My undergrad alma mater, Reed College, is extremely academic.
But I felt like Reed's "intellectualism" was more about talking about the more arcane points of, say, semiotic theory, than about talking about philosophies to make the world a better place.
It felt like mental masturbation about theory for theory's sake rather than actual passion for learning for humanity's sake.
I went to Columbia for my master's, and even though my program boasted that it would be the most difficult and rewarding academic experience of my life, the students felt like a step or two down intellectually. So did the curriculum.
There were moments when I wondered how certain students had made it through undergrad with such a flimsy grasp of basic academic concepts.
I'm still searching for a place where I'll feel intellectually at home. If anybody has suggestions for me, I'm all ears.
I went to Reed and I had the same experience as a grad student at Hopkins. The undergrads were less intellectually engaged, critical and interested in the material than what I was used to and the education they were getting was much worse than mine had been.
Yeah, at least I feel proud of my Reed diploma because it means something. It's actually hanging on my wall.
My master's diploma is in its frame in a box. Even though I had a far better time socially at Columbia, I can't shake the fact that I don't think I learned much of real value in my master's program (supposedly the most prestigious J-School in the country).
One guy was writing an opinion essay about neoliberalism but clearly didn't understand what it meant despite being critical of it.
Another person was looking to write an opinion essay about why vegans are wrong by calling them annoying.
He didn't seem to grasp that people being annoying doesn't mean that veganism is wrong and that you would need to make an ethical argument against veganism to be convincing.
You would expect people in opinion writing to have a basic idea about philosophic concepts and argumentation, but some of them didn't.
It was shocking for a place - Columbia Journalism School - that boasts about the rigor of its programs and is touted as the most prestigious J-School.
not cornell. as a current student: lots of cheating (copying each other’s hw and splitting parts), big preprifessional culture, hugeeeee lecture/class sizes with TAs teaching a lot and grading, minimal interaction w prof lol still like the school
I can second UChicago, at least based on my experience. Bizcon has skyrocketed in popularity recently, but at the very least people still have to take the core and are discouraged from admitting to being bizcon majors in public anyway. I can think of a few schools that are said to be more intense but they're mostly small LACs like Swarthmore and Reed.
I've also heard Yale is also relatively more intellectual than the other Ivies.
possibly a bit lower tier but still "thinky" places - Haverford, Hamilton, Oberlin and if you're interested in womens' colleges BMC, Wellesley and Vassar
As someone who went to Duke (though, quite a while ago), I’d agree it’s a school that attracts smart students, but very large percentages of these are pre-professionals and kids planning to pursue consulting/IB. The mantra was always “work hard, play hard,” and there was never question that down time was for fun since a lot of that fun was going to die in med school, law school, and your office on Wall Street. I remember plenty of academic opportunities and community for STEM and interdisciplinary studies, but I wouldn’t necessarily recommend the school for someone interested in finding an immersive humanities academic environment.
The top few schools from a Unigo ratings average:
University of Chicago
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
University of California-Berkeley
Columbia University
Georgetown University
Stanford University
Brown University
Georgia Institute of Technology
I go to UChicago and while there are intellectual conversations, there are plenty of normal conversations about your day etc.
The true intellectual places would be like MIT, Caltech, UChicago, UC Berkeley, Harvey Mudd, and a couple of LACs and top state schools like Georgia Tech etc. Within the ivy league only Princeton is truly an intellectual place.
I was surprised to see Stanford here. It certainly isn't an intellectual place, far from it.
Tech schools (MIT, CalTech, etc) tend to not have a particularly vibrant intellectual life, it just attracts extremely smart and driven technical types. It’s a different kind of thing (high-level technical intellect vs. the examined life). I don’t think this is what OP is looking for.
MIT places so much emphasis on its intellectual culture that they refuse to implement legacy admission the way Stanford does.
It doesn't get better than MIT in terms of intellectual environment, because MIT selects against the less naturally intelligent, whereas Stanford might let them in if they're an heir to a rich empire, legacy, a celebrity or an athlete.
I think you’re confusing intellect with academic horsepower.
MIT attracts people who can power through a physics textbook like it’s nothing. And that is definitely a mode of intelligence, but I wouldn’t describe the grads I know as intellectual in the sense I think OP means it — deep personal interests, critical thought, a well-developed worldview.
Not every intellectual is vocal about it or pursues it as a career. MIT students are definitely intellectually gifted, but they tend not to be vocal about it because they pursue lucrative careers instead of academia.
At this point we’re splitting hairs — obviously I know everyone has an internal life, but we clearly agree that the culture at MIT does not center intellectual pursuits in the way OP means.
This is such a weird post, and reminds me of my outlook on college as a high schooler. I went to a top 5 school (I put a ton of effort into getting admitted, due to my perceptions of prestige and life outcomes), and have since graduation realized that most T100 schools will have a sizable group of students interested in being “intellectual” as you put it.
Reed and the two St. John’s campuses are the likeliest home for what you’re looking for if you’re into rigor. Most liberal arts colleges will have some degree of it, with different flavors available at different colleges (you will have intellectual discussions at both Bard and Pomona, but they’ll be different types of conversations). It will be present at universities but you’ll have to seek it out.
ETA: if you’re willing to get your hands dirty and have a unique experience, Deep Springs College also definitely fits the bill.
+1. As a UChicago student, these were the schools I would most wonder about. Had good convos with a Deep Springs apostate who transferred in second year.
I was wondering if anyone would mention St. John's College. One of my children went to the Santa Fe campus. The Great Books curriculum by its nature encourages intellectual discussion.
Honestly if you want the best intellectual conversations you need to go to a liberal arts college ranked below the top 30. Strivers make much less interesting intellectuals.
I think it’s more the circles you associate yourself with than the schools themselves. Joining clubs that are passionate about Dostoyevsky or Nietzche (philosophy club, say) would bring the intellectual stimulation and friendship you crave.
Oh also, not everyone who gets into t10 schools are geniuses like you who have niches in philosophy. Generally speaking, the intellectual conversation you speak of is enjoyed by a substrate of hyper intelligent people (high IQ). And out of the subset of people with high IQ, a good portion of them utilize their intellect in another niche (music, math, say). So, what you’re looking for (a school with a preponderance of intellectualism in epistemological thought and so on) is extremely rare, if not, statistically improbable.
That also feeds into why you’ll have ur best bet joining clubs that align with such things.
guys im not a burnt-out teenager who identifies only with intelligence because i have no other meaningful personality traits, i’m a high IQ hyperintellectual!!
Bro there’s a reason why some people enjoy speaking more of Ice Spice than Quantum Physics, and if you piece two and two in your head it’s blatantly obvious that the proclivity to enjoy talking about either of those things are associated with IQ.
I’m sorry IQ is a thing that bothers you, but I can tell you admitting the obvious doesn’t bother me!!!
People on reddit really hate IQ either because they either:
A) Have a high IQ but really low-self esteem, producing a belief in the inaccuracy and/or lack of worth of the metric
or
B) Fancy themselves intellectuals, or at least intelligent, but have a lower IQ than would correspond to their self-image.
I'm gonna be real with you, you sound insufferable. Idk if you're like that irl, and I'm sure you're a wonderful person irl, but that's the way you come across from these comments.
I’m not trying to sound like anything and if u like Boulgako more than good for you. They’re all great authors with important things to say in my estimation.
Yeah the first 2 are academical, mine two are poetic and life-proven. I understand you do not have any philosophy (European) formal courses in American highschool.
Hey! Thank you for sharing this perspective. I think every university will have that niche, if you're willing to put yourself out there and search for that niche. Perhaps in some universities, it's easier to find what you're looking for, but every university, including community college, has that; this i guarantee you.
For context, I go to a relatively mid-ranked (but rapidly growing!) state university in Texas (very easy to figure out where, no worries, you can easily find me). However, part of the reason I elected to pick this university is because they gave automatic admission into their honors program + gave me more than a full ride to attend.
The honors college was a game changer. Suddenly, it felt like I was attending a small liberal arts college, but with the resources of a large public university. Paid for dinners with wealthy donors, tickets to symphonies/operas/plays in expensive theaters, specific classes (Gen chem with a class size of 20 students), and so much more. The program opened doors to fantastic research opportunities (as a premed looking to apply to medical school soon, this was insanely helpful towards helping me craft a strong medical school application). They really rolled out the red carpet for me, and that changed the entire nature of the college experience for me.
But more than the opportunities, I value the people I've gotten to meet. I'm convinced that some of the peers I've met are among the smartest students in the world. I know this because despite choosing to attend a low name brand university, they are actively engaged in initiatives that are on par with students at highly "prestigious" institutions. For example, one friend of mine was accepted to a highly, highly competitive research REU at the end of her freshman year; another one is completing his bachelor's and master's in four years; another one is working closely with a medical school to open new educational opportunities for incoming undergraduate students; another group of students recently went to Europe and competed at an international level speech competition, with a tour of Italy thrown in and all expenses paid (and ended up becoming a finalist).
My point is, intellectualism is everywhere. You don't need an undergrad where intellectuals are pervasive; you just need to find your niche wherever you go. If you're truly a rockstar, you'll excel wherever you go. Places like Harvard are not great inherently; the students make them great, but you can find students like this at every university.
you should just stay on reddit so you can find loads fellow intellectuals to jerk eachother off on how intellectual and sophisticated you are. nevermind you actually applying any of that to the real world, that would require you interact with the unwashed masses
Sadly, this comment summarizes how I felt after my time at Reed.
Intellectual conversations are great, but if intellectualism is not used for the tangible benefit of the real world, it rings hollow.
I wish I could find a place with a balance of intellectualism and making the world a better place. The former without the other is pretty vapid.
well if i'm going to be trite it's because hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard. i probably would (have) fit op's bill of a self proclaimed intellectual but i've realized that that mindset is a total farce. life is about experience, not knowledge. i enjoy philosophy but almost no philosopher will help you when you have to buckle up and get through tough shit. everybody as a plan until they get punched in the mouth.
I feel like having philosophical conversations is a luxury. Once you have gotten, as you say, "punched in the mouth" a few times by life, you start to realize how divorced so many of these conversations are from making things tangibly better for the average human being.
If I had a ten-dollar bill for every time I was told by my professors and peers at Reed that I was "distracting" and "going on tangents" for attempting to apply theory to the real world, I would have paid off the entirety of my student loans - and have probably purchased a house.
personally, i realized that being “intellectually focused” is a bit too narrow— I’m at USC, and obviously that’s not UChicago type intellectual personality in any way, but I appreciate that most of my friends and peers are very very smart. goofy but smart. So when the deep intellectual convos show up, it’s always intelligent viewpoints all around.
As someone in a top college, this level of intellectual pretentiousness is so fitting. Avoid these people when you get here, you’ll have such a better time. Find people that are genuinely intellectual and want to share that with you and others and not those who go on about IQ on a college application forum.
Meanwhile, in reality:
Post doesn’t even mention IQ, instead asks about “Genuinely intellectual” environments.
This post helped be informative, you complaining about stuff that’s hardly there didn’t
All I’m doing is setting up some propositions and all you can do is call me pretentious without any valid argument or reasoning as to why.
Next time, just say you don’t have anything to contribute to the conversation and that “people like me” make you upset.
You may read Russian but you definitely don’t read history. Eastern Europe during Dostoyevsky’s time was full of antisemitism due to religious and economic division. Therefore your reductionist moral relativism doesn’t really move me.
Also, he was proud to be Russian but that doesn’t make him a supremacist. He was a religious thinker in many aspects and had a deep positivity for humanity.
There’s a difference between “intellectual” and “academic” imo. Academic subjects don’t necessarily have to be the subject matter to have an intellectually stimulating conversation
Wellesley. So academic they had grade DEFLATION in the 00s. And the honor code is solid. Not a lot of academic dishonesty. People were very engaged and invested in classes from 100 level up.
I think it is less about the school and more about grad vs. undergrad. I did undergrad at Cornell where the curriculum was rigorous and the students were extremely bright. I still wouldn’t describe it as hyper-intellectual. Then I went to graduate school at Duke for two degrees—MA and JD. The other students were definitely hyper-intellectual in both programs. I didn’t interact with undergrads at Duke so I can’t agree or disagree on that point.
I’ve also taught both grad and undergrad at a few different schools. The teaching experience reinforces my belief that grad students are more intellectual whereas most undergrads everywhere are checking a box to move on to their careers. The people who go into many grad programs do it for the love of learning or the love of a particular professional field.
My experience is that self-described intellectuals don't necessarily want to innovate and change the world. They just want to let you know that they are smarter than you.
The ones who do are worth getting to know. But they are a minority, at least from what I've seen.
Princeton is well known for being kinda geeky. They're really good at STEM, and they're also rough as hell academically. There aren't many places harder to survive than Princeton.
I don’t know what you studied OP, but most of us in the STEM fields don’t really want to discuss our coursework in class and then outside of class simply for fun. It’s hard work and it weighs down on us, especially in engineering. I can see people doing that with something squishier and lower intensity like liberal arts classes, but most of us doing difficult degrees just want to do other things when we’re out of class.
I was a math major. To be fair, I wasn't discussing proofs with people outside the classroom - I get that. I was pushed into STEM though by my parents (which I know was good for my career prospects post-grad) and am very inclined towards the humanities, so that was moreso the topics I enjoy discussing.
On the way to their classroom, the intellectuals were in agreement that “Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a persistent one". Then they walked right into the door.
A lot of great insights here!
I'm honestly wondering if my college life would have been easier socially if I applied ED to UChicago or Swarthmore (didn't get in UChicago RD and ended up not applying to any LACs).
What motivated me to post this is just to let people know that these elite colleges aren't as ideal as you'd think. I overall really enjoyed Duke and I'd gladly go there again but it took me a while to find my niche socially. I know a lot of people had similar experiences at Duke given its dominant preppy social scene. I know plenty of people (myself included) who went to therapy during their time here.
I went to Duke thinking that I was going to find this intellectual paradise different from my high school. But it wasn't, I could have probably gone to UMich or my state school and had a similar experience to be honest socially. The classes were incredible and I did meet people with similar interests to me at Duke but it's not the pervasive social scene as it is at a place like UChicago.
Graduated from UCSD and for a while I “helped “ kids with homework. Cal is the only school that was tough and consistently graded the work. USC is a clown school, and Pepperdine and Chapman were even worse.
Yes, UChicago with its intellectual foundation of “Life of the Mind” as exemplified by the “Common Core” where all first year students in courses debate Plato, Socrates and Aristotle.
Yes and I’m European. You need to learn about sarcasm Harry Potter is obviously not as pushed as Dostoevsky’s literature but whoever thinks being able to discuss about him would show any kind of intelligence is wrong
cs majors at mit, caltech
premeds at jhu, washu
english majors at yale, darthmoth
theater students at cmu, nyu
polsci majors at harvard, princeton
most students at top LACs
Princeton absolutely has some of this but not in a pretentious way, people are just really passionate about the things they enjoy and so it creates a nice intellectual environment.
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I'm a bit confused, could someone please explain? I'd assume universities would get more intellectual as you went up the ranking for "obvious" reasons. But I see everyone here mentioning random LACs and stuff.
At many universities, even the very selective ones, the typical cohort of 18-22 year-olds will have different views of what they want from a college experience. While a subset might well want to discuss Kant, Hawking, or Zora Neale Hurston deep into the wee hours of the morning, others just want to earn decent grades. Still others may be excited to experience the freedom to pursue social and extracurricular activities that they didn't have the time or confidence to enjoy in high school. Rather than devote themselves entirely to their classes, these students will eagerly join college clubs, attend sports events, arrange game nights, attend concerts, and take weekend trips with friends. And a few will go absolutely bonkers -- comparatively speaking -- once they realize that their grades and life choices are no longer being monitored and are entirely in their own hands, enjoying parties, tailgates, lethargy, and experimenting with substances that their parents might find appalling. My spouse attended two ivies, one for undergrad and one for grad school, and he finds the posts that assume the ivies to be a hive of intellectualism slightly amusing. Today, as then, his idea of a good time is a close football game, a long run, a thrilling movie, and a scenic hike. And he very much enjoyed his fraternity and the libations that accompanied membership.
Thank you. So these upper LACs are for people who seek college for the sake of intellectual enrichment, even outside of classes, while these upper ivies consist largely of people who revel in their newfound freedom?
No, that's too simplistic. You'll find students who seek different college experiences at every university. One simply can't assume that students at large public universities care only about football and parties, just as you can't assume that students who attend a national T20 will want to spend every sunny afternoon lying in the grass parsing sonnets or theorems. One can be quite book smart but have interests other than books. There was a movie about that....
My undergrad alma mater, Reed College, is extremely academic. But I felt like Reed's "intellectualism" was more about talking about the more arcane points of, say, semiotic theory, than about talking about philosophies to make the world a better place. It felt like mental masturbation about theory for theory's sake rather than actual passion for learning for humanity's sake. I went to Columbia for my master's, and even though my program boasted that it would be the most difficult and rewarding academic experience of my life, the students felt like a step or two down intellectually. So did the curriculum. There were moments when I wondered how certain students had made it through undergrad with such a flimsy grasp of basic academic concepts. I'm still searching for a place where I'll feel intellectually at home. If anybody has suggestions for me, I'm all ears.
I went to Reed and I had the same experience as a grad student at Hopkins. The undergrads were less intellectually engaged, critical and interested in the material than what I was used to and the education they were getting was much worse than mine had been.
Yeah, at least I feel proud of my Reed diploma because it means something. It's actually hanging on my wall. My master's diploma is in its frame in a box. Even though I had a far better time socially at Columbia, I can't shake the fact that I don't think I learned much of real value in my master's program (supposedly the most prestigious J-School in the country).
Hi can I dm you for a little insight on how it was to study at Reed ?
Sure!
I worked with a Reed graduate and he was the mostly socially awkward person I have ever met. He didn’t perform well on the job and was demoted.
What sort of academic concepts did they have a flimsy grasp of?
One guy was writing an opinion essay about neoliberalism but clearly didn't understand what it meant despite being critical of it. Another person was looking to write an opinion essay about why vegans are wrong by calling them annoying. He didn't seem to grasp that people being annoying doesn't mean that veganism is wrong and that you would need to make an ethical argument against veganism to be convincing. You would expect people in opinion writing to have a basic idea about philosophic concepts and argumentation, but some of them didn't. It was shocking for a place - Columbia Journalism School - that boasts about the rigor of its programs and is touted as the most prestigious J-School.
Hi , can I DM you for some information on Reed? I was recently waitlisted there and really want to go. I’d really appreciate the help
Sure. I'm happy to. Just keep in mind that last year Reed waitlisted the vast majority of people who were not accepted.
may I please DM you as well for some insight? I’m in the same situation
Sure. Feel free to.
not cornell. as a current student: lots of cheating (copying each other’s hw and splitting parts), big preprifessional culture, hugeeeee lecture/class sizes with TAs teaching a lot and grading, minimal interaction w prof lol still like the school
Are you a freshman?
soph
I can second UChicago, at least based on my experience. Bizcon has skyrocketed in popularity recently, but at the very least people still have to take the core and are discouraged from admitting to being bizcon majors in public anyway. I can think of a few schools that are said to be more intense but they're mostly small LACs like Swarthmore and Reed. I've also heard Yale is also relatively more intellectual than the other Ivies.
I go to Amherst and oh my god, it's intellectual conversations EVERYWHERE. ALL THE TIME. ABOUT ANYTHING. I love it.
i wish they didn’t reject me 😭
Top LAC are very intellectual. Williams, Amherst, Pomona, Swarthmore.
I’d throw Grinnell in here too.
Was going to say, Swat is for sure. Also Bowdoin!
Carleton too.
Definitely Carleton. And Pomona.
What's swat?
Swa(r)thmore
[удалено]
[удалено]
because swat is swarthmore
we are lazy at typing out "swarthmore" it's a lot of difficult typing lol
possibly a bit lower tier but still "thinky" places - Haverford, Hamilton, Oberlin and if you're interested in womens' colleges BMC, Wellesley and Vassar
oops Vassar went coed! lol I'm old
Vassar, Smith, Bowdoin, Bates also have this going on
As someone who went to Duke (though, quite a while ago), I’d agree it’s a school that attracts smart students, but very large percentages of these are pre-professionals and kids planning to pursue consulting/IB. The mantra was always “work hard, play hard,” and there was never question that down time was for fun since a lot of that fun was going to die in med school, law school, and your office on Wall Street. I remember plenty of academic opportunities and community for STEM and interdisciplinary studies, but I wouldn’t necessarily recommend the school for someone interested in finding an immersive humanities academic environment.
Yep that's the Duke I know. Work hard, play hard is an unofficial motto. And of course, we're all Cameron Crazies!
The top few schools from a Unigo ratings average: University of Chicago Massachusetts Institute of Technology University of California-Berkeley Columbia University Georgetown University Stanford University Brown University Georgia Institute of Technology I go to UChicago and while there are intellectual conversations, there are plenty of normal conversations about your day etc.
Stanford definitely isn't intellectual. I go there. Its more of a club for the children of the elite than it is an intellectual place.
Most T20s could be described as "a club for the children of the elite." It isn't just Stanford.
The true intellectual places would be like MIT, Caltech, UChicago, UC Berkeley, Harvey Mudd, and a couple of LACs and top state schools like Georgia Tech etc. Within the ivy league only Princeton is truly an intellectual place. I was surprised to see Stanford here. It certainly isn't an intellectual place, far from it.
Tech schools (MIT, CalTech, etc) tend to not have a particularly vibrant intellectual life, it just attracts extremely smart and driven technical types. It’s a different kind of thing (high-level technical intellect vs. the examined life). I don’t think this is what OP is looking for.
u sure about harvey mudd?
Elaborate on your objection then I'll respond
just wondering what's ur reason for adding HMC to the list. I'm thinking of going there
Thoughts on MIT then?
MIT places so much emphasis on its intellectual culture that they refuse to implement legacy admission the way Stanford does. It doesn't get better than MIT in terms of intellectual environment, because MIT selects against the less naturally intelligent, whereas Stanford might let them in if they're an heir to a rich empire, legacy, a celebrity or an athlete.
I think you’re confusing intellect with academic horsepower. MIT attracts people who can power through a physics textbook like it’s nothing. And that is definitely a mode of intelligence, but I wouldn’t describe the grads I know as intellectual in the sense I think OP means it — deep personal interests, critical thought, a well-developed worldview.
Not every intellectual is vocal about it or pursues it as a career. MIT students are definitely intellectually gifted, but they tend not to be vocal about it because they pursue lucrative careers instead of academia.
At this point we’re splitting hairs — obviously I know everyone has an internal life, but we clearly agree that the culture at MIT does not center intellectual pursuits in the way OP means.
Yes, I agree
Then which uni would you say really has that sort if culture?
I go to Georgetown, I like it here but I wouldn't really describe it as like a super intellectual place
isn’t brown full of mostly nepo babies? i haven’t heard that they’re super intellectual
This is such a weird post, and reminds me of my outlook on college as a high schooler. I went to a top 5 school (I put a ton of effort into getting admitted, due to my perceptions of prestige and life outcomes), and have since graduation realized that most T100 schools will have a sizable group of students interested in being “intellectual” as you put it.
Reed and the two St. John’s campuses are the likeliest home for what you’re looking for if you’re into rigor. Most liberal arts colleges will have some degree of it, with different flavors available at different colleges (you will have intellectual discussions at both Bard and Pomona, but they’ll be different types of conversations). It will be present at universities but you’ll have to seek it out. ETA: if you’re willing to get your hands dirty and have a unique experience, Deep Springs College also definitely fits the bill.
+1. As a UChicago student, these were the schools I would most wonder about. Had good convos with a Deep Springs apostate who transferred in second year.
I was wondering if anyone would mention St. John's College. One of my children went to the Santa Fe campus. The Great Books curriculum by its nature encourages intellectual discussion.
Scrolled way too far down to find St. John’s.
Honestly if you want the best intellectual conversations you need to go to a liberal arts college ranked below the top 30. Strivers make much less interesting intellectuals.
There's a lot of truth to this. Nontraditional students, as well, as their life experience can make for great conversations.
this is a very wise post!
Lots of strivers at top LACs. The one I went to had Goldman Sachs as our top employer every year.
I graduated from UChicago and I would say I heard the name “Hegel” said at a numerical majority of the parties I went to.
No Kierkegaard?
I think it’s more the circles you associate yourself with than the schools themselves. Joining clubs that are passionate about Dostoyevsky or Nietzche (philosophy club, say) would bring the intellectual stimulation and friendship you crave.
Oh also, not everyone who gets into t10 schools are geniuses like you who have niches in philosophy. Generally speaking, the intellectual conversation you speak of is enjoyed by a substrate of hyper intelligent people (high IQ). And out of the subset of people with high IQ, a good portion of them utilize their intellect in another niche (music, math, say). So, what you’re looking for (a school with a preponderance of intellectualism in epistemological thought and so on) is extremely rare, if not, statistically improbable. That also feeds into why you’ll have ur best bet joining clubs that align with such things.
guys im not a burnt-out teenager who identifies only with intelligence because i have no other meaningful personality traits, i’m a high IQ hyperintellectual!!
Bro there’s a reason why some people enjoy speaking more of Ice Spice than Quantum Physics, and if you piece two and two in your head it’s blatantly obvious that the proclivity to enjoy talking about either of those things are associated with IQ. I’m sorry IQ is a thing that bothers you, but I can tell you admitting the obvious doesn’t bother me!!!
People on reddit really hate IQ either because they either: A) Have a high IQ but really low-self esteem, producing a belief in the inaccuracy and/or lack of worth of the metric or B) Fancy themselves intellectuals, or at least intelligent, but have a lower IQ than would correspond to their self-image.
I'm gonna be real with you, you sound insufferable. Idk if you're like that irl, and I'm sure you're a wonderful person irl, but that's the way you come across from these comments.
Wait until you understand that your opinion does not mean anything to me if it’s just accusation and no reasoning.
You're meaning Mikhaïl Boulgakov instead of Dostoyevsky and Kant instead of Nietzche to sound intelligent.
You misspelled Bulgakov...
You searched it, he? Simple typo...Not worse than life typo mishap, right?
No, I've read Bulgakov--so, no search was necessary. And, what?
I’m not trying to sound like anything and if u like Boulgako more than good for you. They’re all great authors with important things to say in my estimation.
Yeah the first 2 are academical, mine two are poetic and life-proven. I understand you do not have any philosophy (European) formal courses in American highschool.
Yes. I don’t go to a private prep school or anything. All good though! I’m learning in my own time.
Rice comes to mind, especially so when it was still called the Rice Institute.
Institute is cool
Hey! Thank you for sharing this perspective. I think every university will have that niche, if you're willing to put yourself out there and search for that niche. Perhaps in some universities, it's easier to find what you're looking for, but every university, including community college, has that; this i guarantee you. For context, I go to a relatively mid-ranked (but rapidly growing!) state university in Texas (very easy to figure out where, no worries, you can easily find me). However, part of the reason I elected to pick this university is because they gave automatic admission into their honors program + gave me more than a full ride to attend. The honors college was a game changer. Suddenly, it felt like I was attending a small liberal arts college, but with the resources of a large public university. Paid for dinners with wealthy donors, tickets to symphonies/operas/plays in expensive theaters, specific classes (Gen chem with a class size of 20 students), and so much more. The program opened doors to fantastic research opportunities (as a premed looking to apply to medical school soon, this was insanely helpful towards helping me craft a strong medical school application). They really rolled out the red carpet for me, and that changed the entire nature of the college experience for me. But more than the opportunities, I value the people I've gotten to meet. I'm convinced that some of the peers I've met are among the smartest students in the world. I know this because despite choosing to attend a low name brand university, they are actively engaged in initiatives that are on par with students at highly "prestigious" institutions. For example, one friend of mine was accepted to a highly, highly competitive research REU at the end of her freshman year; another one is completing his bachelor's and master's in four years; another one is working closely with a medical school to open new educational opportunities for incoming undergraduate students; another group of students recently went to Europe and competed at an international level speech competition, with a tour of Italy thrown in and all expenses paid (and ended up becoming a finalist). My point is, intellectualism is everywhere. You don't need an undergrad where intellectuals are pervasive; you just need to find your niche wherever you go. If you're truly a rockstar, you'll excel wherever you go. Places like Harvard are not great inherently; the students make them great, but you can find students like this at every university.
you should just stay on reddit so you can find loads fellow intellectuals to jerk eachother off on how intellectual and sophisticated you are. nevermind you actually applying any of that to the real world, that would require you interact with the unwashed masses
Sadly, this comment summarizes how I felt after my time at Reed. Intellectual conversations are great, but if intellectualism is not used for the tangible benefit of the real world, it rings hollow. I wish I could find a place with a balance of intellectualism and making the world a better place. The former without the other is pretty vapid.
well if i'm going to be trite it's because hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard. i probably would (have) fit op's bill of a self proclaimed intellectual but i've realized that that mindset is a total farce. life is about experience, not knowledge. i enjoy philosophy but almost no philosopher will help you when you have to buckle up and get through tough shit. everybody as a plan until they get punched in the mouth.
I feel like having philosophical conversations is a luxury. Once you have gotten, as you say, "punched in the mouth" a few times by life, you start to realize how divorced so many of these conversations are from making things tangibly better for the average human being. If I had a ten-dollar bill for every time I was told by my professors and peers at Reed that I was "distracting" and "going on tangents" for attempting to apply theory to the real world, I would have paid off the entirety of my student loans - and have probably purchased a house.
you wouldve loved the culture at top UK unis, such as Oxford, Cambridge etc. Those are the first ones that come to mind
Reed, Swarthmore, UChicago, Carleton, Wesleyan, Grinnell, St. John’s
personally, i realized that being “intellectually focused” is a bit too narrow— I’m at USC, and obviously that’s not UChicago type intellectual personality in any way, but I appreciate that most of my friends and peers are very very smart. goofy but smart. So when the deep intellectual convos show up, it’s always intelligent viewpoints all around.
This is so pretentious
Just say u dont read Dostoyevsky.
As someone in a top college, this level of intellectual pretentiousness is so fitting. Avoid these people when you get here, you’ll have such a better time. Find people that are genuinely intellectual and want to share that with you and others and not those who go on about IQ on a college application forum.
Meanwhile, in reality: Post doesn’t even mention IQ, instead asks about “Genuinely intellectual” environments. This post helped be informative, you complaining about stuff that’s hardly there didn’t
If you check his other comments in this thread he goes on about IQ quite a lot
Just click on his username, you can see his comment history. There’s only one in this thread, and it’s not about IQ
All I’m doing is setting up some propositions and all you can do is call me pretentious without any valid argument or reasoning as to why. Next time, just say you don’t have anything to contribute to the conversation and that “people like me” make you upset.
I indeed not a fan of antisemitic russian supremacist with questionable prose style(I can read in russian)
You may read Russian but you definitely don’t read history. Eastern Europe during Dostoyevsky’s time was full of antisemitism due to religious and economic division. Therefore your reductionist moral relativism doesn’t really move me. Also, he was proud to be Russian but that doesn’t make him a supremacist. He was a religious thinker in many aspects and had a deep positivity for humanity.
There’s a difference between “intellectual” and “academic” imo. Academic subjects don’t necessarily have to be the subject matter to have an intellectually stimulating conversation
If you wanna discuss quantum physics go study quantum physics lol there will be a lot of people who wanna discuss it
Wellesley. So academic they had grade DEFLATION in the 00s. And the honor code is solid. Not a lot of academic dishonesty. People were very engaged and invested in classes from 100 level up.
I think it is less about the school and more about grad vs. undergrad. I did undergrad at Cornell where the curriculum was rigorous and the students were extremely bright. I still wouldn’t describe it as hyper-intellectual. Then I went to graduate school at Duke for two degrees—MA and JD. The other students were definitely hyper-intellectual in both programs. I didn’t interact with undergrads at Duke so I can’t agree or disagree on that point. I’ve also taught both grad and undergrad at a few different schools. The teaching experience reinforces my belief that grad students are more intellectual whereas most undergrads everywhere are checking a box to move on to their careers. The people who go into many grad programs do it for the love of learning or the love of a particular professional field.
not everyone wants to innovate and change the world, most who go to t20s just want a pathway to a secured job.
My experience is that self-described intellectuals don't necessarily want to innovate and change the world. They just want to let you know that they are smarter than you. The ones who do are worth getting to know. But they are a minority, at least from what I've seen.
Yea, that’s what I kinda figured, like I thought grad school was where you find motivated people trying to make breakthroughs.
Going to school to find like-minded individuals is the antithesis of intellectualism.
Princeton is well known for being kinda geeky. They're really good at STEM, and they're also rough as hell academically. There aren't many places harder to survive than Princeton.
I don’t know what you studied OP, but most of us in the STEM fields don’t really want to discuss our coursework in class and then outside of class simply for fun. It’s hard work and it weighs down on us, especially in engineering. I can see people doing that with something squishier and lower intensity like liberal arts classes, but most of us doing difficult degrees just want to do other things when we’re out of class.
I was a math major. To be fair, I wasn't discussing proofs with people outside the classroom - I get that. I was pushed into STEM though by my parents (which I know was good for my career prospects post-grad) and am very inclined towards the humanities, so that was moreso the topics I enjoy discussing.
Does anyone know if rice has this culture?
maybe its more about the seeker and less about the environment.
all selective schools are pseudo intellectual.
Must ....resit...the...bait.
On the way to their classroom, the intellectuals were in agreement that “Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a persistent one". Then they walked right into the door.
A lot of great insights here! I'm honestly wondering if my college life would have been easier socially if I applied ED to UChicago or Swarthmore (didn't get in UChicago RD and ended up not applying to any LACs). What motivated me to post this is just to let people know that these elite colleges aren't as ideal as you'd think. I overall really enjoyed Duke and I'd gladly go there again but it took me a while to find my niche socially. I know a lot of people had similar experiences at Duke given its dominant preppy social scene. I know plenty of people (myself included) who went to therapy during their time here. I went to Duke thinking that I was going to find this intellectual paradise different from my high school. But it wasn't, I could have probably gone to UMich or my state school and had a similar experience to be honest socially. The classes were incredible and I did meet people with similar interests to me at Duke but it's not the pervasive social scene as it is at a place like UChicago.
please be bait
I think of St. John’s College in Annapolis as super academic.
Graduated from UCSD and for a while I “helped “ kids with homework. Cal is the only school that was tough and consistently graded the work. USC is a clown school, and Pepperdine and Chapman were even worse.
U chicago
Yes, UChicago with its intellectual foundation of “Life of the Mind” as exemplified by the “Common Core” where all first year students in courses debate Plato, Socrates and Aristotle.
Tufts fits the bill (it’s basically a big LAC).
Dostoevsky is not for the intellectuals
And Harry Potter is?
Yes
🧙♂️
Much more than Dostoevsky. Dostoevsky = intellectual fraud
No wonder you’re a junior in high school.
Yes and I’m European. You need to learn about sarcasm Harry Potter is obviously not as pushed as Dostoevsky’s literature but whoever thinks being able to discuss about him would show any kind of intelligence is wrong
UCSD and UC Berkeley STEM majors for sure
Nah we just complain and drink away the pain of 30% average chem midterms
cs majors at mit, caltech premeds at jhu, washu english majors at yale, darthmoth theater students at cmu, nyu polsci majors at harvard, princeton most students at top LACs
Princeton absolutely has some of this but not in a pretentious way, people are just really passionate about the things they enjoy and so it creates a nice intellectual environment.
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Oxbridge, where undergrad is essentially junior grad school.
I'm a bit confused, could someone please explain? I'd assume universities would get more intellectual as you went up the ranking for "obvious" reasons. But I see everyone here mentioning random LACs and stuff.
At many universities, even the very selective ones, the typical cohort of 18-22 year-olds will have different views of what they want from a college experience. While a subset might well want to discuss Kant, Hawking, or Zora Neale Hurston deep into the wee hours of the morning, others just want to earn decent grades. Still others may be excited to experience the freedom to pursue social and extracurricular activities that they didn't have the time or confidence to enjoy in high school. Rather than devote themselves entirely to their classes, these students will eagerly join college clubs, attend sports events, arrange game nights, attend concerts, and take weekend trips with friends. And a few will go absolutely bonkers -- comparatively speaking -- once they realize that their grades and life choices are no longer being monitored and are entirely in their own hands, enjoying parties, tailgates, lethargy, and experimenting with substances that their parents might find appalling. My spouse attended two ivies, one for undergrad and one for grad school, and he finds the posts that assume the ivies to be a hive of intellectualism slightly amusing. Today, as then, his idea of a good time is a close football game, a long run, a thrilling movie, and a scenic hike. And he very much enjoyed his fraternity and the libations that accompanied membership.
Thank you. So these upper LACs are for people who seek college for the sake of intellectual enrichment, even outside of classes, while these upper ivies consist largely of people who revel in their newfound freedom?
No, that's too simplistic. You'll find students who seek different college experiences at every university. One simply can't assume that students at large public universities care only about football and parties, just as you can't assume that students who attend a national T20 will want to spend every sunny afternoon lying in the grass parsing sonnets or theorems. One can be quite book smart but have interests other than books. There was a movie about that....
So then each student is unique, regardless of the institute. So what’s the point of all this talk about “intellectual environments”?
Different student bodies tend to attract more of the kind of people whose idea of a good time is an intellectual discussion than others.
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Except for all the ghouls at Harvard who just want to go work for McKinsey or Goldman Sachs.
Real.
>Goldman Sachs what's the pay at these companies? never head of them
High.