“There are a lot of mediocre students at Yale who were superstars in their little county fairs, and now they’re in the Kentucky Derby and they’re not winning their races and they feel like it’s unfair because other students are doing better,” says one [Yale law school] faculty member…
One for the ages.
June 10th, 2021 at 4:54PM
That comment has come in for a lot of slagging as the professor seems to be indulging in a sneer at the rubes.
The student reaction, though, is not uncommon. A basketball player might have looked good in high school, even made all conference and got to a college team, where EVERYBODY was all conference somewhere and now the quality of play is much better. It’s called growing up.
I recall something similar in graduate school, a classmate, graduated from a place you might have heard of, crashed into balanced growth models, was lamenting about getting all As at this place you might have heard of and now feeling stupid.
I suspect we all felt stupid at one time or another, but those who dug in and worked on the challenging stuff got through it.
On a lighter note, that big steam locomotive might go public up to Frostburg later this summer.
June 10th, 2021 at 6:13PM
Stephen: Like a lot of pointlessly cruel remarks, this one’s substance was unobjectionable. You describe the phenomenon perfectly – one of the reasons you should WANT to go to a great grad school is to realize how smart the smartest/most ambitious people are, and then to seriously up your own game.
It’d be too bad if you ALSO concluded that extremely successful people have to be – like this Yale professor – sadists.
Train to Frostburg? I’ll have to check that out.