cardiology-fat

I don't know about the millennial angle, but minimalism does seem to be on the way out. As a university teacher, I spend a lot of time staring at the lids of laptops (as much as I'd like to ban them).

Back in the late 2000s, those laptops would be covered with various stickers -- Obama, sports, home star runner, etc. The last decade or so they have just been shiny unadorned metal or plastic.

This year amongst my 18 year-old students, the stickers have started coming back.

You started out talking about '#1 university brand', and now you want to pretend you mean the Carnegie categories? Come off it. Not only are they much too coarse-grained, but they're also (by design) US-centric.

I'm at somewhere way less prominent than either, but even I can see that there are way more than 1 prestige tiers between MIT and ASU.

But of far greater concern is your bizarre condescending tone. You even told me to do my research. Are you an antivaxxer?

No, not education. You guessed wrong about which discipline, and then went on a crazy rant... not a good look for you.

There is one of the humanities disciplines that MIT has been excellent in for several decades... if you don't know which one it is, then you don't know as much as you think you do.

(As I said, 'integrity' isn't really an issue in my discipline. Outside possible plagiarism, I guess. Another way in which your rant was a bit silly.)

Also, ASU and WPI one tier down in brand from MIT? Dream on, try three or four tiers.

It's not that I disagree with you exactly, but I think you're overgeneralising from tech. In my discipline (in the humanities) MIT is still top-notch, though has never quite been on a par with Princeton. Research integrity isn't really an issue, and there's no outside or consulting income to be had, so it's all salary. Housing is complex because rich universities often own property that they let you live in for free.

I'm talking more about brand/'hype' in particular. 15 years ago when I was starting my PhD, everyone adored MIT and wanted to be them.

Now I'm faculty at a reasonably good university in Europe, and obviously MIT is a fantastic place and I'd probably give a finger to get a tenured job there. But I think Harvard/Oxford/Princeton/Stanford have slightly eclipsed MIT in pure brand power. Stanford especially gets more of a 'wow!' reaction these days.

> MIT is the #1 university brand in the world

Nah. Maybe 15 years ago.

Well people use the terms differently, but I think upper-middle class in the UK corresponds roughly to the lower-reaches of the upper class in the US: lots of money, interested in high culture, maybe expensive private schools and multiple houses, but probably not aristocracy/senator/private jet level.

Just a note for American readers. In the US calling someone 'middle class' means that they are fairly ordinary salt-of the earth folks living a normal life, but who are not poor and not living paycheque to paycheque.

This is not true in the UK. To call someone middle class here means that they are above average in money and social status. It would probably be similar to calling someone 'upper-middle class' in the USA.

This is interesting, but it overlooks the way people often bullshit their way into a higher class. Boris Johnson is a common example of this: he's sort of an everyman's stereotype of what an upper-class person is like, and he plays up to it, but he's certainly not upper class himself.

Nah, Oxford.