Talked At By Famous People

Monday, August 25th, 2014

After a few months at Harvard, Michael Strong was bored by being talked at by famous people:

I arranged for a “year abroad” at St. John’s College, which is known for its Great Books curriculum, in which one reads the classic works of western civilization, including original works in math and science including those by Galileo, Kepler, Newton, Faraday, Maxwell, Einstein, Bohr, Schroedinger, etc. More importantly, all classes are taught by means of Socratic discussion, where the tutor (there are no “professors”) is simply the best student in the class. After my second day at St. John’s I knew I would never return to Harvard.

Comments

  1. Spandrell says:

    I stopped reading at “More deeply, my wife is a Senegalese entrepreneur”.

    “More deeply”, mind you.

  2. Dan Kurt says:

    Spandrell:

    You made it further than I did before I stopped reading, much further.

    His bragging reminds me of many Ivy matriculants and graduates that I have known.

  3. Spandrell says:

    The picture of the Senegalese entrepreneur squatting down to pick up vegetables was too eye-catching to miss.

    Quite a choice to introduce one’s wife, huh?

  4. Alrenous says:

    I’ve seen the ‘talked at’ thing. I suspect it heavily depends on major. I recall Searle (Berkeley) doing it sometimes. Susskind, a physicist at Stanford doesn’t.

  5. Marc Pisco says:

    The bragging was too embarrassing to read. The TEDx Talk photo in the TRD Jesus Pose should’ve been sufficient warning though. Using a TED Talk picture for your publicity shot is bad enough; TEDx is just needy and pathetic.

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