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GOLDSEA |
ASIAMS.NET |
ASIAN AMERICAN ISSUES
ARE IVY DEGREES WORTH THE SACRIFICES
ending their kids to ivy league universities is the dream of every Asian American parent. Or so it seems. And there is no shortage of young AA willing to oblige. As of 2000, Asian Americans made up 12-19% of the undergrad enrollments of the top-20 ivy league universities.
No one questions the prestige associated with ivy degrees. In fact, sneer critics, that's the only thing bought with the extra money. And even that, they add, is wearing thin in a nation in which he cultural center of gravity has shifted to California.
It's true that investments in high ivy tuitions often don't show up in career earnings when compared with graduates of public universities of comparable student body profiles. But the criticisms run deeper than return on investment. Some Asian Americans who have attended ivy league colleges have come away regretting their decisions for other reasons.
Foremost is the sense that the ivies are structured for the benefit of legatees, the progeny of blueblooded alumni. Comprising upwards of 40% of some ivies, the legatees are often exempted from stringent admissions standards. The result is that AA students with excellent credentials are the workhorses preserving the institutions' high academic reputations, thereby giving a free ride to undeserving legatees.
Another common complaint is that the deck is stacked socially against Asian males in a system designed to preserve the princely status quo of the scions of WASP families. A disproportionate number of attractive AA females are admitted by the ivies, some have observed, while far fewer attractive AA males are admitted. This subtle bias, suspect critics, is implemented in the screening interviews used by most ivies.
Then there's the Eurocentric worldview imposed by the courses. Not to mention the lousy weather, bland food and having to put up with locals hostile toward Asians. Contrast all this against the majority-ease lifestyles enjoyed by the AA in, say, the UC campuses.
The bragging rights an ivy education affords parents, conclude critics, are far outweighed by the psychic and emotional sacrifices exacted from their kids.
Does an ivy education provide rewards commensurate with the sacrifices? Or is it a trap for AA with overzealous parents with old-world views?
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WHAT YOU SAY
[This page is closed to new input. --Ed.]
(Updated
Tuesday, Apr 1, 2008, 06:01:15 PM)
[Interesting, but way off topic -- are ivy degrees worth the sacrifice? --Ed.]
DV8 Ragazza,
I agree with you that the Roman Catholic Church was a strong influence in Europe as a structured organization that could perpetuate knowledge.
Paper could be streching it because many culture created parchment of some sort.
But the concept of the number zero and a more efficent numerical system is a credited to the Islamic nations.
China is kept out of the loop of these advances.
Without these concepts seeping into Europe through trade routes, perspective drawing research and achievements in astromony would not have occured in Italy.
The Islamic nations did not horde all the books and keep it to themselves. They translate the books and had the resources (i.e. unversity and scholars) to advance Greek math and other fields developed by cultures before them at the time, while Europe struggled through the middle ages.
Then that knowledge is passed onto the Ottoman Empire and Renaissance Europe.
That's the point I'm trying to make. Europeans were the last society to have to surge of advancement from 1500-1800.
The American was the next spot of this surge of advancemtn from 1800-2002.
So that is about 500 years of European/European decendent dominance on the planet.
Who know which society will have the next surge and become the next dominating society on this planet. Asia, Europe, Middle East, Africa, or South America.
Maybe the masses want to believe that they are God's gift to the world and that all benefical knowledge derived from their culture in an isolated enviroment. But that is far from the truth.
AC dropout
Thursday, January 03, 2002 at 09:59:09 (PST)
Actually the average church library in Europe had about 2 to 12 books. You see its hard to store information on parchment, which si what europe had at the the time. It wasn't until he paper was made available to Europe via the Muslims that dissemination of knowledge became available. This idea was pushed further by the invention of the printing press many years later. But as far as the Middle Ages go. Euopean librays were piss poor..
Seaman
Wednesday, January 02, 2002 at 16:08:53 (PST)
Not quite. The keepers of knowledge regarding European culture, history, and so on for the most part were churches(other institutions too, but churches played a big part). For ex. many Italian-Americans attempt to trace their past through geneology. For many centuries it's relatively easy. But once you get to the Middle Ages, it gets tough. *Very* tough. Up to a certain period "Italians"(a label I'm using to keep this simple) didn't use surnames. So that makes it even tougher. Therefore, churches are one of the best sources for info.
Churches hold birth/death/marriage certificates, historic documents, land and property documents, and so on. If you ever visit Vatican City in Roma, check out the extensive libraries and collections. Many scholars of the Bible inevitably wind up in a Vatican library or museum. It's just plain wrong to think of it as though the Arabs ran in, gathered up all important books and work, then hid it all away in the Middle East or Africa somwhere and returned it to end the Dark Ages. That just isn't realistic.
As for paper and zero...that's reaching. It'd be like saying that if you invent the pencil, and I use one thousands of yrs later to write the U.S. Constitution...you should get partial credit for the creation of the USA. Illogical, IMO.
DV8 Ragazza
Monday, December 31, 2001 at 15:12:44 (PST)
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