Anyone else think Princeton grads are all incompetent or douches?
For the record, this isn't a prestige thing. I went to Harvard/Stanford/Yale. But holy fuck, I'm triggered today by one of our 1st year associates who's being a retard. Throughout my entire fucking life, I have never had a positive experience with a Princeton grad.
My parents were profs. Being a prof at a top school is incredibly difficult; not something that you can "fake it till you make it". Literally hundreds of candidates are screened and only 1 or 0 are hired. The only prof who their department hired who turned out to be a phony retard was a Princeton grad.
Going on to college, all of my profs who went to Princeton turned out to be massive douches or incompetent. All of them were so fucking pretentious, I literally couldn't stand it. One liberal arts guy couldn't stop going on about his unrelated-to-the-class book that he published that was like $400 which he recommended we buy. This was in the first class. I switched out and never saw him again. Another prof who went to Princeton kept assigning us random papers, like last minute, through email. He said nothing about it in class but then gave this 5 page paper due by 5pm tomorrow. No fucking boundaries or respect for my time. Another professor struggled to teach us basic stats that I had known since high school. She got corrected like every day and the entire class literally made a group chat to complain about her. She was literally a stats professor.
And when I got to banking. All of the analysts from Princeton had no chill. They were hardos who didn't know technicals as well as actual hardos. This was a top group at a top bank. The couple of them I worked with were just polished talkers who went to prep schools since preschool and majored in history or classics or something. They were both bottom bucket and struggled with technical skills as well as general stuff like time management and attention-to-detail. Most of our group hated them. We had literal group chats without them.
Same thing now. I work at a UMM/MF that direct-promotes to VP and I recently got the confirmation that they want me to stay. Not going to say what happened for anonymity but I'm gonna do everything in my power to make sure this one doesn't stay more than 2 years.
Anyone else have shitty experiences with Princeton grads.
I wouldn't necessarily go through the rest of your life hating a specific school or pre-judging future people that you meet who happened to graduate from that school.
If you're just ranting to collect confirmation, I know a few people from Princeton who exactly fit the description you laid out... and a few who are extremely competent.
yup, they're total hardos. can confirm
In fairness, I just learned to accept that most kids majoring in humanities (or at least got accepted for humanities) at top colleges are just really good at selling themselves on paper...and ultimately getting jobs that they wouldn’t be qualified for otherwise.
But I’m sure you’ll see more of this at Princeton than other schools.
I went to Duke and I feel like this is how people feel about my school. I don't think Princeton is the only place in which people feel like this.
Also, don't just go around hating people like this. This will just annoy you and won't accomplish anything. If you think someone's a douche or an incompetent bastard, you think they're a douche or an incompetent bastard. Lots of people at Princeton, Duke, Harvard, Stanford, and Yale are incompetent bastards too. There are also a lot of people at those schools who aren't. I wouldn't really worry about this kind of thing period.
The chillest dudes in my analyst class were a couple of princeton athlete bros. Super friendly, really smart, and very competent.
Feel like everyone I know at Princeton falls into 1 of 2 categories: 1) The kid OP described 2) The kid you just described.
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From my experience in the workplace...
Princeton = Very Smart, Douches, Fun
Harvard = Very Smart, Douches, Odd
Yale = Very Smart, Socially Retarded
Brown = Smart, Relaxed, Fun (Self-selecting in finance)
Dartmouth = Smart, Laidback, Fun
Cornell = Capable, Chip-on-Shoulder
Penn = Smart, Intense
Columbia = Completely Variable on All Dimensions
Some of my closest friendships from work have been with Princeton grads as I always found them to be very capable, smart, and fun in social settings. I have also found one of the most insufferable douchebags I have ever encountered in a social setting to be a Princeton alum so mileage clearly varies.
The best anecdote I have to encapsulate the school is on a completely out of control bachelor party in NOLA with a predominantly Princeton crowd, I said “If I have a son who can’t quite manage to get it together, it seems like Tulane would be a great option.” One of the attendees replied “That’s how I feel about where you went to school” (...and I attended one of the non-Princeton schools listed above).
that's a great response. Guessing you went to Cornell lol
Or Columbia
Well, you start with the assumption that academia is meritocracy. Mistake number 1.
Universities, especially Ivies, try to recruit from only other universities on their same level rather than the most qualified person. For that reason, you might get a mediocre PhD from Princeton versus an absolute genius who may have gotten his PhD at Iowa State.
Let's not even get into how politics plays into this whole thing. If your research butts heads with the department's research, you will not be hired. You could be a Nobel Laureate and it won't happen.
nah, my cousin goes to P, and he's an awesome guy
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