Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.3 4.3bsd-beta 6/6/85; site hoptoad.uucp Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!bellcore!decvax!ittatc!dcdwest!sdcsvax!ucbvax!hplabs!well!hoptoad!laura From: laura@hoptoad.uucp (Laura Creighton) Newsgroups: net.singles Subject: Re: Universities, Class Structure Message-ID: <588@hoptoad.uucp> Date: Fri, 7-Mar-86 22:34:32 EST Article-I.D.: hoptoad.588 Posted: Fri Mar 7 22:34:32 1986 Date-Received: Mon, 10-Mar-86 00:15:13 EST References: <162@pyuxc.UUCP> Reply-To: laura@hoptoad.UUCP (Laura Creighton) Organization: Nebula Consultants in San Francisco Lines: 47 In article <162@pyuxc.UUCP> chris@pyuxc.UUCP (R. Hollenbeck) writes: > >College is perceived by most of us >as a minimum requirement for employment in a field >that will afford a middle-class income (or more). >Thus, those who go to college usually end up in the middle >and upper tiers of our society, those who don't >usually end up on the lower tiers. (or, at least, I think >that's what everyone expects will happen) > >Could that be why people were so incensed at the notion >of bringing disadvantaged people into universities, >on the assumption that they would overcome their disadvantages >given a chance? Could the negative reaction be based on >the fact that, to some people, the disadvantaged were >exactly the people they went to college to become middle class to >avoid? How dare the universities try to bring THOSE people >HERE? (Again, all please note, the racism noted here is >society's, not mine.) First note -- what ever you are talking about is not racism. Discrimination, perhaps, but not racism....unless you maintain that all the disadvantaged people people are of one race? Maybe some people felt that way, but the generalisation is flawed. Consider a brilliant person whose main interest is psychology. What happens? Well, they spend 6 years in grammar school (assume they skip twice) and 4 years in high school, and 4 years as an undergrad -- and *then* *finally* they get to do some original research. This is 14 years after they went to school, so they are 20 years old. Now, 20 years old is not ancient, but if you look at a history of mathematics, say, you will find that a surprisingly large number of brilliant mathematicians did their best work before they were 22. I cannot help but think that 14 years is a long time to wait for your intellectual peers, and that some very good minds are being wasted because university is not challenging enough for them. The notion that ``college is a minimum requirement in a field that will afford a middle-class income'' is the problem. The two aims -- I am going to university because of my personal commitment to thinking/research and I am going to university so that I can get a middle class job are incompatible. People with personal commitment to thinking and research are rare, and people who want to be middle class are not. -- Laura Creighton ihnp4!hoptoad!laura utzoo!hoptoad!laura sun!hoptoad!laura toad@lll-crg.arpa