Blissfully ignorant of what real economists do, a student is deeply concerned with the state of economic awareness:
“It’s just like, lame people everywhere are gonna be having conversations about the ECONOMY without ever taking an Econ class! I mean, I only took principles, but…”
Fancy lines via Wikimedia Commons
Yeah, I heard Ben Bernanke talking about inflation and he didn't even MENTION aggregate demand!
why take an intro class, when you could just read some good economics books and not drop 150 grand on a fuckin' education you could have gotten for a dollar fifty in late charges at the public library!
The comment above can not deviate more from the truth. The fact is, some of our greatest professors are instructors of introductory classes. reading an economics textbook simply does not provide the rigor that you get from taking a class with a professor at columbia. you may get the trivial facts. then again, you can get those from wikipedia.
the professors give the students a passion for economics that textbooks can not give
You seem to be willing to pay quite a lot to be inspired. I'd like to think that most people can come to care about the very basics of a subject matter not only because a great professor has told them to. Maybe it takes a great professor to show students the hidden wonder and value of some truly difficult and obscure topic, but intro classes here are definitely not that. Plus, of course, only some intro classes are taught by great professors. And many lectures from intro courses can be found for free online.
Also, are you suggesting that textbooks aren't rigorous? Are yours full of contradictions? Mine aren't. Often it's rather lectures that aren't rigorous - they're sidetracked and distracted by jokes and anecdotes.
We should just be honest with ourselves: some courses can only be found at Columbia, but not all of them, and certainly not Principles of Econ or Calc I. Some people really do get better educations from Columbia than others.
i find that i've been disappointed more often than i've been inspired by the columbia lecture experience. don't get me wrong, some instructors have clearly put a lot of effort (or have coerced their graudate students into putting a lot of effort) into their lectures... but more often than not, it's just some set of slides that were likely inherited ten years ago and haven't been updated, evaluated or even properly read since...
ultimately i find the only things that columbia really consistently excels at are wasting money, hiring administrators, charging service charges and sending bills.
easy for a rich kid to say to make himself feel like the american dream is a thing
You clearly do not go here. And if by some chance you do, I feel sorry for you.
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