Middle League Universities

[Monster92]

In popular science and works of fiction the only meaningful research and engineering comes from the top universities. This is very depressing for me as I'm only going to go to a middle league university (University of the West of England or De Monfront).

 

Can anyone provide examples of people who have gone to a middle league university and who have contributed to human knowledge somehow? I'm not looking or an Albert Einstein, although it would be great, just someone who has come from an average background went to an average university and who's research was published or contributed to engineering some how.

 

Examples of personal experience would be great too. Perhaps someone here who has a Masters or phd and went to a middle league university.

 

Thanks

[CaptainPanic]

First of all, this exact same post appears 4 times on the internet (or, more specific, Google finds it 4 times).

Are you planning to discuss all those threads? Is this problem extremely urgent?

 

And frankly, the term "middle league university" on Google only links to your own posts. Care to explain what it exactly is? I've never heard of it.

 

The reason you don't see many PhD students in your university is that the topics of your university are very business oriented, and not many people will do a PhD - instead everybody goes to commercial companies to work.

 

If you want to become a typical famous scientist, topics such as IT, management, law and criminology, the creative industries and the environmental and sustainability industries are not the obvious choices. You're better off with physics, chemistry and the more exact studies.

[Monster92]

Right yeah, I'm trying to get as many people's opinions as possible. No, like I said I'm not at university yet I'm just about to go. Middle league university is term I've been hearing for quite a while more recently on the guardian's science podcast. I too did a google search and came up with the same results. What I'm referring to is the universities below the top ones, that's all.

 

No this isn't urgent I just find it depressing. Sorry if I offended you I didn't intend too

[CaptainPanic]

No worries!

If you're going to do a Bachelor, I wouldn't worry about it too much. The topic is more important than the school. If you feel really uncertain about it, you can always phone to a faculty you like in a "good" university, and ask if they often accept people with a BSc from the school you're about to go to into their own MSc program.

 

If the answer is that it's no problem (ever), then you know you're fine.

If the answer is that your school is simply too crappy, you might reconsider enrolling.

If the answer is anything different, like they have too many MSc students anyway, ask the same question for PhD positions.

 

Phone a couple of universities, and you might just get a picture of your future opportunities.

 

But once again, the topics of the university you're about to start at are not typical "science"... and as far as I know, not many people do PhD's in it.

[timo]

Just go through the list of recent Nobel Prize laureates and see where they got their PhD from (the "recent" is important, because past scientific achievements may well have been what caused the university's reputation in the first place). I looked at the list of the Physics Nobel Prizes of the years 2007 till now, and found a mix of top and very average universities (e.g. the Ecole Normale Superieure Paris and the TU Darmstadt, respectively), and possibly no university that you'd count as top.

 

That said, the quality of the group you're doing your PhD in does matter a lot, in my experience. But I'm afraid I don't have the time to elaborate on this point.

[Marat]

It is also important to ask why it is that top-level universities seem to continue to produce top-level scientists. Since in theory the same information is available to almost everyone almost anywhere in the world, even to someone not in university but just near a good university library, why is being at an excellent university important to your own potential for self-development? Having studied and taught at both excellent and average universities, I can say that part of your performance depends on the atmosphere and expectations around you. If you're at Harvard and every Fall you hear all the college bell-towers ringing to celebrate yet another Nobel Prize winner at the university, you feel a lot more inspired to do your best than if you are at the University of Vienna, where the instruction labs are indistinguishable from the history of science displays.

[Monster92]

These are all good points. I'm going to ring some universities tomorrow . I've found some universities that seem to produce quality research. I'm so inspired by science and engineering. I suppose it could be worse. I may not get into university at all!

 

That's a good point though. All the knowledge is available to everyone. I hope in the future that distance learning becomes even more accessible.

[CharonY]

The critical point is joining the right group as a grad. Ivy league universities do not produce high quality scientists, they are just able to attract and hire high quality faculty at a higher rate than mid-range unis. They do not necessarily produce top-quality scientists (that depends on the individual). However, they may give young scientists a head start due to a) the pedigree and b) open up some networks (though the important ones depend more on divisor rather than uni, for the most part.

 

Also one should not IMO focus too much on the big shots. Going into science depends a lot on passion (as you will unlikely get much else out of it). You should be willing to put enormous amount of effort into something, knowing that whatever you do you may still fail (basically around 80%) and do not expect a huge outcome, but still live love (almost) every minute you do it. In the long run that is more important as where you got your degree.

Edited May 17, 2011 by CharonY

[timo]

That's a good point though. All the knowledge is available to everyone. I hope in the future that distance learning becomes even more accessible.

As a matter of fact, that is not a good thing. We've long reached the point where the problem is not lack of information, but abundance of. For instance, the number of new articles on arXiv (the number one resource for downloading papers in the physics area) in the field "condensed matter physics" is about 50 (EDIT: today's new articles, that is) - even before counting the cross-posts. And I don't even want to know the numbers for fields which are more publication-heavy like cell biology. No one can process this amount of information. And most is not needed. The problem is not acquiring information, the problem is filtering out the little valuable content in the huge amount of noise.

This is, in fact, one of the reasons why I believe that working in a strong group at PhD level makes a distinction: because you have people who know the important facts in their field, because you do meet the people with the valuable ideas, and to some extent also because your first steps as a scientist may be given some credit in advance, since people may see that you come from a group that knows their trade.

 

open up some networks (though the important ones depend more on divisor rather than uni, for the most part).

That would be an "advisor", I believe.

Edited May 17, 2011 by timo

[CharonY]

Hum, must be a Freudian slip.

[Genecks]

I'm a neuroscientist/biologist (more neuroscience), first off.

 

From a historical perspective, I guess the big-league schools public and private, tended to have more money than other colleges and universities.

And as we moved forward past the 1960s, we start to see the design of many other local universities and colleges.

 

I've considered that in the past, intelligent people with ambition were allowed to go to top universities and colleges. I would say these were for general students before the 1980s...

However, from what I've read in terms of personal biographies, CVs, biosketches, and so forth of scientists, it would appear that after the 1980s, things get really shady, universities and colleges get really selective, and people start generating lots of prejudices and so forth. The elitism really starts to form.

 

But we're keeping in mind that people are similarly intelligent and similarly hard-working.

 

Do I think the elitism is justified?

Well, I don't think so.

 

But people who did benefit from the elite colleges during the times when entrance was a bit more lenience were given an upper-hand on the amount of resources and connections they had. Furthermore, in order to maintain their SES, they more than likely sent their children to particular schools so those children could get into nice colleges and universities.

 

Of the many professors of whom I have met, they tend to send their children either to a nice private college or a top-10 public university.

 

What's allowing people to excel is entrance into these institutions because of the varying amounts of intellectual inheritance their parents have given them.

 

If you've ever filled out college applications, they ask about your parents, their highest level of education, and where they work/worked.

 

Middle league universities would not be so bad were it not for the lack of funding and endowment they receive. As such, when choosing a particular university/college to attend, you will more than likely want to go to the one that has the most money with the hope that a good amount of money is being put toward research. This is different from the amount of money people put into a particular department, such as a biology department.

 

For example, UIC vs. UIUC. UIC and UIUC put similar amounts of money into their biology departments. However, UIUC has much more money to spend on research adventures in the realm of biology due to its higher endowment.

 

The higher endowment allows people to do more research, because they have more funds. Otherwise, people have to wait around until they get more grants.

 

With that said, it's obvious to see that getting into a college/university with a decent amount of endowment is the better bet. It also helps to find out who is bringing in grants for themselves in order to do research.

 

Historically, I do not think many middle league universities pushed out research that others have built upon. They do push out research, papers, and so forth; but not something that becomes fundamental in a textbook that you build upon.

 

Again, the knowledge someone finds useful is dependent on a particular person's field and research.

 

This research stuff, however, becomes way more important at the graduate level.

 

Now, the conundrum is that you've got to get to graduate school first.

This is where that intellectual inheritance part comes in.

 

If you go to a middle league private college, you'll more than likely get higher grades and leave with a higher GPA. As such, you'll be more selected for graduate admissions (because graduate admissions people are generally fools who aren't aware of what universities and colleges are doing grade inflation/deflation and to what amount).

 

Going to a middle league public school, however, can set a person up for failure. The business model and teaching structure of public institutions focuses more on research rather than teaching, thus you might not get to the grad school of your choice so easily.

Edited May 21, 2011 by Genecks

[Marat]

Although you may get a higher GPA at a middle-level school, when the graduate school looks at your application, they will discount that GPA by their lower opinion of the prestige of your school. Names count, even if they shouldn't.

 

The only real difference I can find between first-rank and second-rank universities is the quality of the students and the level of classroom discussion. I did a bachelors degree at Harvard and then went on to do another bachelors degree in a slighly different subject at the University of Waterloo, and I found Waterloo much more difficult. That may have had something to do with my knowing more and thus demanding more of myself, but my GPA at Waterloo was also about the same as what it was at Harvard, despite the much greater effort at Waterloo. I have since taught at various universities, some good and some not so good, but since I give the same lectures and treat the students the same way whether I am at a prestige institution or a second-rate one, I always wonder why the value of my courses are discounted at the one place and inflated at the other.

 

To confirm your point about presently elite and extremely selective schools once having been extremely open in their admissions policies, I once saw an add in an old journal published in the 1920s by Harvard Medical School, literally begging for applicants. They noted that for those who had not completed high school before entrance, it was possible to make up the missing courses in the summer prior to admission. Interestingly, some of the same people who got their Harvard M.D.s then went on to become professors at elite schools which imposed much more selective criteria on the next generation.

 

A similar process occurred at the end of the 19th century, when most professors at American universities didn't have a graduate degree, since the only place to earn one was abroad. As a result, professors with B.A.s were examining people for Ph.D.s in the 1890s.

[mississippichem]

I agree with CharonY that the quality of the research group matters more than the school. I go to a school that probably isn't considered a "top tier" chemistry school. But of 14 chemistry professors and a handful of materials science professors we have 6 that draw NSF funding, and several that have receive very large (7-digit) grants from large corporations. Which means that undergrads and grads at my school have a large chance of getting published.

 

I'm sure there are top tier schools that can beat that; but I have many friends who have graduated and gone on to prestigious grad schools or acquired high dollar jobs. Find a good research group, get published, and you'll get hired/accepted almost every time. Assuming your GPA is good which is a given in the science world.

Edited May 21, 2011 by mississippichem