"If you get into a good university, half of the job is done". That is what my sister said about 2 months ago.
My mom was skype calling my sister and I approached the computer to say hi. One thing led to another and we started a conversation about my future career preferences and university choices. As we talked, she started to mention all the effort that I needed to put into school so that a good university could accept me. She said that a good university would guarantee me a good job, a "successful life". But, what is a successful life and what are the costs of it?
According to Buisness Insider, successful people...
1. are passionate about what they do.
2. work hard while having fun.
3. have a specific focus.
4. push themselves out of their comfort zones.
5. consistently come up with new ideas.
6. are constantly getting better.
7. provide value to others.
8. are persistent through failure.
But, I guess that is what happens in a perfect world right? Unfortunately, the world we live in is far from being perfect. The way society would define a successful person is by wealth, and how does everyone think that can be achieved? University. But no...not just any university, it must be a good university. A famous one, an IVY league, Standford University, The University of Michigan, the University of California at Berkeley, UCLA, etc. |
However, not everyone can get into these universities, only "Super People" like quoted in the book "Excellent Sheep the Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life" by William Deresiexicz. In this book, William describes "The stereotypical ultra-high-achieving elite college students of today" as Excellent Sheep. These are the students that dream(if they get any sleep), eat, breath, and live just to get into an IVY league. The ones who pull all-nighters to ace a test, the ones who take 9 AP exams, the ones that are class presidents, have 11 extracurricular activities, and somehow manage to become the president of an organization in school that helps people in need, all at once. Do ANYTHING to get more credit and try to get into a prestige university.
"Now our kids must have the qualities of both an old aristocrat and a modern technocrat" That's what William said about the students today. So much has changed from the past that students today deal with depression, eating disorders, and even suicidal thoughts. |
All so you can be "competitive" for the university. "The main thing that's driving the madness is simply the madness itself...The only point of having more is having more than everybody else. Nobody needed 20,000 atomic warheads until the other side had 19,000. Nobody needs eleven extracurriculars, either-what purpose does have them actually serve?- unless the other guys has ten. So like giraffes evolving even longer necks, our kids keep getting more and more deformed" Just like William states, us students are getting deformed just by attempting to be this elite student and get accepted into IVY universities. |
Something surprised me while being here in Penn. One afternoon, the Dean of Admissions, Eric J. Furda, came and did presentations to all of the pre-college students and said something that made me think about the book. "If you live with only those eight flags (the IVY universities' emblem) in your mind, you are close minded and are doing it wrong". The dean of admission of one of the most prestigious universities IN THE WORLD just said that if you only live to get into those universities, you are doing it wrong. You don't need to kill yourself studying so you can get into that university. "It has to do with what you like" he added. Nevertheless, "Very few were passionate about ideas, Very few saw college as part of a larger project of intellectual discovery and development, one that they directed by themselves and for themselves," says William.
Where does this begin? The training, of course, the parents. "...we all know about the helicopter parent–hovering, pressuring, criticizing–and we also know about the overindulgent parent–who constantly tell [their kids] what wonderful, unique snowflakes they are, how they can be anything they want when they grow up, how they should do what they love and follow their dreams." |