bsenftner 6 days ago

For the most part, most universities, that is true. I was dissatisfied with the quality of my undergrad college education, and had the resources to try other universities. After two state schools, I figured out that Boston is The University City with 700,000 college students in the larger Boston area when I attended Boston University, MIT and Harvard. I found Boston's over sized undergraduate population created a credit sharing system for all the Boston area colleges, and if one wanted they could just walk onto anther campus and take their same class at your university. So, of course, I took at the classes I could at Harvard. I was formally an engineering student at BU, but as far as the professors at Harvard and MIT knew I was a student at their school. What I found was that at Harvard, and about 75% of the time at MIT, the professors are incredibly good, they are the educational best self actualizing as teachers. Every single Harvard professor took a personal interest in my learning their subject. I saw that no where else.

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keiferski 6 days ago

Yeah at that level you’re basically optimizing for all around excellence, and it’s hard to be a leader in your field without also being deeply interested in it at all levels — and being reasonably charismatic.

I’ve only taken classes at state schools, and my experience was that I’d often get a professor that was clearly brilliant at publishing but lacked even the most rudimentary teaching skills. Which is insightful in its own way…just not optimal for teaching.