Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2019 February 18

= February 18 =

Class system in US universities
In this article, Hikaru Nakamura says "The thing I disliked most about college was it felt like there was a class system. Growing up in the chess world, your age, background, ethnicity—none of these things mattered. It was just about how good you were. For me, the fact that being older in college, meant you were viewed as more important. I strongly disliked that." How real is this picture for the US? In Australia, I don't think it compares - it doesn't seem to matter too much how old you are, although, when I was younger, I felt the older students knew more, and shut me out a tiny bit because I was young and immature, and then when I was older, the younger ones shut me out a bit because I was old and uncool. But this hardly equates to a class system. What is it like in the States?? IBE (talk) 09:34, 18 February 2019 (UTC)
 * It's called Ageism. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 11:48, 18 February 2019 (UTC)
 * It's been said that, although Australia is promoted as a classless society, if you look closely you can discern three classes - lower middle, middle and upper middle.  The situation in America is explained here . 2A00:23A8:4015:F500:890F:6145:E7B2:A97D (talk) 14:50, 18 February 2019 (UTC)
 * In universities, there are classes based on students who are there because their parents paid for it, students who spent time and effort getting scholarships (academic or sports) and want to do well, and students (usually older) who are paying for it themselves and want to get value for their money. It should be obvious that the motivation behind being a university student is different for these classes. There are attributes common to one class, but not common to another. For example, you will find very few (if any) students over the age of 30 who are in college because their parents are paying for it or they are on a scholarship. So, they are ones who are paying for it themselves and have a monetary incentive to do well. 209.149.113.5 (talk) 19:28, 18 February 2019 (UTC)


 * As a microcosm of broader society, you will find that any “class” structure that exists in a broader society (be it divided by aristocratic status, economic status, racial status, etc) will also be present in that society’s universities.  The US is no exception.  But that isn’t what the OP is talking about.  He is talking about the internal social divide between Freshmen, Sophomores, Juniors and Seniors... that Seniors seem to be higher on the social pecking order than Freshmen. Blueboar (talk) 20:18, 18 February 2019 (UTC)


 * There are clearly huge "class" differences between the universities themselves. College tuition reaches from 5000$ to 70 000$. Naturally this generates a blueprint on the students and many will see themselves as higher class just by studying on a very expensive private university. However that is something general, where ever private schools are available, nothing unique to the States. --Kharon (talk) 20:54, 18 February 2019 (UTC)
 * No, Blueboar: not the divide according to academic year. Nakamura (the interviewee in the article I linked) is talking about being older when he started, a mature age entrant, although I think not particularly old when he started. So I'm wondering what is going on, regarding the apparent prestige of mature age entrants. It certainly wasn't a big thing when I was there, and certainly wasn't unidirectional (older equals better). IBE (talk) 08:29, 19 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Do you have some other source which clarifies what he meant? Because going solely from the source you linked above, it's not clear to me that Blueboar was wrong. I'm particularly confused about the bit about Nakamura being older or mature age when he started. According to [//www.nytimes.com/2007/01/07/crosswords/chess/07chess.html], Nakamura started college in 2006. This would be, from our article Hikaru Nakamura, when he was 18 going on 19. (This also concurs with our article which says he was in the class of 2010.) AFAIK, this is either the same age, or only one year older then nearly everyone else [//heri.ucla.edu/PDFs/40TrendsManuscript.pdf]. P.S. Of course the ability to buy alcohol legally will probably mean that anyone 21 or older would likely hold a special place in the hearts of their peers under that age, but that's not something that ever seems to have applied to Nakamura in college. P.P.S. It's perhaps worth remembering that Nakamura never got past being a lowly "freshman". Actually he never got past being a lowly first semester "freshman". So there's a fair chance it's his only real experience although frankly from all I've seen, heard and read of it, admittedly a fair amount is fiction, the US norms seem wacky anyway. IMO their Fraternities and sororities don't help. P.P.P.S. It's worth noting that per the interview and [//www.riverfronttimes.com/stlouis/hikaru-nakamura-is-the-next-bobby-fischer-and-the-reason-st-louis-is-suddenly-the-epicenter-of-american-chess/Content?oid=2494966], Nakamura was homeschooled from grade 5. This is likely to have limited his exposure to the weirdness of the social pecking order that seems to exist in US educational institutions (and other things ) since again from what I've read, seen and heard, a lot of it fiction, it seems to be ever present in their high schools too. Nil Einne (talk) 19:36, 19 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Ok, I see what you are saying. Thanks for checking those references. It still sounds to me like he isn't talking about being a freshman/sophomore etc, but that's just my reading of it. He says: " For me, the fact that being older in college, meant you were viewed as more important." That could mean, he is talking about other people, and the "for me" bit is just because it is a spoken interview. That's just my reading; I can't prove it. Sorry to Blueboar, you might be right. To me, it seems strange if there is a pecking order based on your academic year, because then you are not in the same classes anyway, so you wouldn't notice so much of that. In Australia, many lecturers seem to prefer teaching higher years, because they get students who have chosen to specialise (rather than doing a generic first year "101" course. Even so, you don't actually see it or feel it so much, because it isn't within your own group. But I'm not exactly sure of this. IBE (talk) 00:17, 20 February 2019 (UTC)
 * I agree with Blueboar's and Nil's interpretation. People with seniority often look down on the junior types. The same thing occurs in all kinds of other institutions; the only thing that changes is how it's expressed/tolerated. You can talk about "fresh fish" on their first day of prison or "minor niners" starting high school or "frosh" starting college and on and on. Depending on the culture, this may get expressed as good-natured ribbing, as microaggressions, or even as hazing. See also rankism. Matt Deres (talk) 14:05, 20 February 2019 (UTC)
 * The female student body seems to like you more for no reason when you're slightly older.. Any part of the curriculum you learnt in gap year(s) can help you at least as many seconds as it took to learn it. Whether it's teaching yourself most of a bachelors from the books, notes, lecture mp3s etc. of an older sibling who saved EVERYTHING to just reading articles that look extremely curriculumish on purpose like list of logical fallacies, to reading WP for fun, saving enough of these seconds can let you have some combination of getting to learn more than 40 classes in 4 years without being exhausted, only having to learn ~9.x classes a year (you can skip classes like history 101 or art 101 with tests), higher average college fun (from testing out of the classes you'd find most tedious or uninteresting) or at least higher grades from having less to memorize or not getting higher grades but not needing to study quite 3 times your class hours. If 18-year old you also likes useless hobbies (like watching sports or "studying" excessively parochial geography or pop songs) or developing useless or jack-of-all-trades skills like video games, wit, chess, flinging iPhone between your hands without looking, spitting mph, reliably hitting paper baskets overhand and under from 20 feet, walking at a steady pace while throwing a ball as high as you can from a cubit in front of your spleen without being unable to make it reliably come back down a cubit in front of your spleen, making dubstep with your mouth, golf, paintball, making out with a new girl every few months etc. then waiting will satiate some of that giving you less distractions. After all, you'll lose some interest when your chess skills don't increase as fast as when your rating was lower etc. etc. That said even if you're wealthy enough to not be financially hurt by resume gaps I still don't think it's worth it to delay college more than about a year. Gap year seems to agree. If you wait more than 4 or 5 years like me you'll miss some of the fun and shared life experiences from being the same age. Learning new things even becomes less fun when you're older so you might as well do the boring required classes early while your brain is still more like a sponge. That doesn't mean rush, you have enough time to finish a bucket list while you can still feel 18 without rushing, live normally, just don't think having more cool stories and factoids to tell people when you're a freshman at 25 or 30 is worth delaying college (and income). If you haven't traveled overseas before like me you will never have more fun touring the world than doing it without parents at 18. If I knew the future I'd have done that, though I couldn't afford much beyond "fly to Shanghai, ride maglev, fly back". Meet someone you love enough to want to marry around 30, they'll make you forget about getting old. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 07:38, 21 February 2019 (UTC)