College rankings never really mattered

The fact of college graduation matters far more, if you’re worried about jobs, than *which* college you attended. For most employers and most jobs, the fact that you graduated college shows that you’re a finisher. Over a four-year period, you took courses in a variety of fields and, within a narrow timetable (quarter or semester) completed all the tasks at an acceptable proficiency year over year. 

“In high school I used to OBSESS over the US News and World report college rankings, naively thinking school prestige = long-term career success.|

Fast forward a decade later, I think these ranking lists are less of an indicator of the quality of education you’ll receive, and more so of the network you’ll have access to (both of your peers and alumni).

So my biggest tip for soon-to-be and current college students:

No matter where you go to school, surround yourself with people who give a f*ck about their future.

Because the clearest indicator of long-term success is how much you and the people you surround yourself with CARE in the short term. Not the brand name of your school.”

Colleges have been gaming USNWR rankings for decades because they know applicants and students follow branding. Look, the “good” schools are the research universities. Most undergrads do zero research and most of the faculty who teach undergrads are there because they washed out of extramurally funded research.

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/?highlightedUpdateUrn=urn%3Ali%3AugcPost%3A7490781073400946688&highlightedUpdateType=EDITORIAL_FEATURED_POST&origin=EMAIL&showCommentBox=true

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Tesla robotaxis aren’t coming any time soon

The idea of a robotaxi appeals to me. The day is not far off when someone—my wife, my daughter—will tell me I’m no longer safe behind the wheel. It would certainly be handy to call or text a robotaxi to drive to the grocery store, a show or a dentist appointment. So is that happening? “It turns out not even the people building Tesla’s self-driving tech trust Elon Musk’s extravagant claims about the company’s autonomous vehicles. “New reporting by Reuters interviewed nine former data labelers and a former self-driving engineer about their take on Tesla’s Full Self-Driving mode. The results were overwhelmingly negative, with seven of the data specialists admitting they wouldn’t ride in a Tesla in FSD.” *snip* “ In recent months, Tesla operating on FSD move have driven riders   into lakes ,   off bridges , and even into the path of   oncoming trains   — and those are just the incidents that get media exposure. Given these insiders’ direct access to terabytes’ worth of p...
Read more

Yes, the CDC can change its mind

The Nobel Laureate economist Paul Samuelson famously acknowledged in a Meet the Press interview: “Well when events change, I change my mind. What do you do?” This observation applies to the advice from medical authorities such as the CDC and WHO during the COVID pandemic. Some members of the public are fond of pillorying these agencies for having published different guidelines at different times, as though health officials are in the business of issuing ex cathedra dogma rather than responding to incomplete and ambiguous information. Science doesn’t deal in proof, it deals with the weight of evidence. A scientific hypothesis is one that is capable of being tested and falsified by experiment. I get it. I used to teach problem-based learning to first year medical students, and they often struggled with what to do with incomplete and ambiguous information, which is what physicians in clinics do every day. Sometimes, one cannot wait for all the tests to be completed and all the data analyz...
Read more

The economics of deportation

The Trump administration is threatening to deport >10 million people. These are people who, regardless of their immigration status, are contributing to the economy and jobs by purchasing goods and service (“job creators”) and contributing to social programs like Social Security and Medicare. Indeed, if they are undocumented, they will never see benefits to the programs they subsidize, since they use fake SS numbers. How will Trump’s deportation hurt working class Americans? From the link: “Higher prices “Deporting millions of undocumented workers would mean that businesses will need to replace those laborers. With historically low unemployment, finding people willing to work for low pay could be difficult, and companies may need to advertise higher wages to attract workers to replace deported laborers. “Job growth will slow “If huge populations of migrants are deported — or at the very least population growth slows as a result of tighter immigration policies — there will be less con...
Read more