Saturday, November 29, 2008

A Reflection in Application Season

As our Republic's high school seniors fill out their college applications, we recommend reflection on the Weekly Standard column by former college prof Joseph Epstein, who opines on the enthusiasm for attending the "best schools" (said enthusiasm fueled by the CVs of Obama's recent appointments):

After teaching at a university for 30 years, I have come to distrust the type I think of as "the good student"--that is, the student who sails through school and is easily admitted into the top colleges and professional schools. The good student is the kid who works hard in high school, piles up lots of activities, and scores high on his SATs, and for his efforts gets into one of the 20 or so schools in the country that ring the gong of success. While there he gets a preponderance of A's. This allows him to move on to the next good, or even slightly better, graduate, business, or professional school, where he will get more A's still, and move onward and ever upward. His perfect résumé in hand, he runs only one risk--that of catching cold from the draft created by all the doors opening for him wherever he goes, as he piles up scads of money, honors, and finally ends up being offered a job at a high level of government. He has, in a sense Spike Lee never intended, done the right thing.

What's wrong with this? Am I describing anything worse than effort and virtue richly rewarded? I believe I am. My sense of the good student is that, while in class, he really has only one pertinent question, which is, What does this guy, his professor at the moment, want? Whatever it is--a good dose of liberalism, libertarianism, feminism, conservatism--he gives it to him, in exchange for another A to slip into his backpack alongside all the others on his long trudge to the Harvard, Yale, Stanford law or business schools, and thence into the empyrean.

Ditto from SWNID. Even in our small corner of the higher-educational gameboard, we are less inclined to embrace the highly touted "gifted" student than the unquenchably curious, perpetually adventurous and consistently virtuous one.

Our advice to everyone is to get over your abilities and achievements and just do something today that's good and right and interesting.

6 comments:

Unknown said...

I don't know if I'm good or right, but I'm fairly certain that I'm interesting.

I'm also decent at avoiding telling people what they want to hear.

Anonymous said...

"Our advice to everyone is to get over your abilities and achievements and just do something today that's good and right and interesting."

—This is excellent advice for a life well lived. Unfortunately, as the tale of Epstein's "good student" implies, it's not the sort of thing that brings career advancement, or even, for a growing number of people, the opportunity to secure a reasonable livelihood. But we should expect as much, I think, from a culture that blindly defers to market forces in virtually every aspect of our lives. Until we resolve to use the market to promote the "good and right and interesting," the market will continue to promote the "gifted" student at the expense of those who are "unquenchably curious, perpetually adventurous and consistently virtuous."

steve-o said...

I think I understand the point of this post:

You're saying that while those C's you gave me at CBC hurt my GPA, they were actually little memos of appreciation because of my perpetual curiosity.

Unknown said...

Happy Birthday doctor!

Unknown said...

What do you speak of, Micah? SWNID is ageless.

Also, I agree in part with JB in CA. SWNID's advice is good for those who want to live contented, rewarding lives, just not for those who want a job while they do that. But, who knows, maybe I'll be the first one to hear "Well, you don't have the experience we'd like and shamefully few publications, but you're really unique so how about a tenure-track position."

Is it too late to go back and choose the 'model student' path?

Jon A. Alfred E. Michael J. Wile E. SWNID said...

We concede that leading the life well lived may not give one particular career opportunities. Certain rarefied positions demand perpetual CV enhancement, including higher levels of politics, corporate management, and tenured positions in higher ed.

For us the question is whether such positions are worth the cost if one can have challenge, fulfillment and influence in other circles.