University of Chicago tour

This week we bagged school for a day and trekked down to the University of Chicago for an unofficial college tour. Sure, it’s early for the Nikipedia, but hey, with three years to go before grinding out the college essay, there’s plenty of lead time to get the anxiety level to the appropriate fever pitch. Although we live in the area, the connection was actually made through a friend in West Virginia (long way ‘round!) We met a third year student, who I’ll call V.S. (for very superior, like cognac) since I don’t have her permission to identify her.

It appears that things haven’t changed much since the days I was there, in grad school. According to V.S., there are actually clubs to join and some kids who (try to) play sports, but pretty much it still appeals to the same kind of nerd that loved it 30+ years ago. I mean, broomball is one of the main sports on campus. As Robert Hutchins once proclaimed, “Whenever I feel the need to exercise, I lie down until it goes away.” You don’t get into the U of C (or enjoy it there) if you were homecoming queen, or because mommy went there (although I’m hoping it helps), or because you had an armload of volunteer experiences. You find yourself there because you’re SMART, and because you want to be with 4,000 other undergrads who won the eccentricity award at their own high schools. I mean, the school has the unofficial motto, “where fun goes to die”.

As luck would have it, we ended up there the same day as freshman orientation, with tons of geeky looking parents wandering around with apples who didn’t fall far from the tree. Nikipedia was rubber-necking like crazy. Not one to be attracted to football players, these were her kind of (guy) people. I was particularly bemused by the name tags on the parents—“I’m the proud parent of a University of Chicago student”. I’m glad that wasn’t me because I would have felt obligated to take a sharpie and alter that “proud” to “exhausted” or “soon to be broke” or maybe “free-at-last”.

I pretty much knew my way around campus, and Nikipedia was anxious to dump me anyway, so I hiked over to the Seminary Coop bookstore, where I bought the traditional shopping bag full of books you’ll never hear of at Barnes and Noble, and which I won’t get to for another 4 or 5 years. Meanwhile, Nikipedia and V.S. must have travelled in a hovercraft, because when I next located them about an hour later, they were in International House, having already covered Rockefeller Chapel, the Music building, Fullerton Hall, and another dorm or two. We met for lunch at the Medici, where Nikipedia had written her initials on a wall when she was 3 (don’t worry, it’s traditional.) I’m going to try to work that into her future admissions application.

Being the old bag that I somehow have become, I often lament the state of young people today. Except for Nikipedia, who keeps talking even in her sleep, I often find young people to be, well, rather dull and inarticulate, and sport that deer-caught-in-the–headlights look. Not at the U of C, and certainly not V.S. She was poised, articulate, and able to talk clearly about her impressions, the development of her ideas and change of focus over time, and how her education was exposing her to far more ideas and possibilities. Really, she should be the poster child for the value of a liberal education. When we made contact, she told me she was an anthropology major with an interest in Hindu epics. Now, that kind of passion makes parents shudder. I mean, we’re forking over $200K and facing the fact that the kid with that major will be living in the basement until they’re 45, right? Not so fast. Turns out V.S. worked for an international non-profit this last summer, and got interested in non-profit management and international development. She’s now headed for a semester in India, with the background to know what she’s seeing, and an interest in a field where that background will be unique and valuable. My guess is that while all those people who majored in something practical like physics or accounting are grinding it out in their cubicles, V.S. will be traveling the world, doing something that actually is meaningful and productive.

Hutchins once railed against the impetus to make college a trade school, and the U of C is still a bastion of a core Great Books-style curriculum, although it has been modified over the years. People complain it’s been dumbed down, but compared to what? Not much of this double-major stuff, where you major in one thing you love, with the recognition that you’ll never work in it, and another thing so you can sell your soul in the marketplace. Those kind of students always tell me how grateful they are not to be stuck with “requirements”. But if you belong at the U of C, those arts and humanities classes are why you picked U of C, a school where English is still one of the most popular majors. Or put another way, as one Northwestern student tour guide once told me, Northwestern trains CEOs, Chicago trains professors. She did not seem embarrassed by this.

V.S. emphasized to both of us that classes were really HARD. Given the fact that plenty of these kids have 99th percentile SATs and a string of AP classes (for which they get little credit towards a U of C degree), this puts the school in perspective. On the other hand, V.S. glowed about her professors, and said she had never seen so much depth and detail in her readings before being re-sculpted by the core curriculum. One of my standards of a school is to listen to the conversations around me in the student union, the campus hangouts, etc. At Northwestern, I hear a lot of analysis of parties and the weekend’s date (or shortcomings). At the U of C, you hear snippets of “I have never experienced such transcendence as when I read…” or “I finally got the breakthrough I needed to explicate…” I kid you not. Yes, they’re 19 years old.

At Northwestern, they know designer brands, and the coeds are beautiful. At the U of C they’re still wearing the same stuff they beat up in high school, no one bothers about hair “product” as far as I can see, and significant butt-in-seat time is spent at the library. That’s not to say there’s not plenty of drinking, both when I was there and now. It’s the only time I’ve ever attended parties where you could be having a very significant discussion with someone who suddenly keeled over like a felled tree. It’s one of the few places where the campus drinking hole (Jimmy’s) has an encyclopedia over the bar to settle arguments. V.S. didn’t seem all that into the booze scene (her parents can probably sigh with relief) but didn’t seem to lack for fun. After all, she pointed out, it’s a little college surrounded by a big graduate operation, and you get to know everyone, while being able to take advantage of great facilities and connections. While the school is an ivy covered enclave, downtown Chicago, with its great museums, arts scene, opera and symphony is a public transit ride away.

One thing has changed—safety. When I was there, muggings were not uncommon and you never went anywhere at night without a group. The University really stepped up security in later years, and Hyde Park became much safer. However, about a year ago there was a terrible murder, and the consensus of the community was that security had become complacent. That consciousness has really been raised, and V.S. says she feels comfortable and safe, although it ain’t Kansas, and one needs to exercise the caution that would be reasonable in any major city in the U.S.

All in all, it’s still a great place, but certainly not for everyone. It might be the back up school for a lot of Easterners who really hope they get into Harvard, but for those for whom the University of Chicago is first choice, there just really isn’t any other place like it. Education is so wasted on the young. I want to go back.