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The University of Chicago

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Date: Jul 26 2004
Major: Anthropology (This Major's Salary over time)
I attended the University of Chicago from 1993 to winter 1995. Although I made the dean's list during my second year; I was miserable, sleep-deprived, and socially isolated the entire time. I eventually withdrew because of increasingly severe depression.

There is no question that many students who attened the University of Chicago found it to be a very worthwhile experience. I would like to be as helpful as possible to students considering this school, and so I will try to briefly outline some concerns I have about it. They may or may not apply to you.

1. The college culture puts a great deal of pressure on incoming students to give up any non-academic passions they might have. I found it very hard to see each new crop of fresh-faced and often funny teenagers turn into pedantic grinds—often in a matter of months.

2. I have been out of college for some time, and have men a number of people from different social classes. With rare exceptions, the professors and upperclassmen at the University of Chicago were the most arrogant and self-absorbed people I have every met. If you value intellectual humility, you will be miserable at Chicago.

3. "Critical Thinking" is really just a code for "creative regurgitation" of a professor's own opinions. If you are the type of person who takes the subject more seriously than the class, you will not do well.

4. If you do not intend to be a specialist in a field, you will likely get second class treatment. I lacked the background for the honors mathematics sequence, and was forced into the purgatorial 150 calculus sequence. It was taught by a contemptuous foreign grad student who used foreign notation and mocked students who asked questions. I got good grades somehow, but learned nothing.

I've made a lot of very poor decisions in my life, and attending Chicago ranks among the worst.

I suppose I should point out that I'm not just an anti-intellectual nitwit. I'm a nut for transcendental idealism and mathematical foundations, and I'm studying set theory independently and enjoying *A Critique of Pure Reason* more than anything I've read in a while.

I'm sorry to say I wasn't introduced to either of these beautiful fields at Chicago.

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