Re:Ask HN: Have you ever felt inferior for not being from a ...
by buro9 on Sunday June 07, 2009 @05:48AM
(#645797)
I'm in England, I can tell you what this is: It's the class system.
Oxbridge > Red brick university (old) > ex-Polytechnic
This could be changed of course, but the things that the Oxbridge and red bricks do so well is the networking. The societies, the sticking together, the essence of "you must be thoroughly decent and clever because I experienced that system and you did too", except the entry requirement was not smarts but whether you could afford to fund yourself through and could get through the entry requirements.
I say it could be changed because I see similar power of networks in smaller social nets. For example I see cyclists online have a great bond with other cyclists and a very strong bias towards other cyclists... to the degree of giving work to cyclists based on no other criteria than those people appearing to be qualified (but many thousands of others are) and exist in the pre-requisite community (belong to a cycling community).
So the class system can be thought of as exclusive social networks. The education itself is not the measure here, it's whether you are in the network or not.
Why this opens it to change is that the network they are in has to be exclusive, and so would a replacement, but it changes by you working with those you went to college with to build your own networks and positively discriminate towards each other. To the degree that if you have 2 candidates in front of you and 1 is MIT and one is <insert your college> you opt for your college or fellow institute over MIT.
Basically... you do have means to weaken the influence class system by discriminating positively towards your social network. Just standing by and bitching that you (not the poster, but general "you") don't belong to the advantaged network isn't going to help you, and you can't become a member of that network... you can just build a new network and make it strong.
I've perhaps over-simplified a hell of a lot of this post... it's early and I'm hungover.
Oxbridge > Red brick university (old) > ex-Polytechnic
This could be changed of course, but the things that the Oxbridge and red bricks do so well is the networking. The societies, the sticking together, the essence of "you must be thoroughly decent and clever because I experienced that system and you did too", except the entry requirement was not smarts but whether you could afford to fund yourself through and could get through the entry requirements.
I say it could be changed because I see similar power of networks in smaller social nets. For example I see cyclists online have a great bond with other cyclists and a very strong bias towards other cyclists... to the degree of giving work to cyclists based on no other criteria than those people appearing to be qualified (but many thousands of others are) and exist in the pre-requisite community (belong to a cycling community).
So the class system can be thought of as exclusive social networks. The education itself is not the measure here, it's whether you are in the network or not.
Why this opens it to change is that the network they are in has to be exclusive, and so would a replacement, but it changes by you working with those you went to college with to build your own networks and positively discriminate towards each other. To the degree that if you have 2 candidates in front of you and 1 is MIT and one is <insert your college> you opt for your college or fellow institute over MIT.
Basically... you do have means to weaken the influence class system by discriminating positively towards your social network. Just standing by and bitching that you (not the poster, but general "you") don't belong to the advantaged network isn't going to help you, and you can't become a member of that network... you can just build a new network and make it strong.
I've perhaps over-simplified a hell of a lot of this post... it's early and I'm hungover.