Conference Realignment

[AE 87]

America's Coasts Conference

Fly-to Country

 

[Randy Carson]

ACC & Friends.

 

[GT05]

Good for NC State. I’m sure they loved sticking it to uncheat.

 

[g0lftime]

UNC money is poverty to middle class citizen to Stanford money and prestige. UNC is not in their league.

Unfortunately they think they are.

 

[cpf2001]

I wish schools would stop wanting to be Stanford.

Give more people a great education, don't just give the richest people a 1% better "elite" education. Focus on students, not jockeying for research prestige. Stop spending on stupid **** and get your costs down (funny how this applies to academic/dorm facilities just as much as to athletics ones).

 

[Techwood Relict]

Stop spending on stupid **** and get your costs down

Excellent life advice.

 

[reckrider]

Add Tulane, Rice and Navy, Kick out FSU, Academic Excellence Conference.

 

[jojatk]

I wish schools would stop wanting to be Stanford.

Give more people a great education, don't just give the richest people a 1% better "elite" education. Focus on students, not jockeying for research prestige. Stop spending on stupid **** and get your costs down (funny how this applies to academic/dorm facilities just as much as to athletics ones).

There are plenty of schools that want to provide access to a great education to people who aren’t those 1%-ers. Most of the time GT people (not at all saying you are one of them) crap on those schools because they aren’t rated as highly as some others and all they do is have a positive environment where they encourage kids in every way possible to earn good college degrees.

I suspect most of us who went to GT encountered more than one professor who cared more about their current and future research grants than educating their students.

 

[cpf2001]

I suspect most of us who went to GT encountered more than one professor who cared more about their current and future research grants than educating their students.

I think I could count the ones who didn’t on one hand.

I didn’t and still don’t think GT is a good place to learn, but it has a long-standing reputation for high standards and so it just feeds itself since employers go there to hire and so you gotta play the game if you’re looking for a good job.

Though I think not washing out nearly as many of the admitted students is a big improvement.

But now that I’m in the hiring seat, I generally find folks from places like the UCSDs of the world to be every bit as capable but without as frequently having a weird Shaft-induced combination of ego+self-doubt. (Not that the UCs don’t play the research game, but the ones down the ladder a bit from Cal tend to be less … intense … about it.)

 

[BurdellJacket]

I think I could count the ones who didn’t on one hand.

I didn’t and still don’t think GT is a good place to learn, but it has a long-standing reputation for high standards and so it just feeds itself since employers go there to hire and so you gotta play the game if you’re looking for a good job.

Though I think not washing out nearly as many of the admitted students is a big improvement.

But now that I’m in the hiring seat, I generally find folks from places like the UCSDs of the world to be every bit as capable but without as frequently having a weird Shaft-induced combination of ego+self-doubt. (Not that the UCs don’t play the research game, but the ones down the ladder a bit from Cal tend to be less … intense … about it.)

Well, sounds like you had a real rough time at GT - so bad that you can't find anything decent to say for it. Did you flunk out by chance?

 

[iceeater1969]

I can see the ACC 24-25 schedule for Georgia Tech featuring three consecutive away games at Stanford, followed by SMU, followed by California.

Just before uga

 

[tmhunter52]

Just before uga

Followed by the 1st round of the playoffs…

 

[Northeast Stinger]

I think I could count the ones who didn’t on one hand.

I didn’t and still don’t think GT is a good place to learn, but it has a long-standing reputation for high standards and so it just feeds itself since employers go there to hire and so you gotta play the game if you’re looking for a good job.

Though I think not washing out nearly as many of the admitted students is a big improvement.

But now that I’m in the hiring seat, I generally find folks from places like the UCSDs of the world to be every bit as capable but without as frequently having a weird Shaft-induced combination of ego+self-doubt. (Not that the UCs don’t play the research game, but the ones down the ladder a bit from Cal tend to be less … intense … about it.)

The flip side of this is what has happened to the overall academic environment at uga. Students are less and less interested in stretching themselves or being challenged in the classroom. They live for football season and professors are encouraged to go light on students during the season. Grade inflation has become a necessary step to keep the whole enterprise going.

Are there serious students at uga? Yes. Are there people who graduate from uga and make a difference in the world? Yes. But this is in spite of the prevailing culture at uga not because of. Nothing at uga says academic excellence right now, except for their smoke and mirrors approach to everything “wonderful” about uga land.

 

[Vespidae]

The flip side of this is what has happened to the overall academic environment at uga. Students are less and less interested in stretching themselves or being challenged in the classroom. They live for football season and professors are encouraged to go light on students during the season. Grade inflation has become a necessary step to keep the whole enterprise going.

Are there serious students at uga? Yes. Are there people who graduate from uga and make a difference in the world? Yes. But this is in spite of the prevailing culture at uga not because of. Nothing at uga says academic excellence right now, except for their smoke and mirrors approach to everything “wonderful” about uga land.

I’m not sure I agree with this. This is a good description of the state of UGA prior to Jan Kemp. I’m not entirely on board that this is accurate today.

 

[Northeast Stinger]

I’m not sure I agree with this. This is a good description of the state of UGA prior to Jan Kemp. I’m not entirely on board that this is accurate today.

I have connections at uga. Just reporting what they say.

 

[Vespidae]

I have connections at uga. Just reporting what they say.

I don't doubt what they say. It's still very different than 1980 when they cheated their way to the natty.

 

[cpf2001]

Well, sounds like you had a real rough time at GT - so bad that you can't find anything decent to say for it. Did you flunk out by chance?

I left after three straight semesters of 3.5+ GPA. But I was young and pissed off and tired of fighting the school administration, so after proving to myself that I could get a bunch of A's after a rough start, I didn't care to stay.

A good thing of GT? The material is very rigorous and there's a high bar. (Another good thing? The sports!)

A bad thing? The "you'll do what you're told and you'll like it and if that's not working for you, that's a personal problem" attitude.

You can keep rigor and still meet students closer to where they are and help them get up to the bar, instead of just writing them off. It kinda makes business sense too if you want a larger base to give you donations. But mostly for the "not because it's easy, but because it's hard" reason. It's harder to effectively teach than it is to flunk someone. State funded schools should be held to high teaching standards, not just research ones.

That UGA culture example is wild though. It's crazy that that sort of thing still exists (to whatever extent) at the same time as there's so many more hyper-motivated serious-business overachiever kids with miles long list of extracurriculars and whatnot on a bunch of campuses - a lot more than there were even 10 years ago based on the resumes at job fairs.

 

[g0lftime]

I’m not sure I agree with this. This is a good description of the state of UGA prior to Jan Kemp. I’m not entirely on board that this is accurate today.

Recent statement by our current president to several alums this summer. GT was easier to get into back then, but harder to get out of. It's harder to get in now, but easier to get out.
Retention is one of the key metrics on college rankings. We didn't do well in that category back in the day.

 

[bobongo]

Recent statement by our current president to several alums this summer. GT was easier to get into back then, but harder to get out of. It's harder to get in now, but easier to get out.
Retention is one of the key metrics on college rankings. We didn't do well in that category back in the day.

"Retention" always seemed an odd and bogus yardstick of academic measurement to me. If anything, it should be the other way around.

 

[Northeast Stinger]

I don't doubt what they say. It's still very different than 1980 when they cheated their way to the natty.

Yes. It’s different now. This is more “passive” cheating.

From several sources, the administration is giddy about the positive attention the football program brings, the large number of applications this brings, and the money provided for other programs. This translates into spoken and unspoken pressures on faculty to “go easy” on students during football season. One of my friends who teaches there (and recently tried to quit, but that’s a different story) has seen the seriousness of the students decline over the last decade. He attributes that to the party atmosphere that is widely tolerated coupled with being told to let his athletes skip as many classes as they “need to.” Over all what has been communicated to the students, inadvertently or not, is that football is more important than the classroom.

I think a lot of our debates on this site revolve around an uneasiness with the reality at uga, that this is the atmosphere that is necessary to win in big time football.