Originally Posted by JaneSmith
Originally Posted by Floridama
Quote
I would be interested in hearing about someone's neighbor or cousin who obtained a PhD in math at a highly competitive university

Therein lies the problem.
Generally speaking, not attacking you directly smile

Why must success be defined what competitive university someone gets into? I feel sad for the parents who can only define success by that measure. That line of thinking is the reason we have so many pushy parents pressuring their kids to be the best and brightest.

If my kids grow up to be honest, independent, confident adults, then I will consider them to be a success. If they are happy working at McDonalds and taking care of their own, then I'll be proud for them.

Happiness cannot be earned or bought, it can only be found within yourself.


I'm not talking about success or happiness, I'm talking about achievement of a very specific type. I think the word string "highly competitive university" just sets off alarm bells in people's heads.

I'm not using that as my example (and my example was not getting admitted to a university, it was successful completion of a rigorous program) because of any prestige factor or to suggest it is a better goal than any other. Only because I think that very specific achievement is not possible without high parental expectations and/or an environment that is very different from what is typically found in US schools. And I may be wrong about that, but either way I'm not suggesting that it's a better goal than others or a better route to success and / or happiness.

I'm not at the #1 program for it (turned that down because I could not do mathematics at that school), but I currently am doing an MD/PhD with a concentration in mathematics and epidemiology. My family mostly consists of people with high school degrees or less (minus my dad with a community college degree), and all of the schools that I attended before college were considered economically and academically disadvantaged.

This being said, I would strongly push for following a different path than mainstream school without acceleration or enrichment opportunities. I did not have an easy time getting to where I am now and spent a long time resenting authority and dealing with depression...

It's possible to get there, but it is not a pleasant road to travel in the least.