department is dope as fuck. Our English department is, well, we have one.
How fucked am I?
>>7404557
>ended up going on leave for depression
I majored in math at UChicago and that is pretty much what you get. A whole bunch of depressed nerds and hipsters. It was cool though.
>>7404499
I went there. It was solid. Wasn't overly STEM-focused in my opinion. I've since gone to two graduate schools, and I'd say UChicago was more intellectual than either of those schools (one of which was an Ivy), but that could have just been because of the people I hung out with.
>>7404850
What does it matter? It made them good at the end. It's like you think affirmative action is a good thing. Be happy that the 1% gets an education.
>>7404850
strawwoman: the post
How do I get into a top US university? Would I have a better chance of getting into, say, Oxford if I'm an international applicant from Texas?
>>7403287
hey patrick
>>7404757
i have never encountered so many annoying people. at least im almost done
>>7404757
Me. High school grades were bad so I'm here aiming for a 3.8. Gonna transfer after I'm done with my basics.
>>7404850
I tutored SAT in a very affluent city after college. People's secretaries would call to schedule SAT lessons. Some folks have way too much money.
Im at u of toronto. its not that hard if you manage your time well and aren't a dumbass. professors are great and location is dope
Went to a crappy local college so I could stay home. Did well and now going to UCSF. :)
>>7403776
m80 that's not a big improvement. Besides saying "Harvard of Somewhere" is relative. That something is the best where ya at doesn't mean it's good.
How would i go about app/ying at say, oxford to study literature? I did my undergrad at australias best uni but got like 75gpa then i worked for a bit.
>>7404227
Good luck not killing yourself anon.
>>7404341
This is so fucking spot on that I wonder if we went to the same places. Only thing you're wrong about is
>shitty weed dealers who think they're good
If you're buying q and oz then ye it's gonna be shit but is you buy p's or hp's then the quality is way better and even cheaper.
>MFW my Uni won the 1987 NAIA Men's Basketball championship as well as the 2005 Women's championhsip
Get on my level you fucking plebians
>>7404960
Which school, I'm curious?
>>7404852
Probably don't overload people with your stuff right away. If you want to ask questions or ask for recommendations to specific guys whose work you like, or whose expertise you want to sound for really specific reasons, I think you're good to send pretty detailed emails. There's nothing wrong with emailing the leading guy on X and asking him about his specific work on aspect Y of X, but if you're just asking random questions you could ask any professor, it's probably slightly weirder.
I would be really careful about sending your work to people without their requesting it though. Even if you are super fucking brilliant, it's likely you have more growth to do than you think. I think I was legitimately precocious in certain ways (I'll be immodest because I'm anonymous here), I have gotten some recognition and strong cultivation and all that jazz, and even then, looking back on work/ideas I secretly thought were new and brilliant a few years ago is just painful most of the time, because most of them are actually amateurish. Gold is rare, but raw gold ore still looks like ass compared to worked bronze, or something like that. Just make sure you put the hours in and sound people out before bombarding them with requests to read essays you wrote.
Just think of them as people. Busy as fuck people who generally won't want to waste too much energy on you if you don't pique their interest, but still people. Most of them like what they do and will probably help you if your questions are earnest. If you're looking to make a real connection and get some kind of personal mentorship from dudes who are far away from you though, then you'll probably have to put in some diligence making sure you have an unusually justified case for special treatment.
>>7405337
But yeah this is the biggest disadvantage of a lower tier uni. You can't just wander into random famous professors' office hours and get them to ramble at you, remember your face, and ultimately give you intellectual guidance and great letters of recommendation. I have two or three profs that I can say changed my entire fucking life, and lit about a dozen fires under my ass, and I did NOT have anyone like that when I was at a lower tier school. A handful of conversations with some people I met at my university (which is like top 20, not top 3) probably saved me two years of bumbling around like a pleb.
If you're at a shitty school, just make goddamn sure you don't get trapped by that big fish small pond syndrome, because you have no one around to point you in directions you don't know exist yet. Master your field for its own sake, be aggressive about pushing your knowledge of it, don't ever assume you are at a high level. When you get that feeling, go deeper somehow, talk to someone who knows way more than you and makes you feel like a high school pleb again.
That's the real benefit of being around brilliant people. They constantly set the bar so that you don't rest on your laurels. If you want to do well without that advantage, you're going to have to sort of transcend your natural tendencies. All the stuff you need is technically freely available, sure, but it's so goddamn helpful to have a professor who can click everything into place and point out possible intellectual trajectories for you.
Try to find those people at your own university first. That's one way to keep challenging yourself. Go to EVERY professor who interests you and be completely candid that you want to make the maximum possible advantage of your undergrad.
>>7405203
I did exactly what you did, even had some profs encourage me and offered to writer letters of rec, and then personal bullshit happened and I never applied.
>>7405349
now I feel even worse for not getting into oxford. Those people telling me that fucking around in highschool was going to ruin my life werent joking i guess.
>>7405384
You should do it bro. If you have a hunch that you might have something great inside you, you should pursue it. Most people would kill to have that feeling.
I used to email random profs when I was going through an embarrassing teenage phase of being obsessed with determinism or something, and I was reading all these pirated monographs. Most of the authors I emailed were really nice about answering my questions even though everything I asked was dumb as fuck. But then I've had super on-point expert questions rebuffed by guys who literally told me to fucking email them about it, within the last month. Don't get discouraged.
Sorry for typing so many words. I have autism.
>>7405405
>sorry for typing so many words
dont apologize for writing something that isnt a dumb shitpost/meme
>>7403040
Do you have a qt ethics professor named nicole
Is anyone else feeling the crushing defeat that is graduate school applications? It just feels so fucking awful even though I have strong letters, writing sample, etc.
Not even shooting for top 5, 10. Gimme top 30 and I'll be good.
I just want it to be over and sleep until next fall.
>>7404827
Are you me?
>>7403040
>Also poutine is a dietary staple.
>>7403025
pursuing phd at one of the #1 schools for cs (ratings are a kek, they tied like four schools for fst). It's simultaneously extremely chill and a bit not chill. I don't put in enough time into school (pulling probably 70h/week rn, and it still doesn't feel like enough). This isn't for classes mind you, but for research stuff. I probably spend < 10 hr/week on classes. There's a lot of pressure to publish which can be stifling at times. However when you break free and really start making brain-gainz it's the best feeling in the world and you have 0 doubts
10/10 would rec
>>7405905
Stanford?
>>7405400
well don't fuck around in college, do some research and then go to a god-tier phd program
it's simple really
>>7403916
>Sedvacantist
madman
>>7404341
>>fundamentally closed off consciousness of rich prep school faggots whose entire weltanschauung is built of blocks called standardised testing and parental pressure set with concrete made of cynical careerism
fucking kek
>>7405909
nah. i'm from picrelated. I grew up around palo alto though. I don't understand how xford kids get any work done. Apparently the undergrad has been sliding into shit lately (that high prob of turning into a palantir/fb/googuru shill). Still, their phds seem to put out really good work (the ryan williams + v. williams complexity theory combo is particularly sick).
There aren't a million people at cmu, so if you make even a little bit of effort profs will know you and be interested in you. CS gets a lot of hate for being attracting major autists (and this is totally true for u-grad), but at phd-level things kind of get better and the industry tends to suck up most of the autismos.
>>7404706
>I'm an inconsistent worker, I only have a intermediate understanding of things I claim to love, I have no friends, I can't open up to my family members, and the last time I touched a girl was 6th grade. I only think about suicide not as a solution but rather a cry for attention. Any time I set aside for self-improvement is spent here, wasting away.
>>7404428
weed makes you stupid
>tfw your pseudo straight-edgism is forged from a bizarre, semi-gay admiration (in descending order) for Franz Kafka (total teetotaler), Sam Hyde (str8 edge), and Tyler the Creator (asthmatic who doesn't smoke weed)
tell me I'm not alone
>>7404768
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKwMFas9XnY
>>7404776
>harold bloom
What?? What is his email. I want to send him a story :P
>>7405931
dam you seem really smart
>>7405931
I'm really interested in what things are like when you're at those lofty levels of study. What, in particular, are you studying?
>>7405948
unclear if sarcasm, but no way. I'm ignorant af and suck dicks at math compared to other kids studying theory/ML (which is objectively true). This makes me work a lot harder in order to fix said flaws, but I'm still very behind compared to the kids that are balling that did math-ugrad and placed top-100 in putnam for like four years. I'm trying to work on doing this without feeling so goddamn negative.
pic: contemporary silicon-valley culture in a nutshell
fuck i'm too red-pilled on the tech industry, they'll never let me back when i don't get a faculty position
>>7403025
Transferred into Berkeley for English, starting this coming semester. Can any English bears here tell me how many hrs of study it is, weekly? Just wanna know if I'm gonna get ass-nihilated (transferred from a laid back community college in the north bay).
>>7405960
>owns a macbook air and takes screenshots on it
>mercilessly self-deprecating
>effortless abbreviations (efficient)
>objective
I stand by what I said
good post, anon. I didn't understand all the jargon, though. what is a putnam and how can you be placed in it? what is ML? what is palantir? who is ryan williams and what is his combo?
Keked at your picture. More comic than tragic right now, IMO, but if Bill Gates gets to decide our children's curriculum (if VC jargon billionaires decide to dictate the humanities in a substantive way) the world is utterly fucked.
>>7405966
Sorry for the jargon anon. Putnam is a highly regarded math competition that is notoriously difficult to do well in. ML is machine learning, which as a field has been exploding for the past 20 or so years. Palantir is a shill company in the bay-area started by ex-Paypal people (including Peter Thiel) that has kind of sketchy connections with a bunch of govt agencies.
Ryan Williams and Virginia Williams do theoretical CS at Stanford. They do a lot of stuff, but their main focus is complexity theory which revolves around classifying the inherent difficulty of certain computational problems. For example how quickly can you multiply two numbers? They're both graduated from cmu and I guess I really look up to them.
http://web.stanford.edu/~rrwill/
>>7405951
I work on parallel and distributed graph algorithms. Companies like facebook and google are big into this stuff right now because many statistical problems these companies have are glorified graph-problems (ex: I have all this historical data telling me what people looked at and what they ended up buying---help me use this to recommend items to this new guy). A lot of research ends up not being this practical though, and is done for its own sake. I still stand by this being "interesting", because every new algorithm or lower-bound discovered is one more piece added to man's understanding of concrete, unchangeable properties of this world.
random aside: if you're interested in this stuff check out "Quantum Computing Since Demorcritus". It requires a bit of math background but is very well written and not dry at all. It does everything from complexity theory to quantum to philosophical musings about the limits of our understanding of the universe
>>7404762
I got rejected by Oxford and ended up at Manchester. All in all I wasn't too bothered about not getting in, and Manchester's pretty gud, and the campus is quite nice.
>>7405931
Nice dude. I'm doing CS research at the moment and one of my supervisors is a professor from CMU.
>>7405998
Who are you working with mong? Also good shit, I hope you come here to present your work.
>>7404947
>I'm doing Creative Writing with a minor in Classics.
Seriously, don't do this. Majoring in creative writing is the stupidest thing you could do. Just take one or two workshops and then write on your own free time, contact the professors if you want to, but don't waste your degree on that. You can still get an MFA without having majored in CW.
>>7406004
>Majoring in creative writing is the stupidest thing you could do.
Seconding this. You learn nothing in creative writing workshops except how to cushion your critique of classmate work with dainty pleasantries or, worse, mandatory questions—the answers to which you don't care for a response.
>>7406004
>>7406008
I took two CW undergrad workshops, and was the only one who had any literary aspirations in there. The rest of the students were writing erotica/fanfiction/apocalypse zombie shit that the profs hated. A couple of years later, I'm applying to MFAs and those profs, who still remember me, are writing my rec letters.
The majority of CW workshop students are people you do not want to associate with. Just study something worthwhile, and write on your free time. Write something that can feed your writing, like psychology, english lit, philosophy, or even a hard science.
>>7403545
heres your (You)
>>7406016
>Write something that can feed your writing,
This. The modern literature landscape is chocablock with career writers who don't know anything so don't really have anything interesting to say.
The information age hasn't really hit literature yet except in notable cases (Pynchon was writing with an encyclopedic knowledge decades before our unprecedented access to info) and we're stuck with boring shit like Franzen in the meantime.
In 10 or so years, the writer who knows nothing except cute fables about their friends will be obsolete.
>>7405861
Possibly. What school did you go to?
I went to Michigan. A great deal of my time was wasted with projects, homework, and general documentation which didn't really solidify my knowledge as a read-through and self-testing of the material.
Breaks were always more fun because I felt like I was actually learning the material then while during the school year it felt like I was just trying to compete with others. You could come out of classes not learning a single thing.
>>7403632
Education goals in STEM are in the service of getting a job. I cant imagine the sort of autist who would spend years of hard studying purely to learn about molecules or some other inane subject matter. That theyre not consumed by their studies only speaks well of them.
tfw you will never get into an Ivy because you have a 3.65 community college GPA
>>7403386
are you me?
>>7403676
I'm at oxford, and the SJWs here are a very vocal minority. You won't encounter them much day to day, but they're a fucking plague in the student union and such, especially in my college ofWadham, where the Women's room and the Men's room (which are places to go if you're having mental health difficulties and the like to decompress) have just been renamed to the Women's room and the Welfare room. But like I say, they're no big deal in day to day life, just student politics.
>>7406141
>tfw you will never get into Ivy because you're dirt-poor with a 3,9 GPA.
Scholarships are no-go. Neither black, gay or American.
>>7405192
Your Oxford chances are usually around 1/4, and I don't think its much harder for international students. From what I hear your odds at top tier US universities are much lower cos they retardedly let you make a gajillion applications, when here in the UK we're limited to 4. There are tons of Americans here, just apply and see what happens
Any classicists out there? Doing a classical studies post bacc and applying to top 15 US grad programs in classics. Curious if there any of y'all doing, or have done, something similar.
Btw classical studies/philosophy double major in undergrad
I literally can't express how much better my life has been since I attended Oxford. I went to a state school and gradually became the stereotypical moody, withdrawn sensitive type who both despises the quality of his immediate culture and feels a weird pride for having been raised in a sort of anti-intellectual and brutal environment. I was all set to take my Russell Group humanities BA and spend my life working as an anonymous, insecure wageslave forever thankful of being offered a job and forever too insecure to pursue my creative ambitions. The chip on my shoulder had become something of a wedge, and I felt too out of place regardless of my environment, too resentful and bitter to even attempt to make it in the artistic world. Then I finally applied for Oxford and got in to study an English MA, with reassurance that should I work hard enough a career in academia or within one of Oxford's affiliated companies would be almost guaranteed. I turned up as apprehensive as usual, and the first few days were spent regretting my decision and desperately feigning a cultured personality. But then I realized that the people there were just interesting and that the snobbery and exclusivity I had anticipated was just a myth borne out of my working class upbringing. I've since graduated, having spend the year dining in grand halls with groups of interesting people, dating several girls (one of whom, a petite Russian whose family traces back to the aristocracy, is now my fiancee). I work four days a week at a publishing company and earn £38k a year. I regularly meet up with friends from my college and visit Oxford for nights out and for meetings with my professors. The Martin Eden-esque novel I have been writing for two years has been selected for publication at a major British publishing house and, honestly, I could not have imagined a few years ago how great life could be. I come on /lit/ and see how pathetic you all are and just shake my head and chuckle. If I saw you guys on the street I would of course throw you a penny or discuss Bukowski or whatever "realist" writers you enjoy, but ultimately I would be able to tell within ten seconds if you're an Oxbridge grad and would dismiss you as a potential source of good company if you are not. I never thought I'd know what it was like to be objectively better than somebody else, for the value of my existence to be superior to the value of a stranger's, but now I do and I've never been happier. People are awed by power and prestige. All I need to do is mention the university I attended (if only for a year) and they immediately begin to hunch and look at their feet because they know they are in the presence of greatness.
>>7403985
nature finds a way lad
>>7405962
There will be some genuinely talented and really hard-working students there. And the faculty will expect a lot. You should plan to make that your full-time occupation for almost all your waking hours. It'd be possible to cruise through with a C, but no one wants that and it's one of the best opportunities you'll ever have to learn. You'll have a fantastic peer group too, so work hard, learn much, and good luck!
>>7406265
Arent ivies need blind?
>>7406445
I'm a Junior at Michigan. I've been hating it so far. What are you majoring in?
>>7406466
i'm a junior as well, but i just transferred from community college so this is my first semester. majoring in philosophy. i have very mixed feelings, but i would say overall positive. why are you hating it?
>>7406239
What college are you at pham?
>>7406339
yep I'm an undergrad doing classics at Cambridge
>>7406494
I'm in STEM and all the people around me are just learning the material to get a job and all their interests are animu and partying, which I don't care for. I feel like I'm learning nothing and the only thing my classes have been teaching me is how to study for exams.
>>7406499
How many hours do you study a day?
What are the people in your classes like, academically speaking?
>>7406503
i'm sorry to hear that. what about joining a club, taking electives, or getting a job that would expose you to other people? all of my professors and classes have been excellent so far, i truly feel like i'm learning a lot and getting a good groundwork for grad school (want to get an MLIS/MSI).
>>7406517
Could I hang around with you? Maybe meet up for a "pint" or something?
>>7406506
On average maybe 3 hours a day, not including lectures and supervisions.
Everyone's pretty competent.
>>7406530
Damn, I'm pretty jelly. I'd love to live the Harry Potter-esque existence that is an Oxbridge education.
>>7403583
Depends how how many courses your new major has in common with your current major. Like if you're switching between one engineering to another chances are you will have a lot of courses in common and then you can apply for equivalences. If you're switching between completely different fields you're obviously starting from scratch.
That or you can just finish you bachelor and then make the switch on your master's without losing anything.
>>7406350
Thanks 4 pasta
>£38k
Gets me everytime
>>7406588
I don't see why this always gets mentioned. £38 k is pretty high for a four-day week job.
>>7406595
Yeah, only thing is London is expensive as hell. Anywhere else in the UK it'd be a great salary. Still, not bad.
>>7406624
But the character I invented lives in Oxford, or may live in one of of the surrounding towns. I doubt I'll ever earn £38k, it seems as likely as winning the lottery.
>>7406544
The Harry-Potterness of your education depends heavily on which sub-college you end up at. Some colleges are fully modern brutalist concrete messes, and some are the grand cloistered/spired gothic type things you see in the movies.
At Oxford either Christ Church or Magdalen probably best match this description. Christ Church actually has its own cathedral (IE the seat of the bishop).
>>7406279
limited to 5 for non-medics now, and you can cant apply to both oxford and cambridge
I fucking envy everyone in this thread.
I made some really shit decisions as a teenager, now I work as a nurse without the graduation I need in order to study at university. Going to change that next year though when I'll get back to school for three years so I get said graduation. Wish me luck, guys.
How realistic is it for a student who does his/her undergrad at a technically mediocre US university to apply upwards for a doctorate, for like a much better program?
>>7406728
Good luck, man. We're all gonna make it.
>>7406728
Hope you do well.
What is your chosen course?
>>7406047
lol i'm at umich rn this is all true
>>7406792
It's sad, isn't it?
>>7405940
million dollar extreme is awful, and so are its fans.
kill yourself as soon as possible
>>7406771
I have yet to settle on that as I need to get my Abitur first. But I'm thinking about something along the lines of business administration.Just kidding, probably something like literature, history or political sciences. Maybe some language like English or Spanish. I have three years to decide on that.
>>7406728
Good luck with doing whatever you want to do, but remember being a nurse is a damn good thing to be, you're probably making a better contribution to the world than I am with my oxford humanities degree and my future career in elaborate welfare sponging (I.e academia)
>>7406937
I always see responses of people saying they're at Oxford in uni threads here. Either a lot of people are lying anonymously on the internet for some reason (whoever would do such a thing?) or there's actually a fair few of us.
>>7405405
appreciate your posts thanks.
