Wednesday, August 12, 2009

10 Reasons an Ivy League degree is overrated

Thanks to Amber Johnson who wrote to me to share this article with you guys - my blog readers!

It is an article on "10 Reasons an Ivy League degree is overrated" by Amber Hensley. The link is here

The 10 reasons are:-
1. Elitism
2. Publication vs Instructor's Ability to Teach
3. You can get many of the benefits online for free
4. CEO pay is not necessarily greater
5. Ivy League education not well suited for entrepreneurs
6. Poor environment for undergraduate studies
7. Quality vs affordability
8. Too much pressure on students
9. Money spent on undergraduate education could go towards a graduate education
10. Low Payback ratio

My personal viewpoint on the arguments of those 10 points raised in the article is as follow:-
1. While I won't say that every alumnus/alumna of Ivy League faced this problem, it is apparent that the environment in the universities, particularly top universities would give a wrong impression to the graduates, since the people that they would work with after they graduate would not be of the same type (who managed to get into those institutions). So, some of the alumni may face difficulty in adapting and mingling/working with others.

2. The professors may not be very good at teaching skills, but undeniably they are very smart and have a lot of knowledge in the field.

3. Yes. Make full use of those free material online! It's free and we should do lifelong learning!

4. Money shouldn't be the main barometer anyway. :)

5. This is perhaps due to the marketably of these graduates, and with that, tend to be more risk averse. Might not be as risk taking, to quit a high paying job, to start a business or work on a start up. Too much at stake, including long term career progression.

6. Am not agreeing with this aspect. Would still argue that the quality is top notch. Students choose courses, so there are big or small class size.

7. You get what you pay for.

8. Getting in is tough, but surviving there is not too tough. Really depends on what you hope to achieve there.

9. This is debatable. I would not exchange my 4 years of undergraduate life with anything else.

10. For those on loans, agree that Return on Investment may be low, and payback may take quite some time, but if you could afford it, lifetime return would hopefully be there.

To all, what do you think on this?
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1 comment:

meg said...

to quote a friend, ivy leaque's are either for the really elitist rich,or refugees with sob stories lol