Hello From A High School Student.

[dark_stranger]

Well, I love Silicon Valley and Lake Tahoe (I love to ski). So I thought Stanford might be a good idea. My cousin went to college in California and she said the people there seemed fake. So my mother is cautioning me about going to school there, not that I really see what the problem is, but I'd like to have something to say to her so she'll stop bothering me about it.

The Bay Area is insane; straight-up, unadulterated insanity. That said, I absolutely love it here, and I'll tell you why.

The Bay Area will give you whatever you are looking for - if you seek it. The Bay Area has opportunity, culture, recreation, and beauty (both man-made and natural). The trick to finding them is to focus on what is important to you: achieving your goals, pursuing your interests, completing your studies. It is possible to live a rational life here even when surrounded by leftist nutjobs. Simply tune them out and continue to pursue your goals.

I think college is the same way. I am 6 years out of undergrad and 3.5 years out of graduate school, so I think I'm still contemporary enough to provide some perspective. Just like living in liberal places, going to colleges where the professors hold bad philosophical ideas is workable. While many humanities teachers want you to convert to radical communism, most science teachers are not interested in influencing your ideology about anything save their subject. When you encounter the communists, it's like eating stinky cheese: hold your nose with each bite. Classes only last a few months, and if you can spew the Kantian ideology back at them, you'll pass. You have the greatest antidotes to that sort of rubbish anyway - reason and reality.

If you have other Bay Area questions, feel free to contact me.

Welcome, and good luck!

d_s

[Patrick N.]

[...] if you can spew the Kantian ideology back at them, you'll pass.

What exactly do you mean by "spew the Kantian ideology back at them?"

[dark_stranger]

What exactly do you mean by "spew the Kantian ideology back at them?"

I will give you an example. In undergrad, I took a psychology class titled "Gender Psychology." This class was not anything more than the professor's attempt to convince the students that women deserved special rights and that all men were evil (except gay men). She taught this ideology as though it were self-evident fact.

The key to the class was to smile and nod, and know which answer on the multiple choice exam she was looking for. I didn't have to believe it, I just had to know what the viewpoint was. I took the class, played along for a semester, then went on to take classes that mattered and in which I learned something of value.

So spewing it back at them does not mean fight them, but rather make them think you have assimilated the ideas long enough to escape alive (academically that is).

d_s

[Patrick N.]

I will give you an example.  In undergrad, I took a psychology class titled "Gender Psychology."  This class was not anything more than the professor's attempt to convince the students that women deserved special rights and that all men were evil (except gay men).  She taught this ideology as though it were self-evident fact.

The key to the class was to smile and nod, and know which answer on the multiple choice exam she was looking for.  I didn't have to believe it, I just had to know what the viewpoint was.  I took the class, played along for a semester, then went on to take classes that mattered and in which I learned something of value.

So spewing it back at them does not mean fight them, but rather make them think you have assimilated the ideas long enough to escape alive (academically that is).

d_s

Thanks for the clarification.