2 more and no more

EDIT 7/11/08

I’ve failed in my post written before finals/college ended to mention that the Penn experience obviously cannot be measured only in post-graduate income or is it as “priceless” as I said. I want to add this because it is precisely how majority of Americans measure “success.” It shouldn’t be this way!

The American Scholar recently published an article on the disadvantages of an elite education. Its main argument is that the American university has become a career pumping machine instead of cultivating the eager young minds of tomorrow. I identify and dis-identify with much of the article. NYTimes picked up on the theme two a day later and published an article on what 08 graduates of Harvard plan to do: i-banking, consulting, hedge fund, entrepreneurship on one side and 1 or 2-year travel experiences and other public policy careers….oh but mainly it focuses on the streaming exodus of American college graduates to the corporate world.

Where do I fit all this? That is a question I’ve asked myself since summer before senior year. With the first three weeks of being a “professional” over, I have no idea. I question my intentions and actions too often, at least according to my parents. “What a tiring life,” they would cry. But I’m not the only one…most of my college friends are questioning themselves (and if they aren’t, oooh they will). THIS is the counterweight against David Brooks’ “organizational kid” and the American Scholar’s “disadvantage of an elite education.” This is why people still think I’m “idealistic” and don’t live in the “real world.”

Oh but I DO live in the real world. I’m so hopeful because I was perpetually humbled by (most of) the people I met at Penn and in Philly. At Commencement, what President Gutmann said about my generation rings true:

“Last year, I spoke to our graduates about sustaining our environment for the sake of humanity’s survival.  Today, I want to speak to you about changing the political climate for the sake of democracy’s and humanity’s long-term health.  Short-term thinking has sold your futures’ short.

Not only are global temperatures rising, polar ice caps melting, and species vanishing; but energy, food, and health costs are soaring, wars are raging, nuclear arsenals growing, and far too many children are dying from hunger, disease, and hatred.

Yet something unprecedented in recent American history is also happening, on this campus and across this country. Yours is the first generation of young adults in more than 40 years to have turned on to civic action, tuned into public affairs and turned out to mobilize and vote in huge numbers – and all without the direct threat of a military draft, which mobilized many of my generation.”

5/8/08:

In the Quad, looking towards Fisher-Hassenfeld from Ware College House (Ware = my home for four years)

I have two more finals next Tuesday and will then be done with College. I probably won’t remember most of the academic lessons learned. What will I remember ten years from now? The following:

Health & Societies: The history and delivery of health must be viewed in context with society, culture, and poli-economic space. Look at a problem holistically.

Economics: I cannot tell you anything about the stock market and personal finance. But if you give me a utility equation with a constraint, I can maximize it like my life depends on it. Equity and efficiency are almost always at odds with each other. Scarcity and alternatives drive human behavior.

What I learned outside the classroom: A lot more than the above

Cost: Not sure. Ironically for Labor Economics this term, I did have to estimate the present value of my lifetime earnings and how it changes if I were to attend a public university, if I had not attended college at all, and if I had invested the difference in stocks (between cost of attending Penn versus a public school).

Results? In numbers, Penn or any other private, elite university is not worth it. It depends on occupation, but not there is not much variance. Research over the last 3 decades conclude this. Oh and interestingly, investment in stocks makeup the lifetime earning difference between Penn/private school and public school alums.

Do I regret coming here? Not at all. In the form of famed Mastercard commercials: The Penn experience…priceless.

Great 08!

I did CELEBR(08), PARTICIP(08), GRADU(08), but my feeling towards the senior class gift drive is a bit lukewarm. I wish we (the “Great 08″) could have had more say in how the money is used instead of all the moolah categorized as “unrestricted funds” for The Penn Fund. I do have to hand it to the Gift Drive Committee though. The video below is pretty great at driving momentum for the Fund.

EDIT - YouTube won’t let me change the “image” below for the video. Don’t let a naked guy deter you from watching the clip; haha trust me, no one else is as half naked as the guy below.

Current feelings toward China

Ambivalence:

In an email exchange with my cousin (a senior in high school), I asked him for his thoughts on the current Tibet-China conflict. Below is the direct quote. Note that his English is nearly flawless (I’m continuously amazed at how hardworking students in China are). Why doesn’t the U.S. make Spanish a required language? My one regret in college - not using Penn’s resources in East Asian Studies. How can I really understand cultures in France, Guatemala, Botswana, and South Africa if I cannot answer the question,” Where are you from? Are you American or Chinese?” Clearly from my cousin’s perspective below, I’m the “Other,” the American.” So you see, in China I’m American and in the U.S., I’m Chinese.

From: XXX
To: XXX
Fri, Apr 25, 2008 at 6:59 AM

I was so angry when I heared the Tibetan fighted against China inland.They recieved help from europe ,and your country ,and want to separate from China,so was TAIWAN.When China Inland want to prevent Tibetan from doing that,the media became very actively.The CNN said China ignored human rights,and active like uncivilized persons,and Paris award DALAI(the terrorist,like the causer of 911)honorary citizen.In the paris CHINA2008 olympic torch relay ,our torch was been robbed.I felt so angry…….They are indeed the uncivilized people.China has been developing so fast,which caused many Countries unhappy,and they want to aginst China by this opportunity. War may come soon. So many armed helicopters are flying above my head,I can hear the noise of its engine day and night.I have never seen these scenes before.But I think the war will not begin before Olympic games. I have just finished my exams.What are you doing these days. Wish you good luck.

EDIT - I am 90% sure that my cousin is exaggerating about hearing helicopters and “a war.” If you call the idea of Westernized human rights hegemony of world media, then yes the U.S. and China as well as any other Western - non Western countries have paired conflicts. Every country has its “good” and “bad.” Now this makes me think about non-Christian and Christian definitions for “good” and “bad.” Are there actual definitions?

Love for China:
“Pandas make you smile”

Video by David Gilkey, NPR

I really don’t smile that much. It’s not that I am unhappy or depressed. It’s just not in my nature. I tend to take life a little seriously.

But, as part of my coverage for NPR in China, I visited the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding and Director Zhang Zhihe. He’s a gentle man who speaks about the giant pandas as if they were his own family. At the end of our time together, I asked him why he thought the giant panda bears are so popular. A simple answer from the director: “Because they make you smile!”

I fully agree. I edited this piece for the blog smiling and laughing out loud the whole time. This footage is a preview of a full report with Melissa Block that will air in May. Enjoy.

-David Gilkey
10:21 AM ET | 04-22-2008

Next hour: NPR is currently preparing for a 5-day radio reporting from Chengdu, China. “All Things Considered” will originate from Chengdu, China, the week of May 19-23. I’m going to read about it here: http://www.npr.org/blogs/chengdu/

A David-Brooks like blog

Ok - it has nothing to do with this entry, but my entries have all been so serious lately. Here’s something funny. HAHA… a friend changed song lyrics last Friday at Fling: “Your rice brings all the boys to the yard, and they’re like…it’s better than SARS, damn right it’s better than SARS.”

Here’s a blog kept up by a group of researchers working in Antarctica.  There are some AMAZING pictures and videos of auroras and the sun.

Now we resume:

Before I finish my comments on David Brooks’ article in The Atlantic Monthly, I absolutely have to share the following. There is this blog called “stuff white people like.” The bloggers write like David Brooks except with much more sarcasm and humor. FYI the bloggers treat “whiteness” not only as a racial category but a socioeconomic, consumeristic, lifestyle label as well. Are the BOBOs (bohemian bourgeois) at Penn (ie most of the Penn population) “white”? -> BOBO = white? Hmmm…

1. White males have at some point experienced yellow fever. The entry has had 2500 comments since January. One commenter equates UCLA with “Us Caucasians Love Asians.” I have been told that at Penn, the interracial relationships tend to be Jewish or Protestant men and Asian women. I personally do not know many interracial relationships to really comment on this.

2. “White” people love coffee, especially fair trade coffee. The THREE Starbucks on campus, White Dog, the Black Cat, and Bucks capitalize on our need to be “politically correct.”

3. Odwalla juice and muesli and being outside. Houston Hall has Odwalla juice. ABP (Au Bon Pain) has muesli. Like I said before, Penn trains the elites young (and some come in already trained).

4. Religions that white people’s parents don’t belong to Religion should not be a fad.

5. Having black friends “One Asian and one friend from each under-represented minority group” should be added. I do not mean the effort to find that one friend, but how people seem to generalize an entire population based on one person and the wishful thinking that befriending one of “Them/the Other” is enough.

The Organizational Kid (at Penn) - Part 1

Two months ago, I said I needed time to review David Brooks’ “The Organizational Kid.” I did not really need time. The lack of any assertion was really my refusal to face his declaration that the young men and women of America’s elite lack morality, independent thought, and political involvement. Published exactly seven years ago, Brooks’ article should act as a needle to the Penn bubble fore the “organizational kid” is now ADD.

Were we always like this? Yes (for most of us). My afternoons this week begin with shuffled greetings from high school seniors still flushed from thick acceptance envelopes and eager high school underclassmen with doting parents. Four springs ago, I was one such senior. We were the “AP kids” and “ran” the school. Our lives were programmed by the minute – piano, tennis, newspaper, drama club, mock trial, history and science fair projects, all at once! Oh…and score above 1500 on SATs and have an above-95 GPA (at my high school, we didn’t have As, Bs, Cs and all classes were weighed equally). Try juggle all the above and still be “effortlessly hot.” Flash-forward to the Penn campus, and not much as changed.

We are still programmed…except it is now uncool to use a pen or store a schedule on the laptop. Instead, we delegate all tasks and ringing reminders to more fanciful toys. Penn students now stroll down Locust Walk running their left fingers on a Blackberry or ITouch while holding a Starbucks “skinny latte.” Nota Bene: ABP (Au Bon Pain) and Starbucks train the next generation of corporate climbers early.

Extracurricular (i.e. events planning) at the college level is now organized even more efficiently to fit any individual. Every week is themed. From Penn for Jesus, Human Rights, and a cappella shows to Asian American, Fashion, AIDS awareness, and steal-that-Tabard-girl’s-lunchbox, we can barely squeeze in a coffee chat or dinner with friends. Since “pencil you in” no longer exists, expect yourself to be bumped off the Google calendar for some obscure event. True, I am ignoring the other half of the student population who learned early the significance of closing doors versus keeping every option open. This still does not lessen the effect of the “organizational kid,” which enters ADDx10 stage during OCR (On Campus Recruiting). It is no longer “Hail Caesar” but ME ME ME…why else are Apple advertisements so successful with its iPod, iMac, iLife, etc.

Individual success is EVERYTHING. Everyone and anyone can veni vidi vici.

I have been extremely critical of the Penn bubble (and include myself in most of it). In the next post, I will argue that Brooks does not give enough credit to the less visible crowd. Indeed, Newton is (almost) never wrong; with any action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.