Day 318: late entry
Oct. 8th, 2012 08:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
maeve66Well, I guess 317 was the actual late entry, since I skipped yesterday inadvertently. I will again consult "Random Meme Topic Generator", since that is easier than thinking for myself. The first topic to come up was "Community or Private College?" That's kind of odd. Those two things seem somewhat incommensurable (incommensurate? I don't remember, sorry Northwestern University class "The Philosophy of Natural Science", Karl Popper, paradigm shifts, etc.) -- or at the least, they seem to be the opposite ends of a spectrum. It was the choice I was offered as a senior in high school. My father told me in all seriousness that if I wanted to go to college without taking loans, there were two ways (I am actually not sure loans were even mentioned. He just said I had the following choice.) I could go to Oakton Community College, the local community college, which cost about $1200/yr. Or I could go to Northwestern University, which cost the same. For him. Because he was the archivist there. It wasn't much of a choice. Every faculty or staff brat kid I knew at Evanston Township High School -- except two, maybe -- made that choice. I mean, I doubt many of the rest of them were offered OCC as an alternative. But almost all of them went to Northwestern.
If you can, because you're a faculty or staff brat, then by all means opt for the private college, damn. Who wouldn't? If you don't have that benefit... I guess go for as many scholarships as you can and see how much the best state school is. Community colleges seem to me to be best only as two year springboards, or as a place to take the odd self-expanding class in something you want to learn. Not a great place to get a great, deep education. I mean, personally, if I could have, I would have gone to the University of Wisconsin-Madison. But I couldn't manage out-of-state tuition. So I am by no means saying that private schools are better than big state schools, at all. I want to be clear about that. But yeah, appreciate them though I do, as offering an affordable alternative, I am kind of dissing community colleges. Obviously they're a mixed bag. Some rich suburbs have incredibly funded community colleges, like Diablo Valley Community College in Orinda or Moraga or wherever it is, and like the community college I interviewed at in Traverse City, Michigan.
If you can, because you're a faculty or staff brat, then by all means opt for the private college, damn. Who wouldn't? If you don't have that benefit... I guess go for as many scholarships as you can and see how much the best state school is. Community colleges seem to me to be best only as two year springboards, or as a place to take the odd self-expanding class in something you want to learn. Not a great place to get a great, deep education. I mean, personally, if I could have, I would have gone to the University of Wisconsin-Madison. But I couldn't manage out-of-state tuition. So I am by no means saying that private schools are better than big state schools, at all. I want to be clear about that. But yeah, appreciate them though I do, as offering an affordable alternative, I am kind of dissing community colleges. Obviously they're a mixed bag. Some rich suburbs have incredibly funded community colleges, like Diablo Valley Community College in Orinda or Moraga or wherever it is, and like the community college I interviewed at in Traverse City, Michigan.