> So far it's working for them. As the job market gets worse, I think this trend of stronger emphasis on degrees and pedigrees will only get stronger.
In retrospect, some of the worst advice I got from the internet and even the real world was that college was overrated.
I did well in college, went above and beyond in my studies, and learned a lot. But I did not go to the most prestigious university I could have attended. It was far more of a missed opportunity than I would have guessed.
At the time, the narrative was that colleges are antiquated institutions. They were going away for top careers, and people were fools to invest so much time and money into what was dismissed as rote memorization. Influential and powerful tech figures ranted about college being bad, people obsessed over entrepreneurs who had dropped out of college, and everyone could tell you about Peter Thiel paying people to drop out of college.
Years later, I realized that all of those famous and influential people ranting about college actually did everything in their power to send their kids to prestigious universities. They knew the value of those degrees. Those internet commenters beating the “college bad” drum were more angry about their own degrees being at a disadvantage than they were about speaking any truths.
I’m doing fine with my own degree, but there were so many times where it would have been so much easier to walk into situations with a degree from an Ivy League university. I sat at a table one time where the head of the department I joined flat out told us that he’d need to hire someone with an Ivy League degree or experience at one of the Big management firms to lead us, otherwise the other part of the company wouldn’t take us seriously. These situations do exist, although they’re not everywhere. As long as the situation exists, it’s statistically more helpful to have that prestigious degree.
Pro tip, people hate ivy droppers. The only people who will respond well are other people who went to the same ivy as you.
The value of an Ivy Education is that you become friends with people who have rich parents, and those people bring you into the stuff they start because they have the capital to do whatever they want.
> The only people who will respond well are other people who went to the same ivy as you.
Not my experience at all. I’ve been at multiple companies where the top management came from different Ivies (or similarly prestigious universities).
They all promoted and hired people from other prestigious universities.
I have never actually seen this proverbial situation where an entire company clique is all from one, single university except at very, very small startups.
At big companies, it’s less about the exact uni and more about where it falls in the rankings. Anything top-10 is basically interchangeable.
Being at an Ivy doesn't buy you much 10+ years into your career as an ordinary applicant in most industries, a lot of people hardly make it that far down a resume before tossing it. Getting your first job out of college (or getting recruited while in college) and knowing people from an Ivy who are 10+ years into their career and being able to skip the applicant pile is very different.
I'm pretty skeptical of the networking with rich people theory. Of course, it happens. But I'm not sure it's a rationale, by itself, to go to Harvard if you can. While I've done business with various people I know in school I can't point to any clear examples where some opportunity came along because of school connections. Professional connections, yes, in pretty much every case. But very little to do with school.
I got invited to a startup that had a good exit through school connections. I left a good bit before the exit because my school chum became a megalomaniac that was impossible to work with, but I can at least give you n=1.
Oh. Totally happens--probably especially at small companies/startups. I'm just saying it probably isn't a great bet if that's your main reason for going to the school.
In retrospect, some of the worst advice I got from the internet and even the real world was that college was overrated.
I did well in college, went above and beyond in my studies, and learned a lot. But I did not go to the most prestigious university I could have attended. It was far more of a missed opportunity than I would have guessed.
At the time, the narrative was that colleges are antiquated institutions. They were going away for top careers, and people were fools to invest so much time and money into what was dismissed as rote memorization. Influential and powerful tech figures ranted about college being bad, people obsessed over entrepreneurs who had dropped out of college, and everyone could tell you about Peter Thiel paying people to drop out of college.
Years later, I realized that all of those famous and influential people ranting about college actually did everything in their power to send their kids to prestigious universities. They knew the value of those degrees. Those internet commenters beating the “college bad” drum were more angry about their own degrees being at a disadvantage than they were about speaking any truths.
I’m doing fine with my own degree, but there were so many times where it would have been so much easier to walk into situations with a degree from an Ivy League university. I sat at a table one time where the head of the department I joined flat out told us that he’d need to hire someone with an Ivy League degree or experience at one of the Big management firms to lead us, otherwise the other part of the company wouldn’t take us seriously. These situations do exist, although they’re not everywhere. As long as the situation exists, it’s statistically more helpful to have that prestigious degree.