Talk:Graduate school
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Page Braggartly?
Does anyone else find this page to be just a little too pompous? I have no problem with the individual people posting their locations (I am personally interested in knowing geographically where people are going to be), but the idea of such a wikipedia page existing makes Williams students seem awfully conceited. Isn't this page no more than a self-congratulatory slap on the back? I am proud of the fact that we have extraordinarily smart people at this college, and feel privileged to know them, but I think this page serves simply as excessive bragging. Why not start a page called "Ephs making over $50,000 next year"? Can someone tell me what the point of the page is if not to trumpet one's intellectual prowess?
Well, I'm not going to G-school, or B-school or L-school or M-school for that matter, but if I were I think it'd be nice to know if any recent grads were at the same institution. It breeds a bit more solidarity than "Ephs in New York City," of which there are approximately a million billion. Also, I personally like seeing what my classmates are doing next year, and I'm sure that people thinking about a graduate program would be very happy to get the names of recent Williams grads enrolled at a particular place. It's just good information; no one is bragging about how big their fellowships are. --Evan 22:50, 20 April 2006 (EDT)
Well said, Evan. Additionally, if anyone is making $50,000 as a grad student next year, please let me know what institution you will be attending. I will look into transferring ASAP, because I certainly will not be earning that much. --06mea 23:44, 20 April 2006 (EDT)
I think its fairly obvious from reading the original comment that nowhere was it implied that any grad student makes $50,000 dollars a year, just that a high salary was as arbitrary a benchmark for congratulations as being accepted to a high grad school. I certainly see Evan's point, but I guess I just felt that any Ephs who were actually friends would likely know if any others were going to their schools. And I guess I don't think there is a significantly greater chance that people who happen to be in the same graduate program at a gigantic university would be any likelier to hang out than people who live in the same city. But as far as I am concerned, this discussion has officially outlived its usefulness.
I was kidding. Trying to lighten the mood, if you will. --06mea 00:36, 21 April 2006 (EDT)
Anyone not going to grad school is welcome to join me living in a van down by the river.--ACordova 01:15, 21 April 2006 (EDT)
The point of this page is to notify fellow ephs of your location next year, so that we can maintain connections--or discover ones we didn't know would exist. Why should anyone be surprised that ephs get into good schools? (Also, for the record, Brian put the "rocket science" parenthetical note after my name, not me.) I suppose you could always move this to a "Graduate School" section of a "Where Ephs are going to be after graduation" page if you think that would be less pompous. --06jps 09:45, 21 April 2006 (EDT)
Renaming
I support the page, but I'm sorry it struck someone as braggatory, and I can definitely see how it could. But as I wish to keep it, more pressing on my mind is: we do definitely need to rename this page. And I should write a set of naming conventions to help this stop happening . . . the problem is we need to aim at names that will work in a Willipedia world, names that will be naturally linked to in other articles. So even if it costs us accuracy, I'd like to see this moved to something like a section in "Graduate School" or "Post-Graduation" . . . other short, general title suggestions welcomed.--05jl 19:17, 21 April 2006 (EDT)
Hmm...I never saw the title as bragging, but rather as informative. What about the title is so problematic? It says what the page is, no more and no less, and it doesn't seem to be making any value judgments about Williams or the grad school listed. Yes, the fact that Williams sends its students to good graduate institutions certainly reflects well on the school, but as I said above--what would anyone expect of Williams students? --06jps 13:39, 22 April 2006 (EDT)
Dude, nothing about the title is braggartly, it's simply a bad article title for Willipedia. It's a primary goal of a wiki to have all its information linked, or else a page falls into obscurity very quickly. "Where Ephs are going to graduate school" will never get a link in another article unless the article writer already knows this page exists. Contrast this with "Odd Quad" -- even if a writer doesn't know there's a page on that, he'll expect there to be one now or later, and will type [[Odd Quad]], and presto! the page is used. But the data on this page will never be used unless it gets a better name, like making a section in "Post-Graduate". This title is less specific, but we often have to sacrifice specificity for generalness on a wiki -- or this article dies the moment it leaves "Recentchanges"--05jl 18:41, 22 April 2006 (EDT)
I see your point. I thought the title change suggestion was related to the bragging thing. Perhaps a general-purpose "post-graduation" page is in order, with links to "Where Ephs are going to grad school," "Where Ephs work," "Where Ephs live," etc. Unfortunately, I don't have any better ideas for the title of this page, since "Where Ephs are going to graduate school" pretty much sums it up. --06jps 17:31, 23 April 2006 (EDT)