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posted by [personal profile] potted_music at 10:19pm on 14/12/2011
I'm sitting at the reading room in our library. It's exam period. A girl from Student Mental Health Liaisons is walking around, giving people sweets and notes saying "Think big thoughts but relish small pleasures". It is a stressful university, but the lengths it goes to to make students feel appreciated!.. <3 <3 <3 *flails*
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posted by [personal profile] phoebe_zeitgeist at 05:08am on 15/12/2011
You know, I think this sort of thing may be the one infallible marker of a true elite institution. It has nothing to prove, and no institutional sense of insecurity, so it doesn't feel any need to try to puff itself up by frightening its own students or trying to make them worry about whether they really deserve to be there. It's like the Dean of Students' unexpected appearance in front of my first-year law school class, when we sat down to take our very first law school exam. He carried a big, hand-written sign that read, "ANXIETY!!!"

And he waved it around until he had everyone's attention, and then he said, "I know you're all a little stressed right now. But I want you to remember: not one of you sitting here is going to fail this exam." And then walked out, to massive, massive applause. Not quite the same thing as sweets and little notes, but the same general approach.
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potted_music: (Default)

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posted by [personal profile] potted_music at 05:49am on 15/12/2011
Wow, your Dean of Students was awesome! What school did you go to, if you don't mind naming it? I can understand if you don't want to share potentially identifiable RL information, or I can lock the post, etc.

I sometimes think that that is, at least in part, how these institutions maintain their reputations: huge endowments and legacy admissions aside, these approach "we've accepted you, so you must be worthy, and we will do everything for you to succeed" pressures people into achievements. It also generates stress, of course (if professors randomly present you books and write thank-you notes after each class presentation, they must be expecting a lot of you, and YOU WILL BE UNCOVERED AS A FRAUD AFTER THE VERY FIRST PAPER/EXAM & PROMPTLY KICKED OUT LOL LOL LOL), but, generally, it is very heartening.
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phoebe_zeitgeist: (Default)

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posted by [personal profile] phoebe_zeitgeist at 06:24am on 15/12/2011
It's true, there's probably no perfect system that won't generate stress in some of us, or else turn others of us into monsters of ego on the order of Larry Summers. But still and all, I'm in favor of having institutions err on the side of, "We chose you, so you're worthy of being here, so you can stop fretting if you want."

It was the University of Chicago, and I don't know whether it was as awesome in the other schools as the law school was, but yes indeed, the law school was pretty damned awesome. My first year there was the single best academic experience of my entire life.
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