Malcolm Gladwell is unique. His way of explaining, comprehending and delivering highly advanced and difficult academic research to the common man never seize to amaze me. Cudos to you sir.
i know im asking randomly but does anybody know a trick to get back into an Instagram account..? I was dumb forgot my password. I would love any help you can offer me
Being a top student works both ways. Not only you shine, but you also get all the attention from the teachers. The teachers prefer to speak with top students, suggest ideas to them, in practice you are part of the closed club of the people who publish. It's not that students get discouraged, it's that the professor's time is a scarce resource
This guy's extremely smart. I think what I can take with me from this is: Make everyone close to you feel capable of doing everything they wish to accomplish, because just making them feel this way is going to make them accomplish more.
David Lopez there is a confounding phenomenon: starting in preschool, students who excel at one stage of schooling aren’t the ones who excel at the next (grade school, middle school, high school, college, income. This was in some TED talk. Of course there were numerous unmeasured variables, but it is likely that the skills needed to succeed at each level are quité different.
I honestly don't think he is that smart. Here, for instance, he's playing a kind of intellectual three-card-monty. What happens, for example, if everyone follows his advice? Why does he never criticize the competitive grading system and lack of student engagement which gives rise to the behavior? What are the consequences to the larger economy from the waste of talent? Of course he's at least smart enough to know not to threaten his audience, but even if he were the smartest guy in the room, this particular contribution is of little benefit except to potential parents operating under the assumption that the existing system will continue to operate. He's like the Jordan Peterson of statisticians - though I'm pretty sure he's not as crazy as JP. Everything he chooses to publish is essentially non-threatening or actually reinforcing to the status quo. JP gives great advice to young men looking to succeed in Western competitive society, but seems psychologically incapable of thinking in aggregates. Likewise Gladwell uses aggregate stats not to provide a measure of system performance or even to drill down into the individual subjective realities from which the stats are derived, but to attempt to explain in abstract terms how normal people operate. He just spent 20 minutes explaining, and god knows how many hours researching, a phenomena which genuinely smart people know to be operative without even thinking twice about it. It's a childishly simple exercise. They're not smart - they're autistic, or maybe in Gladwell's case, he just assumes his audience is.
bebopalooblog the counsel he offers is VERY pointed and VERY counter-culture. Not pursuing elite schools? Not even advertising which schools you attend? How on earth can you think that kind of advice _enforces_ today’s status quo? But you’re not interested in a discussion. Your tasteless use of autism as an insult is more then enough proof of that. I know you’re type. I know you’re more then willing to start battles in comment threads. You even re-edit your comments to fix grammar mistakes, in hopes they won’t be used against you. You live in constant fear of those smarter then you, and so you resort to belittling others to aggrandize yourself. Know that I’m muting and blocking you the moment you launch your “witty come-back”. I know you’ll write one, because you can’t help yourself. You’re even welcome to feel like you got the last word. It makes no difference to me, I won’t be reading anything you write. Or maybe you’ll realize this is one battle you can’t win, so you’ll withhold any comment in a desperate attempt to prove I was wrong about you. Either way, I’m grateful I’ll never have to see you again.
This is my personal story - my PhD degree was NOT the Ivy league university but now 128 peer reviewed papers, 12 book chapters, Ed-in-Chief of a journal, 1 edited book and 1 co-authored book behind me, I know he is right.
For Phd's , uni does not matter. A good adviser is what is needed. For undergraduates, it might, unless you are at schools like MIT or UniMi ( i do not count yale or harvard), you will more or less get the same standard of education IMPO.
@@friktogurg9242That's totally absurd. University is very important, because the facilities, connections, prestige, even the level of research varies greatly. It doesn't matter if you have a good advisor and no funding, no equipment, your research will be mostly insignificant or bad. The facilities at MIT include machines that are not available anywhere in the world except at MIT. Or the most popular case is that those machines are too expensive to be purchased by other institutions that are a tiers below of MIT
Finally, a validation of what I experienced all my life. He doesn’t mention the necessity of working while in school when from low income families which prevents the science labs, and language labs as well as music activities required too after classes.
So, here we have a very real explanation for why it can be very hamful for college applicants to "shoot to high." I've thought this for years, but I've never seen it this well articulated. Thank you, Malcolm.
One of the the finest thinkers of our time, Malcolm Gladwell makes a strong case against the popular perception through this thoughtfully demonstrated education pattern study conducted in the elite and non-elite schools of America. Highly recommended for everyone.
Indeed If you like him you might also like to listen to Eric Weinstein. Further if you're interested in "big picture" thinkers you should look at the work of Ken Wilber
PS. My high school teachers made this exact point about the most elite selective private school in our city, nearly 40 years ago. That is, common knowledge among educators. Still good convention challenging in the US, but he only begins to make a strong point...
I quote Malcolm Gladwell every time I see EICD or Relative Deprivation Psychology in the real world. His understanding and speech on the subject are brilliant! When I found this video, I only had to write one research paper during my freshman year on whether it were worth going to an ivy league school. It's almost poetic that I'm currently attending a lower-end institution that hardly anyone has heard of. I did poorly in middle school to where I was nearly held back a grade, and my high school transcripts aren't much better. Now, I'm making dean's list every semester; not because people in my school are not smart, but because having the opportunity to succeed when I'm usually a slow learner has provided me the confidence to really appreciate my education. Thank you, Malcolm, for helping me understand how academia really works; and for making my paper easier to write!
Counterpoints brought up by a Quora user Russel Huang, answered on April 7, 2015 Which dropout rate, exactly? Is it: - the proportion of students who declare a STEM major and then do not graduate within X years in that major (out of all students who declared STEM)? (I think this is the 90%, or rather, 10%, figure.) - the proportion of students who declare a STEM major but switch to another major (out of all students who declared STEM)? - the proportion of students who wanted to declare a STEM major when they started college, but eventually don't (out of all students who said they wanted to do so)? (I think this is what Gladwell is trying to get at.) Gladwell's argument appears to be that many of the people who don't go into STEM at Harvard could or would have done so at another university. In other words, he posits that your "chance" of getting a STEM degree isn't based on your absolute ability but rather your relative ability compared to your peer group. He then conflates that with the idea that the relatively-lower ability students are "dropping out" of a STEM field. That's not really what his data shows. All his data shows is that, for whatever reason, people with a 700 Math SAT (or whatever) are less likely to major in a STEM field if they go to Harvard rather than Hartwick.
Continued by the same Quora user Here are some points which I think that overlooks: - Harvard undergrad classes are a manually-selected 8% (or so) of a pool of 30,000+ applicants. They are not chosen to be interested in only getting STEM degrees, but they are selected to be good (as measured by a test) at math even if they eventually decide they're not interested in majoring in it. - Economics is the most popular major at Harvard, but is not usually considered to be a STEM degree. On the order of 200-300 students each year (out of a class of 1,600) graduate with an Ec concentration, and probably a lot of them were in the bottom third of their classes in math ability. I doubt many of them are breaking their parents' hearts--at least, not because their salaries are too low. - People could be making the rational calculation that an English degree from Harvard is just as "monetizable" as a math degree from Hartwick, and is probably easier to get. Anecdotally, I'd say that if you go to Harvard, your choice of major does not stop you in any way from participating in the salmon spawning grounds of recruiting. There are a whole lot of other assumptions in there to criticize, but I don't want to go too far, since I do think that the "relative deprivation" feeling also plays some role in causing the observed phenomenon. However, it's hardly the entire explanation. Gladwell is probably doing that thing he does where he makes the most contrarian argument that can be reasonably defended. It's made him very popular and reasonably rich.
Really wish I saw this before picking my school. I made the mistake of choosing the best school I got into instead of the second best that I would rather have gone to and would have done really well at. I lost confidence in myself, didn't understand why I was not performing as well as I had in high school, and ended up being worse off academically, intellectually, socially, and holistically. It's not an understatement to say it was the worst decision of my life to go with the "number one" school in the country over a top 25 with less prestige.
This must explain why self taught foreign language students progress way more as opposed to those who attend language classes at some institution or study it at school where they constantly compare their poor pronunciation or vocabulary with some other peer. THAT IS WHY , some kids that went to public schools in Latin America with poor language teachers sometimes end up speaking better English than those who went to bilingual schools that cost a hell lot of money. Even though they were getting better chances to succeed their inferiority in relative terms to their peers and it’s effects on their psyche outpaced the quality of the education they were getting. In Argentina we say or at least I say and assume I heard it from somebody : “Would you rather be a lion ‘s tail or a mouse’s head” The worst of the best or the best of the worst. And might also explain why some people , like elite families in Latin America , having the chances to live a better life somewhere else just choose to don’t do so in order to stay on top of the curve. Why people some people choose to stay in small towns and so on. Hierarchy an it’s effects on the human mind are extremely interesting.
Wow. Very interesting. I can apply this to many things in my life, not just in the classroom - music, athletics, the workplace. And, as we all know, we're hungry for theories that will explain why our lives turned out as they did. Mr. Gladwell is a brilliant man.
He's pretty brilliant in his knowledge base and ability to make observations that nobody else is making. He has the data to back up everything he says. He's kind of loud in this presentation, but he's quite charismatic most of his others. I suggest you watch them. BTW he's the Author of "Outliers" and "David and Goliath"
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This explains high school situation. When I changed my lousy high school and go to a private, academically flying high school, I became one of the worst students there. However, when I was at that lousy high school, I was more motivated and "relatively" better.
Let me share my story , Grown up in an unacademic home , grandma took care of me during early upbringing , basically without a father and mother(2 different nationalities ) right after my 4th birthday , as they took the decision to get separated and part each other way, at that moment I did not realize what that all meant , I continued to attend my basic education , with really good grades in math and languages sometimes at the top of the class I was in , however my performance went abit more south during the end of my high school , unfortunately little by little my performance did not really overall improvement except for highly quantitive subjects during my University degree ( econ major ), I had to stay to stay one more year , I realized bit by bit that it was the drag of the past that in many ways affecting my , and my grandma did not really help me to see and visit back my mother which was a constant pain for me till this day , HOWEVER , I did not give up like others would do , I had to work side by side during my Uni period , and managed to get a good distinction at my bachelor and now I'm moved to other country where I can finish my master degree , but again it is not that easy , but once I get it done -but I have to find a way first to see back and visit my mother -, I will come back to this post and let all the world know that I can still do it , the moral of the story is relative position to peers matters but equally important in my experience , relative position to your external circumstances do matter and how given the lack of the right emotional upbringing can be a huge challenge in itself . Keep it up , you are born to be wild
Malcolm accepted the invitation to speak at Google b/c he wanted society to hear this message. Google offered him a platform for his message to be heard. I graduated an undergraduate science degree in ‘79. In my first year of study I intuited my marks and class ranking would be inconsequential unless I was in the top 1 percentile upon graduation. That everyone from 99%-50% would be lumped into one large group: “Not First”. Similar to the Olympic Games. One Gold medal equals a corporate endorsement offer, esteem and financial gain. Five silver medals is rewarded with obscurity. 43 years since I was graduated with Honours: here are the numbers to support my position.
Brilliant, let me tell my story, being a good student during my Secondary and Higher secondary school, I went to the best Engineering school of Bangladesh, its screening process is very similar of that of IITs for uninitiated people. Stood in the 10 percentile among 10,000 participants that year and maybe among 1 percentile among that year 100K prospective applicant. What I found after admission that how grueling and demanding the courses were, I were not simply ready. I struggled. I didnot study because I didn't fell the urge of studying. I was more into developing video games!!!! I huffed, I puffed...... But when the results start spawning I was near the bottom of my department. And Relative Position came into play. I thought I was not good enough, but I was. I deemed myself worthless on others perceived success. After graduation, top 10 percentile went onto top schools of US to pursue their Phds. Life became difficult, I joined a big organization but when you see your friends working in big labs under eminent professor that hurts. Hurts a lot, I might say. We put our emphasis on wrong places and therefore we might loss on things that are actually more important.
i think i can say i was in a similar situation, in the university there were classes like physics or electronics that i did not like, and in which i had mediocre grades, but there were classes like maths or programming that i did like and where i had very high grades. it reminds me of what Einstein said - "if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid" - i think it matters to excel in what you like and are passionate about and for you to know that you are doing the best possible
Thanks for sharing your own story. I think parents & society should be encouraging you to find the best place for you to succeed versus trying to get into the most prestigious school which might not be right for you personally for any number of reasons. As an example, lets say you could afford a new Porsche 911. That doesn't mean you should buy one again for any number of reasons. With colleges I think the grim reality is that parents pressure their kids to get into the most prestigious school because it makes them look good. Of course they say on the outside it's all for our boy and that is certainly partially true in most cases but there are definitely cases as Gladwell discusses where the student would have been better off at a "lesser" institution and I think parents have got to realise this. To be fair, I think a lot of parents have made the realisation that life isn't about getting into Harvard. But this same logic applies across basically everything in life. Nearly anything in life has things that are seen to be impressive/cool by the crowd and if you operate your life to try to impress everyone you're not likely to fulfil your potential or be very happy/fulfilled. Sorry to go on so long but again thank you for sharing your education story.
I've been in Harvard/MIT science labs. In my experience, it has nothing to do with a relative deprivation 'of self', but rather a relative deprivation of focused mentorship / multi-paper publishable projects. Every well-established lab has a ton of core work to do for large grants that keep the lab running but only result in a paper every two or 3 years. For the risky new stuff, timely publications is so important (you don't want to get scooped) that a PI/lab manager will always choose your best students to work on those projects in their "spare time" while everyone else gets stuck 'calibrating the instruments', managing the inventory, or following up on less promising data with theirs.
The outward effect is still a relative deprivation. You will only get enough resources if you are at the top. And the effect is so profound, that if you are in the top 99 percentile of a not highly ranked school, your output will be in the 95 percentile of the highest ranked school. The conclusion therefore is also correct: Go to a school where you will be in the top and you will achieve more (in the institution) than you would if you were to go to a higher ranked school and just be a nobody without any focus on you. It also shows how immense the effect of mentorship and focus on people is. The effect is a lot higher than IQ or any other metrics.
Malcom being malcom in this one. His slight of hand in this one is that a math degree from hartwick is the same product as one from Harvard. Ask a kid from hartwick how his job search is going vs. one from Harvard. Malcom, malcom, malcom. Never change.
Three points this presentation brought to my mind . 1. A far more interesting question for Malcolm: Why do so few music students at university drop out even though they might not be very good? 2. You have to prove yourself a genius but once - 3. SAT scores don't tell us much about the whole person.
There is a point where intelligence barely matters and only work ethic, discipline and luck determine how you do in school. I am certain that a very small fraction of drop-outs are due to just not being smart enough.
This is a helpful belief because diligence is in our control but intelligence is not. But sadly, there is a limit to this. if you're of average intelligence you could work your way to higher intelligence performance. but not if you're are in the lowest percentages
Great observations I had not heard of before. I love the shirt kind of tucked in in front and out in the back. And he does not button the collar buttons down. And the jeans are worn. He is so talented and brilliant, he can do that. In fact, the more brilliant and accomplished you are, the more slovenly you can and should be.
Based on experience with child at a prestigious Ivy engineering program - engineering instruction even today is academic hazing rather that academic encouragement. The system and instructors conspire to weed out all but the top of the class even though ALL are superior talents. And, unlike the real world, group success is under-emphasized. Malcolm, you are on the right track.
This is kinda like how the best basketball players I've ever played against end up being the last guy on an NBA bench at BEST and usually end up with no shot at getting in the league at all
i think he has some points. when you think you are smart due to your lack of exposure to smarter people, you are more confident and daring than you would be if you were surrounded by smart people. But by going to lesser competitive schools so you can feel better about yourself is not the same as going to more competitive school and actually fight your path through a train of capable opponents. Of course not everyone has the appetite for an overachieved life. But it prepares you for a "eat or be eaten" world out there.
“This is the first time I have used PowerPoint”...by Microsoft...at a Google conference. LOL. I’m betting it wasn’t PPT. But the nervous laughter in the room was priceless!
Solely speaking on what he spoke in regards to kids dropping out of math and science courses. My issue with math and science is that a lot of it is based off of memory and not much understanding. For me, if I don't understand the purpose of something, it will forever be alien to me. I have a hard time seeing the "logic" within those equations.
I read most of his book and it is only until this week that I got interested to watch his talks. Honestly, I am very pleased to know your work and picking up your brain. Peace
I don't think it's about confidence like says- more about structure and incentives. Professors don't want to go at the speed of the bottom 3rd of the class because the top students would get bored, so the less talented kids can't keep up. In any given school, professors take their pick of students and choose the best ones to work with. You don't have to invoke confidence as a mechanism.
You have to account for the quality of the published material. The threshold for submission to the best magazines from the best schools is very, very high. You have to be smart, insanely motivated, believe in what you do with religious zealotry, have an advisor who believes in you, and be lucky enough to have your research work out in order to get published at one of these institutions.
He clearly states that the research accounts points based on the prestige a publication has. Theoretically a journal that has more prestige and is harder to get published in is weighted at a higher score than an easier publication.
Jaxson Goldsdmith theoretically......There has been some pretty awful stuff published in some pretty selective journals. Once the journal publishes your stuff the first time, they stop checking.
I think he was being humorous. I think he's from Toronto. And I wouldn't set much store by those silly THE (or any other) rankings of academic institutions
It's all RELATIVE! D'uh! But seriously, MG's my favourite author ATM & in the current state of the world, this is a highly valid, even vital, discussion.
Might I point out that, simply getting the more able students to choose 'lesser' colleges will not improve the number of successful graduates overall. The "relative" effect will remain: those who ultimately succeed will still form the same proportion as before.
This is why I always like this guy, breaking it down like a beast! Go on with your bad self, can't wait for his new book, if this is any indication, it's going to be another great read.
Perhaps I missed it, but I don't think the speaker expanded his argument so as to take into account that when the top students from the top universities leave the university, their relative rank immediately changes based on their new environment; likely their place of employment. So they should begin to regain the confidence which they lost starting from day 1. The other potential conclusion is that universities use testing and grades as a proxy for intelligence, which I'd argue, may be an altogether poor way to judge intelligence. There are so many individual outliers who get poor grades yet are bored by the classroom. Many of these end up demonstrating themselves to be some of the brightest minds when judged by their life's accomplishments. Also, highly intelligent people may question the value of a job at a good company or a placement at a top university. They may have more Maslow-ian goals which are not necessarily reached via attaining good grades or working for a top company.
I believe you missed the part where he talked about publishing academic journals. What can be seen is that top students publish five times as many journals within a few years of graduating. It's remarkable, but believable with the statistics Gladwell provides.
That part was impossible to miss. It was the main argument he presented in making his case. My argument is that if we keep using grades and journal-inclusions as proxies for success, maybe very little can be gleaned from this type of research.
This is a simplistic view of a complex topic with lots of variables. This assumes that the level of difficulty at Tops schools vs lower schools are the same. Is that accurate? Perhaps schools like Harvard have higher standards for phd papers and stem programs.
The point about publication take into account the number but not the quality, one paper published by MIT is sometimes more important and amusing to read than 20 papers from other lesser universities.
His point isn't the quality of the publications, he was just using it as a measure of student success in the field of economics. If you're getting published at a "crummy" school then you're succeeding whereas the kid at an elite school that isn't getting published probably isn't doing as well.
Just discovered Google Zeitgeist. The talks look good. Thanks Google. Y'all hit it out of the park, again. Jim Ps. When I think of the cognitive revolution y'all have created... I stand in awe. I'm a rainbow family, mud pit rolling, ex LSD head, so I got a pretty good education on my own but you guys amount to Angles on this Earth; available to everyone, almost for free
great video and interesting topic of course, but when it came to the papers published I don't think most people really care about papers published per 6 years nearly as much as salary. That is to say, if we compare the salary of the 55th percental at Harvard with the salary of the 99th percentile at a non top 30 school, who is making more money? It makes me wonder if there is some p-hacking going on with the original study. such as the researchers originally examined many variables (such as post graduation salary) and found that absolute standing _was_ more important than relative standing in the case of salary, but published the papers published number because it was more interesting and aligned with their relative deprivation theory.
Absolutely, maybe the 55th percentile study at Harvard didn’t even go into academia. Maybe they are working at a hedge fund or a tech firm making millions and only publishing on the side due to inherent interest in the subject matter.
At 15:50 I disagree that nobody is failing anybody. In terms of dropping out before graduating with a STEM degree, the university system is not designed as a training ground for the best minds but actively applies Relative Deprivation as a hazing mechanism. It is designed to fail students who might otherwise do extremely well if the university system were designed to cultivate talent rather than create a regime of the select few who make it through an unnecessary gauntlet. Why are we putting students in these sensory deprivation sweat boxes to begin with? If we really do want more STEM graduate success then the system has to change because we have created an artificial bottleneck. And the solution sounds as easy as creating smaller cohort group waves and making sure struggling students get the attention they need.
"At any college, you will always see, regardless of the level of cognitive ability among the students, you will always see the same pattern, The kids who get the science and math degrees are the ones at the top of their class and the kids in the bottom of their class never do." [15% or so in the bottom third do get their degrees. But a strong point anyway.] "We form our self-assessments based on our standing in our immediate circle..."
Lot of flaws in this reasoning, and many factors not taken into account. 1)comparing income between schools, but not comparing between majors 2)comparing the worst Harvard students to the best Hartwick students 3)referring to students “dropping out” of STEM majors when that’s not the same as dropping out of school entirely. They’re simply switching their major. 4)top schools have much higher graduation rates (e.g. Penn 95.5%, Penn State 73.2%, 6-year graduation rate) 5)the income comparison likely only looks at students who graduated. Since top schools have far lower dropout rates, their average/median income will decrease by much less than the average school if the income of dropouts is taken into account 6)top private universities also provide the best financial aid. Below a certain income bracket, you can qualify for free tuition, and sometimes free room and board on top of that, at most top private universities. Even above the free tuition income bracket you can still qualify for generous financial aid. Gladwell is just selling clickbait in this presentation; diminishing the best institutions to make everyone else feel better. Providing little if any credible evidence to support his claims while ignoring many valid counter-arguments.
I hadn't read a book in four years. I picked up Outliers based on a friend's recommendation. I've flown through all of his books, and I'll watch his speeches. The guy knows shit.
“Relative deprivation theory”...Rousseau called it “Amor Prope”. The beginnings of civilization and its evils came from comparing ourselves to the next guy. Just learned that in a Harvard Lecture on YT. That’s why I love philosophy. There is really nothing new under the sun. The greats said it much better, and now science is proving their best intuitions.
Yes for sure. And the larger the group and the more complex the sets of intelligences/skills/capacities - the more potential for comparision, hence more potential for negative consequences of comparison
he’s also assuming the end goal of all people going to phd programs is to publish. maybe the person who’s 5th in the class didn’t study as hard because they didn’t plan on publishing because they wanted to exit into a finance job.
the things is, the data is only regarding publishing rates and stem dropout rates. what about financial status, what about quantity of elite accolades, what about quality of the work produced. do the same trends emerge? Does the 55th percentile graduate go on to build a more successful company than the constantly scribbling 99th? What it really suggests is that self-delusion, a 'i'm special' ideology, is necessary to concoct and follow-through with challenging tasks.
Gladwell always seems to marshall interesting and reveaiing perspectives on how things are working. At 17:11 he says something that seems to come out of Nonduality related to the Relative and the Absolute! :) Ha. Talking with Strangers his new book is crammed with these kinds of experiments and insights and review of studies and literature.
They aren't bad programs; I think you're missing the point. Connect the ideas, people in the top schools don't produce as much as they should be because they doubt themselves.
ByronPhillipWilliams As a graduate of a top college in the US I can say you are spot on. Their is nothing more doubt-inducing than going from the smartest person you know to the village idiot in a single airplane flight. That doubt, instilled at 18 (one poor kid was only 16!) can and will effect decisions you make for the rest of your life.
He didn't address the one big question that came to my mind. When considering possible reasons for the dropout rates, comparatively speaking, you need to consider that the coursework is more demanding at the top schools. This might explain the different success rates in the professional fields as well. The Harvard elite is getting published in the Wall Street Journal and the state school grad is being published in second or third tier publications.
It doesn't change the fact the students who dropped out of top ranked institutions are likely not being as successful as the students who got their degrees in lower ranked unis. One degree still better than no degree at all.
Is it more demanding? From my understanding, at an undergraduate level, the material is relatively the same. Also, elite institutions have a lot more grade inflation.
Interesting talk from Malcolm but I disagree with the conclusion. While I do understand his thesis on relative position vs absolute position, I do also find evidence that with minorities (I am one myself) and immigrants, going to elite institutions did give us a boost in our career options regardless of whether we studied STEM or Liberal Arts.
Of course it does! You will be exposed to the "better" side of life, then you will also gain the edge of being acceptably different. Note: acceptably. Except on the Stage, the afro hair is a great deterrent socially. The loud aggressive natural Black voice, except in Stage Comedy, is a great drawback.
i dont think he is lacking in data science!! most of the data he uses are analyzed by others, but he is wonderful to collect such research papers and build a story around that which makes sense.
In any situation where there is some obvious ranking, the phenomenon should be inescapable so it makes no difference unless you know you are sure to be at the top of whatever institution you choose. If I were smarter, I would come up with some Nash equilibrium explanation.
So, what if you hire the top performers of their respective classes and put them all together, one elite group. Will you not then create a new environment where the relatively best will excel and the relatively worst will feel like a failure? Regardless of previous relative excellence, they will now be the ones with the low chance of success. Is there a way to make the relatively worse people feel more successful regardless, and thus improve performance even though others are better than them in their close vicinity?
And a second question. What if someone who beat the odds and actually did graduate at the bottom of their Harvard class (regardless of how many people drop out someone will be worst in the class, it’s all relative after all ;)), then moves on to take a position in a less “elite” environment and then becomes the relative top. Will she then become a top performer with her new-gained confidence of her relative position in the new environment? And will she, in this new environment, be superior or inferior to someone who ranked higher in their class, but from a less prestigious school?
Having a degree from Harvard or another Ivy League School means that 10, 15, or 20 years from now, the Secretary of State will be your former roommate. You will be on first-name terms with the people who run the country's industry.
Here's a man who's incompetent to push slides back and forth with 2 buttons and still awes the audience about intellectual achievements. Now THAT's remarkable :)))
I suppose this is not a full story. In science we explore the full distribution and then draw lessons based on regions of data, not a general sweeping statement. Other side of story would be that in better places overall average would pull you up. Maybe by not all metrics but by important ones.
The same can be said about English though. You can't really just jump in and write about any subject, you have to study and analyse so that you fully understand what it is you are writing about. Nothing learned in maths is useless, those basic long division skills you learned in primary school become hugely useful when you move onto polynomial functions. The same in English, to write you first need a strong grasp of the rules of language. A strong grasp on language allows for compelling writing.
The "quip" is based on statistics. STEM courses are more competitive and the academic standards more rigorous than other fields. So when people drop out of STEM courses they frequently switch to arts degrees. He makes that comment because _that_ _is_ _what_ _people_ _do_. Gladwell's not discriminating against anything. He's simply reporting what happens.
Simply brilliant. I just wonder, pertaining to the extremely proficient economist that don’t publish anything valuable, are they doing that while being professors at universities or are they employed by companies that don’t give a dime if they publish or not.
There is a lot of sadness hiding in those STEM dropout rates, especially Harvard's. Imagine the dazzling promise of those dropouts in their high schools. And then they get accepted at HU. And the not to succeed . . . ?
O. M. G. Big Fish in Small Pond strategy is an absolute winner. Thing is, it rings true in my experience though I was afraid to put a finger on it -- how could you *not* want to be in the highest caliber arena you can possibly stagger into...seems chicken.
Malcolm Gladwell is unique. His way of explaining, comprehending and delivering highly advanced and difficult academic research to the common man never seize to amaze me. Cudos to you sir.
'Kudos' commoner.
Byrd
he certainly publishes ... prodigiously
i know im asking randomly but does anybody know a trick to get back into an Instagram account..?
I was dumb forgot my password. I would love any help you can offer me
Being a top student works both ways. Not only you shine, but you also get all the attention from the teachers. The teachers prefer to speak with top students, suggest ideas to them, in practice you are part of the closed club of the people who publish. It's not that students get discouraged, it's that the professor's time is a scarce resource
This guy's extremely smart. I think what I can take with me from this is: Make everyone close to you feel capable of doing everything they wish to accomplish, because just making them feel this way is going to make them accomplish more.
David Lopez there is a confounding phenomenon: starting in preschool, students who excel at one stage of schooling aren’t the ones who excel at the next (grade school, middle school, high school, college, income. This was in some TED talk. Of course there were numerous unmeasured variables, but it is likely that the skills needed to succeed at each level are quité different.
What you do, matters to other people. People afraid or not trustet usually seek a comfortfort zone and not more challanges.
I honestly don't think he is that smart. Here, for instance, he's playing a kind of intellectual three-card-monty. What happens, for example, if everyone follows his advice? Why does he never criticize the competitive grading system and lack of student engagement which gives rise to the behavior? What are the consequences to the larger economy from the waste of talent? Of course he's at least smart enough to know not to threaten his audience, but even if he were the smartest guy in the room, this particular contribution is of little benefit except to potential parents operating under the assumption that the existing system will continue to operate. He's like the Jordan Peterson of statisticians - though I'm pretty sure he's not as crazy as JP. Everything he chooses to publish is essentially non-threatening or actually reinforcing to the status quo. JP gives great advice to young men looking to succeed in Western competitive society, but seems psychologically incapable of thinking in aggregates. Likewise Gladwell uses aggregate stats not to provide a measure of system performance or even to drill down into the individual subjective realities from which the stats are derived, but to attempt to explain in abstract terms how normal people operate. He just spent 20 minutes explaining, and god knows how many hours researching, a phenomena which genuinely smart people know to be operative without even thinking twice about it. It's a childishly simple exercise. They're not smart - they're autistic, or maybe in Gladwell's case, he just assumes his audience is.
bebopalooblog the counsel he offers is VERY pointed and VERY counter-culture. Not pursuing elite schools? Not even advertising which schools you attend? How on earth can you think that kind of advice _enforces_ today’s status quo?
But you’re not interested in a discussion. Your tasteless use of autism as an insult is more then enough proof of that. I know you’re type. I know you’re more then willing to start battles in comment threads. You even re-edit your comments to fix grammar mistakes, in hopes they won’t be used against you. You live in constant fear of those smarter then you, and so you resort to belittling others to aggrandize yourself.
Know that I’m muting and blocking you the moment you launch your “witty come-back”. I know you’ll write one, because you can’t help yourself. You’re even welcome to feel like you got the last word. It makes no difference to me, I won’t be reading anything you write. Or maybe you’ll realize this is one battle you can’t win, so you’ll withhold any comment in a desperate attempt to prove I was wrong about you.
Either way, I’m grateful I’ll never have to see you again.
David Lopez: that should be the only lesson they should teach us in management school.
This is my personal story - my PhD degree was NOT the Ivy league university but now 128 peer reviewed papers, 12 book chapters, Ed-in-Chief of a journal, 1 edited book and 1 co-authored book behind me, I know he is right.
For Phd's , uni does not matter. A good adviser is what is needed. For undergraduates, it might, unless you are at schools like MIT or UniMi ( i do not count yale or harvard), you will more or less get the same standard of education IMPO.
@@friktogurg9242That's totally absurd. University is very important, because the facilities, connections, prestige, even the level of research varies greatly.
It doesn't matter if you have a good advisor and no funding, no equipment, your research will be mostly insignificant or bad.
The facilities at MIT include machines that are not available anywhere in the world except at MIT. Or the most popular case is that those machines are too expensive to be purchased by other institutions that are a tiers below of MIT
Finally, a validation of what I experienced all my life. He doesn’t mention the necessity of working while in school when from low income families which prevents the science labs, and language labs as well as music activities required too after classes.
So, here we have a very real explanation for why it can be very hamful for college applicants to "shoot to high." I've thought this for years, but I've never seen it this well articulated. Thank you, Malcolm.
"Man should ascend to knowledge, and descend to work." Descartes said a lot with this one.
One of the the finest thinkers of our time, Malcolm Gladwell makes a strong case against the popular perception through this thoughtfully demonstrated education pattern study conducted in the elite and non-elite schools of America. Highly recommended for everyone.
Indeed If you like him you might also like to listen to Eric Weinstein. Further if you're interested in "big picture" thinkers you should look at the work of Ken Wilber
I don't think he's that a fine a thinker; he's a fine communicator of fine thinkers' work.
PS. My high school teachers made this exact point about the most elite selective private school in our city, nearly 40 years ago. That is, common knowledge among educators. Still good convention challenging in the US, but he only begins to make a strong point...
@@mwilliamson4198 Update: skip Eric Weinstein
I quote Malcolm Gladwell every time I see EICD or Relative Deprivation Psychology in the real world. His understanding and speech on the subject are brilliant! When I found this video, I only had to write one research paper during my freshman year on whether it were worth going to an ivy league school. It's almost poetic that I'm currently attending a lower-end institution that hardly anyone has heard of. I did poorly in middle school to where I was nearly held back a grade, and my high school transcripts aren't much better. Now, I'm making dean's list every semester; not because people in my school are not smart, but because having the opportunity to succeed when I'm usually a slow learner has provided me the confidence to really appreciate my education.
Thank you, Malcolm, for helping me understand how academia really works; and for making my paper easier to write!
Counterpoints brought up by a Quora user Russel Huang, answered on April 7, 2015
Which dropout rate, exactly? Is it:
- the proportion of students who declare a STEM major and then do not graduate within X years in that major (out of all students who declared STEM)? (I think this is the 90%, or rather, 10%, figure.)
- the proportion of students who declare a STEM major but switch to another major (out of all students who declared STEM)?
- the proportion of students who wanted to declare a STEM major when they started college, but eventually don't (out of all students who said they wanted to do so)? (I think this is what Gladwell is trying to get at.)
Gladwell's argument appears to be that many of the people who don't go into STEM at Harvard could or would have done so at another university. In other words, he posits that your "chance" of getting a STEM degree isn't based on your absolute ability but rather your relative ability compared to your peer group. He then conflates that with the idea that the relatively-lower ability students are "dropping out" of a STEM field. That's not really what his data shows. All his data shows is that, for whatever reason, people with a 700 Math SAT (or whatever) are less likely to major in a STEM field if they go to Harvard rather than Hartwick.
Continued by the same Quora user
Here are some points which I think that overlooks:
- Harvard undergrad classes are a manually-selected 8% (or so) of a pool of 30,000+ applicants. They are not chosen to be interested in only getting STEM degrees, but they are selected to be good (as measured by a test) at math even if they eventually decide they're not interested in majoring in it.
- Economics is the most popular major at Harvard, but is not usually considered to be a STEM degree. On the order of 200-300 students each year (out of a class of 1,600) graduate with an Ec concentration, and probably a lot of them were in the bottom third of their classes in math ability. I doubt many of them are breaking their parents' hearts--at least, not because their salaries are too low.
- People could be making the rational calculation that an English degree from Harvard is just as "monetizable" as a math degree from Hartwick, and is probably easier to get. Anecdotally, I'd say that if you go to Harvard, your choice of major does not stop you in any way from participating in the salmon spawning grounds of recruiting.
There are a whole lot of other assumptions in there to criticize, but I don't want to go too far, since I do think that the "relative deprivation" feeling also plays some role in causing the observed phenomenon. However, it's hardly the entire explanation.
Gladwell is probably doing that thing he does where he makes the most contrarian argument that can be reasonably defended. It's made him very popular and reasonably rich.
Malcolm Gladwell is one of those rare sparks that enlightens us in this maddeningly irrational world.
Really wish I saw this before picking my school. I made the mistake of choosing the best school I got into instead of the second best that I would rather have gone to and would have done really well at. I lost confidence in myself, didn't understand why I was not performing as well as I had in high school, and ended up being worse off academically, intellectually, socially, and holistically. It's not an understatement to say it was the worst decision of my life to go with the "number one" school in the country over a top 25 with less prestige.
He could tell a story about watching paint dry and i'd probably still find myself watching the whole thing. Genius story teller.
He used that presentation on his amazing book David and Goliath underdogs misfits and the art of battling giants.
Great great book! What a mind.
This must explain why self taught foreign language students progress way more as opposed to those who attend language classes at some institution or study it at school where they constantly compare their poor pronunciation or vocabulary with some other peer. THAT IS WHY , some kids that went to public schools in Latin America with poor language teachers sometimes end up speaking better English than those who went to bilingual schools that cost a hell lot of money. Even though they were getting better chances to succeed their inferiority in relative terms to their peers and it’s effects on their psyche outpaced the quality of the education they were getting. In Argentina we say or at least I say and assume I heard it from somebody : “Would you rather be a lion
‘s tail or a mouse’s head” The worst of the best or the best of the worst. And might also explain why some people , like elite families in Latin America , having the chances to live a better life somewhere else just choose to don’t do so in order to stay on top of the curve. Why people some people choose to stay in small towns and so on. Hierarchy an it’s effects on the human mind are extremely interesting.
Wow. Very interesting. I can apply this to many things in my life, not just in the classroom - music, athletics, the workplace. And, as we all know, we're hungry for theories that will explain why our lives turned out as they did. Mr. Gladwell is a brilliant man.
He's pretty brilliant in his knowledge base and ability to make observations that nobody else is making. He has the data to back up everything he says. He's kind of loud in this presentation, but he's quite charismatic most of his others. I suggest you watch them. BTW he's the Author of "Outliers" and "David and Goliath"
This explains high school situation. When I changed my lousy high school and go to a private, academically flying high school, I became one of the worst students there. However, when I was at that lousy high school, I was more motivated and "relatively" better.
Let me share my story ,
Grown up in an unacademic home , grandma took care of me during early upbringing , basically without a father and mother(2 different nationalities ) right after my 4th birthday , as they took the decision to get separated and part each other way, at that moment I did not realize what that all meant , I continued to attend my basic education , with really good grades in math and languages sometimes at the top of the class I was in , however my performance went abit more south during the end of my high school , unfortunately little by little my performance did not really overall improvement except for highly quantitive subjects during my University degree ( econ major ), I had to stay to stay one more year , I realized bit by bit that it was the drag of the past that in many ways affecting my , and my grandma did not really help me to see and visit back my mother which was a constant pain for me till this day , HOWEVER , I did not give up like others would do , I had to work side by side during my Uni period , and managed to get a good distinction at my bachelor and now I'm moved to other country where I can finish my master degree , but again it is not that easy , but once I get it done -but I have to find a way first to see back and visit my mother -,
I will come back to this post and let all the world know that I can still do it , the moral of the story is relative position to peers matters but equally important in my experience , relative position to your external circumstances do matter and how given the lack of the right emotional upbringing can be a huge challenge in itself .
Keep it up , you are born to be wild
Wishing you many successes! There are lots of overcomers in the world. You can do it too! Best luck!
Malcolm accepted the invitation to speak at Google b/c he wanted society to hear this message. Google offered him a platform for his message to be heard.
I graduated an undergraduate science degree in ‘79. In my first year of study I intuited my marks and class ranking would be inconsequential unless I was in the top 1 percentile upon graduation. That everyone from 99%-50% would be lumped into one large group: “Not First”. Similar to the Olympic Games. One Gold medal equals a corporate endorsement offer, esteem and financial gain. Five silver medals is rewarded with obscurity.
43 years since I was graduated with Honours: here are the numbers to support my position.
Well spoken and absolutely absorbing, entertaining and interesting.
Brilliant, let me tell my story, being a good student during my Secondary and Higher secondary school, I went to the best Engineering school of Bangladesh, its screening process is very similar of that of IITs for uninitiated people. Stood in the 10 percentile among 10,000 participants that year and maybe among 1 percentile among that year 100K prospective applicant. What I found after admission that how grueling and demanding the courses were, I were not simply ready. I struggled. I didnot study because I didn't fell the urge of studying. I was more into developing video games!!!! I huffed, I puffed...... But when the results start spawning I was near the bottom of my department. And Relative Position came into play. I thought I was not good enough, but I was. I deemed myself worthless on others perceived success. After graduation, top 10 percentile went onto top schools of US to pursue their Phds. Life became difficult, I joined a big organization but when you see your friends working in big labs under eminent professor that hurts. Hurts a lot, I might say. We put our emphasis on wrong places and therefore we might loss on things that are actually more important.
The same thing happened here
i think i can say i was in a similar situation, in the university there were classes like physics or electronics that i did not like, and in which i had mediocre grades, but there were classes like maths or programming that i did like and where i had very high grades. it reminds me of what Einstein said - "if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid" - i think it matters to excel in what you like and are passionate about and for you to know that you are doing the best possible
Thanks for sharing your own story. I think parents & society should be encouraging you to find the best place for you to succeed versus trying to get into the most prestigious school which might not be right for you personally for any number of reasons. As an example, lets say you could afford a new Porsche 911. That doesn't mean you should buy one again for any number of reasons. With colleges I think the grim reality is that parents pressure their kids to get into the most prestigious school because it makes them look good. Of course they say on the outside it's all for our boy and that is certainly partially true in most cases but there are definitely cases as Gladwell discusses where the student would have been better off at a "lesser" institution and I think parents have got to realise this. To be fair, I think a lot of parents have made the realisation that life isn't about getting into Harvard. But this same logic applies across basically everything in life. Nearly anything in life has things that are seen to be impressive/cool by the crowd and if you operate your life to try to impress everyone you're not likely to fulfil your potential or be very happy/fulfilled. Sorry to go on so long but again thank you for sharing your education story.
I can feel you vai , just like you this video also made me understand so many things
This man is something else. Smart, charismatic and funny!
I've been in Harvard/MIT science labs. In my experience, it has nothing to do with a relative deprivation 'of self', but rather a relative deprivation of focused mentorship / multi-paper publishable projects. Every well-established lab has a ton of core work to do for large grants that keep the lab running but only result in a paper every two or 3 years. For the risky new stuff, timely publications is so important (you don't want to get scooped) that a PI/lab manager will always choose your best students to work on those projects in their "spare time" while everyone else gets stuck 'calibrating the instruments', managing the inventory, or following up on less promising data with theirs.
The outward effect is still a relative deprivation. You will only get enough resources if you are at the top. And the effect is so profound, that if you are in the top 99 percentile of a not highly ranked school, your output will be in the 95 percentile of the highest ranked school. The conclusion therefore is also correct: Go to a school where you will be in the top and you will achieve more (in the institution) than you would if you were to go to a higher ranked school and just be a nobody without any focus on you. It also shows how immense the effect of mentorship and focus on people is. The effect is a lot higher than IQ or any other metrics.
Malcom being malcom in this one. His slight of hand in this one is that a math degree from hartwick is the same product as one from Harvard. Ask a kid from hartwick how his job search is going vs. one from Harvard. Malcom, malcom, malcom. Never change.
everyone still left expecting their kid to get into an ivy league school
Three points this presentation brought to my mind .
1. A far more interesting question for Malcolm: Why do so few music students at university drop out even though they might not be very good?
2. You have to prove yourself a genius but once -
3. SAT scores don't tell us much about the whole person.
ī
There is a point where intelligence barely matters and only work ethic, discipline and luck determine how you do in school. I am certain that a very small fraction of drop-outs are due to just not being smart enough.
>"work ethic, discipline "
did you not even watch the video
This is a helpful belief because diligence is in our control but intelligence is not. But sadly, there is a limit to this. if you're of average intelligence you could work your way to higher intelligence performance. but not if you're are in the lowest percentages
@@amyjames9282 you also didn't watch the video
@@Minsang1st He's saying what he believes. And he's a talented speaker. But he's not always right. Think critically and independently
@@amyjames9282 👏👏👏 i shed a tear
Great observations I had not heard of before. I love the shirt kind of tucked in in front and out in the back. And he does not button the collar buttons down. And the jeans are worn. He is so talented and brilliant, he can do that. In fact, the more brilliant and accomplished you are, the more slovenly you can and should be.
Based on experience with child at a prestigious Ivy engineering program - engineering instruction even today is academic hazing rather that academic encouragement. The system and instructors conspire to weed out all but the top of the class even though ALL are superior talents. And, unlike the real world, group success is under-emphasized. Malcolm, you are on the right track.
I heard this guy speak at a local college last year. He's a most impressive intellectual.
Amazing speech... its seems so known, but still unknown..!! Getting a different perception now!! Thanks Malcolm for this incredible speech!!!
Big fan of Malcolm Gladwell !! Great talk
This is kinda like how the best basketball players I've ever played against end up being the last guy on an NBA bench at BEST and usually end up with no shot at getting in the league at all
Well thought out and discussed opinions. Good Journalist.
i think he has some points. when you think you are smart due to your lack of exposure to smarter people, you are more confident and daring than you would be if you were surrounded by smart people. But by going to lesser competitive schools so you can feel better about yourself is not the same as going to more competitive school and actually fight your path through a train of capable opponents. Of course not everyone has the appetite for an overachieved life. But it prepares you for a "eat or be eaten" world out there.
My left ear is now ever so slightly wiser
I did not even notice wow , and I produce music lol
Lol. I didn't notice it until you mentioned it...
I love every new ideas that Malcolm Gladwell shares!
“This is the first time I have used PowerPoint”...by Microsoft...at a Google conference. LOL. I’m betting it wasn’t PPT. But the nervous laughter in the room was priceless!
Fascinating as Malcolm Gladwell always is - deeper than usual here
Solely speaking on what he spoke in regards to kids dropping out of math and science courses. My issue with math and science is that a lot of it is based off of memory and not much understanding. For me, if I don't understand the purpose of something, it will forever be alien to me. I have a hard time seeing the "logic" within those equations.
I read most of his book and it is only until this week that I got interested to watch his talks. Honestly, I am very pleased to know your work and picking up your brain. Peace
Malcolm, you are just One of a Kind.
Wow. I just love the way Malcolm Gladwell's mind works. Now I'm glad Harvard didn't want me.
I don't think it's about confidence like says- more about structure and incentives. Professors don't want to go at the speed of the bottom 3rd of the class because the top students would get bored, so the less talented kids can't keep up. In any given school, professors take their pick of students and choose the best ones to work with. You don't have to invoke confidence as a mechanism.
I love Malcom's analysis, hard to argue with data
"it is costing me to be here!"
You have to account for the quality of the published material. The threshold for submission to the best magazines from the best schools is very, very high. You have to be smart, insanely motivated, believe in what you do with religious zealotry, have an advisor who believes in you, and be lucky enough to have your research work out in order to get published at one of these institutions.
He clearly states that the research accounts points based on the prestige a publication has. Theoretically a journal that has more prestige and is harder to get published in is weighted at a higher score than an easier publication.
Jaxson Goldsdmith theoretically......There has been some pretty awful stuff published in some pretty selective journals. Once the journal publishes your stuff the first time, they stop checking.
I don't know why TH-cam suggest me this old good talk, but I like it.
Great speech. I will again purchase his new book - they are always a pleasant read.
Toronto is far from a bad school. 22nd in the world according to Times Higher Education.
I think he was being humorous. I think he's from Toronto. And I wouldn't set much store by those silly THE (or any other) rankings of academic institutions
Sarcasm.
It's all RELATIVE! D'uh! But seriously, MG's my favourite author ATM & in the current state of the world, this is a highly valid, even vital, discussion.
It's all about confidence! Self belief matters more than your degree!
Might I point out that, simply getting the more able students to choose 'lesser' colleges will not improve the number of successful graduates overall. The "relative" effect will remain: those who ultimately succeed will still form the same proportion as before.
Gladwell on a bad air day is the same as a Gladwell on a good air day: brilliant, funny, interesting, and enjoyable.
This is why I always like this guy, breaking it down like a beast! Go on with your bad self, can't wait for his new book, if this is any indication, it's going to be another great read.
as an ex hairdresser I have fleeting dreams of working on Malcom's hair
Great speech, as always, Malcolm. You never cease to intrigue.
Perhaps I missed it, but I don't think the speaker expanded his argument so as to take into account that when the top students from the top universities leave the university, their relative rank immediately changes based on their new environment; likely their place of employment. So they should begin to regain the confidence which they lost starting from day 1.
The other potential conclusion is that universities use testing and grades as a proxy for intelligence, which I'd argue, may be an altogether poor way to judge intelligence. There are so many individual outliers who get poor grades yet are bored by the classroom. Many of these end up demonstrating themselves to be some of the brightest minds when judged by their life's accomplishments.
Also, highly intelligent people may question the value of a job at a good company or a placement at a top university. They may have more Maslow-ian goals which are not necessarily reached via attaining good grades or working for a top company.
I believe you missed the part where he talked about publishing academic journals. What can be seen is that top students publish five times as many journals within a few years of graduating. It's remarkable, but believable with the statistics Gladwell provides.
That part was impossible to miss. It was the main argument he presented in making his case.
My argument is that if we keep using grades and journal-inclusions as proxies for success, maybe very little can be gleaned from this type of research.
What an interesting talk! His TED talks (like a couple of his that I summarise on my channel) are also highly recommended.
This is a simplistic view of a complex topic with lots of variables.
This assumes that the level of difficulty at Tops schools vs lower schools are the same. Is that accurate? Perhaps schools like Harvard have higher standards for phd papers and stem programs.
They somehow are.
The point about publication take into account the number but not the quality, one paper published by MIT is sometimes more important and amusing to read than 20 papers from other lesser universities.
His point isn't the quality of the publications, he was just using it as a measure of student success in the field of economics. If you're getting published at a "crummy" school then you're succeeding whereas the kid at an elite school that isn't getting published probably isn't doing as well.
Just discovered Google Zeitgeist. The talks look good.
Thanks Google. Y'all hit it out of the park, again.
Jim
Ps. When I think of the cognitive revolution y'all have created... I stand in awe. I'm a rainbow family, mud pit rolling, ex LSD head, so I got a pretty good education on my own but you guys amount to Angles on this Earth; available to everyone, almost for free
great video and interesting topic of course, but when it came to the papers published I don't think most people really care about papers published per 6 years nearly as much as salary. That is to say, if we compare the salary of the 55th percental at Harvard with the salary of the 99th percentile at a non top 30 school, who is making more money?
It makes me wonder if there is some p-hacking going on with the original study. such as the researchers originally examined many variables (such as post graduation salary) and found that absolute standing _was_ more important than relative standing in the case of salary, but published the papers published number because it was more interesting and aligned with their relative deprivation theory.
Absolutely, maybe the 55th percentile study at Harvard didn’t even go into academia. Maybe they are working at a hedge fund or a tech firm making millions and only publishing on the side due to inherent interest in the subject matter.
@@kaziniazahmed4541 reading my mind
That's why it's best to find your most effective position and stay there until you progress then you move on.
At 15:50 I disagree that nobody is failing anybody. In terms of dropping out before graduating with a STEM degree, the university system is not designed as a training ground for the best minds but actively applies Relative Deprivation as a hazing mechanism. It is designed to fail students who might otherwise do extremely well if the university system were designed to cultivate talent rather than create a regime of the select few who make it through an unnecessary gauntlet.
Why are we putting students in these sensory deprivation sweat boxes to begin with? If we really do want more STEM graduate success then the system has to change because we have created an artificial bottleneck. And the solution sounds as easy as creating smaller cohort group waves and making sure struggling students get the attention they need.
I know a kid who got offered seats at Brooklyn tech specialised and the Beacon selective high school. She chose the latter.
"At any college, you will always see, regardless of the level of cognitive ability among the students, you will always see the same pattern, The kids who get the science and math degrees are the ones at the top of their class and the kids in the bottom of their class never do." [15% or so in the bottom third do get their degrees. But a strong point anyway.] "We form our self-assessments based on our standing in our immediate circle..."
Lot of flaws in this reasoning, and many factors not taken into account.
1)comparing income between schools, but not comparing between majors
2)comparing the worst Harvard students to the best Hartwick students
3)referring to students “dropping out” of STEM majors when that’s not the same as dropping out of school entirely. They’re simply switching their major.
4)top schools have much higher graduation rates (e.g. Penn 95.5%, Penn State 73.2%, 6-year graduation rate)
5)the income comparison likely only looks at students who graduated. Since top schools have far lower dropout rates, their average/median income will decrease by much less than the average school if the income of dropouts is taken into account
6)top private universities also provide the best financial aid. Below a certain income bracket, you can qualify for free tuition, and sometimes free room and board on top of that, at most top private universities. Even above the free tuition income bracket you can still qualify for generous financial aid.
Gladwell is just selling clickbait in this presentation; diminishing the best institutions to make everyone else feel better. Providing little if any credible evidence to support his claims while ignoring many valid counter-arguments.
But u don't really provide evidence to back up your claims, either.
Some of your points dont make any sense in a way of challenging his points.
I hadn't read a book in four years. I picked up Outliers based on a friend's recommendation. I've flown through all of his books, and I'll watch his speeches. The guy knows shit.
“Relative deprivation theory”...Rousseau called it “Amor Prope”. The beginnings of civilization and its evils came from comparing ourselves to the next guy. Just learned that in a Harvard Lecture on YT. That’s why I love philosophy. There is really nothing new under the sun. The greats said it much better, and now science is proving their best intuitions.
Yes for sure. And the larger the group and the more complex the sets of intelligences/skills/capacities - the more potential for comparision, hence more potential for negative consequences of comparison
Damn. What a way to end that talk.
he’s also assuming the end goal of all people going to phd programs is to publish. maybe the person who’s 5th in the class didn’t study as hard because they didn’t plan on publishing because they wanted to exit into a finance job.
the things is, the data is only regarding publishing rates and stem dropout rates. what about financial status, what about quantity of elite accolades, what about quality of the work produced. do the same trends emerge? Does the 55th percentile graduate go on to build a more successful company than the constantly scribbling 99th? What it really suggests is that self-delusion, a 'i'm special' ideology, is necessary to concoct and follow-through with challenging tasks.
*16:00**. Don't look at the publication rates. Compare on mean income instead. That's a very different picture.*
Gladwell always seems to marshall interesting and reveaiing perspectives on how things are working. At 17:11 he says something that seems to come out of Nonduality related to the Relative and the Absolute! :) Ha. Talking with Strangers his new book is crammed with these kinds of experiments and insights and review of studies and literature.
OKAY MALCOLM. PhD programs at UToronto and BU are NOT bad programs!
They aren't bad programs; I think you're missing the point. Connect the ideas, people in the top schools don't produce as much as they should be because they doubt themselves.
ByronPhillipWilliams you're also missing the fact that it is satire, UfT is a great school
ByronPhillipWilliams
As a graduate of a top college in the US I can say you are spot on. Their is nothing more doubt-inducing than going from the smartest person you know to the village idiot in a single airplane flight. That doubt, instilled at 18 (one poor kid was only 16!) can and will effect decisions you make for the rest of your life.
Ahhhhh, they are no Harvard.
It's *affect*, you village idiot.
wow..thats the way you prove your point!
He didn't address the one big question that came to my mind. When considering possible reasons for the dropout rates, comparatively speaking, you need to consider that the coursework is more demanding at the top schools. This might explain the different success rates in the professional fields as well. The Harvard elite is getting published in the Wall Street Journal and the state school grad is being published in second or third tier publications.
It doesn't change the fact the students who dropped out of top ranked institutions are likely not being as successful as the students who got their degrees in lower ranked unis. One degree still better than no degree at all.
Is it more demanding? From my understanding, at an undergraduate level, the material is relatively the same. Also, elite institutions have a lot more grade inflation.
Interesting talk from Malcolm but I disagree with the conclusion. While I do understand his thesis on relative position vs absolute position, I do also find evidence that with minorities (I am one myself) and immigrants, going to elite institutions did give us a boost in our career options regardless of whether we studied STEM or Liberal Arts.
Of course it does! You will be exposed to the "better" side of life, then you will also gain the edge of being acceptably different. Note: acceptably. Except on the Stage, the afro hair is a great deterrent socially. The loud aggressive natural Black voice, except in Stage Comedy, is a great drawback.
Nice to learn from Malcolm!
i dont think he is lacking in data science!! most of the data he uses are analyzed by others, but he is wonderful to collect such research papers and build a story around that which makes sense.
In any situation where there is some obvious ranking, the phenomenon should be inescapable so it makes no difference unless you know you are sure to be at the top of whatever institution you choose. If I were smarter, I would come up with some Nash equilibrium explanation.
So, what if you hire the top performers of their respective classes and put them all together, one elite group. Will you not then create a new environment where the relatively best will excel and the relatively worst will feel like a failure? Regardless of previous relative excellence, they will now be the ones with the low chance of success. Is there a way to make the relatively worse people feel more successful regardless, and thus improve performance even though others are better than them in their close vicinity?
And a second question. What if someone who beat the odds and actually did graduate at the bottom of their Harvard class (regardless of how many people drop out someone will be worst in the class, it’s all relative after all ;)), then moves on to take a position in a less “elite” environment and then becomes the relative top. Will she then become a top performer with her new-gained confidence of her relative position in the new environment?
And will she, in this new environment, be superior or inferior to someone who ranked higher in their class, but from a less prestigious school?
Love this guy. Amazing.
Having a degree from Harvard or another Ivy League School means that 10, 15, or 20 years from now, the Secretary of State will be your former roommate. You will be on first-name terms with the people who run the country's industry.
Here's a man who's incompetent to push slides back and forth with 2 buttons and still awes the audience about intellectual achievements. Now THAT's remarkable :)))
I suppose this is not a full story. In science we explore the full distribution and then draw lessons based on regions of data, not a general sweeping statement. Other side of story would be that in better places overall average would pull you up. Maybe by not all metrics but by important ones.
The same can be said about English though. You can't really just jump in and write about any subject, you have to study and analyse so that you fully understand what it is you are writing about. Nothing learned in maths is useless, those basic long division skills you learned in primary school become hugely useful when you move onto polynomial functions. The same in English, to write you first need a strong grasp of the rules of language. A strong grasp on language allows for compelling writing.
I really like this view, but nothing can happen to make all this stigma stop if parents are still pushing for Harvard, and Stanford, and Yale...
Focus on how you can change. You can't change others.
Seems to me the most relative position for someone would be their parents, how they did, and how high they see their children fly.
Right or wrong, he tells a good, compelling story
The new book is very good! I'm halfway through it now.
Great talk Malcolm!
P.S. May be next year Yahoo should invite you to speak there and you can skip Google? :)
The "quip" is based on statistics. STEM courses are more competitive and the academic standards more rigorous than other fields. So when people drop out of STEM courses they frequently switch to arts degrees. He makes that comment because _that_ _is_ _what_ _people_ _do_. Gladwell's not discriminating against anything. He's simply reporting what happens.
Simply brilliant.
I just wonder, pertaining to the extremely proficient economist that don’t publish anything valuable, are they doing that while being professors at universities or are they employed by companies that don’t give a dime if they publish or not.
So is this why students in Finland do so well? They aren't graded, so there is no relative standing.
illuminati confirmed!
I know now why Charlie Kaufman doesnt make films that often. He's busy writing and talking in a conference
There is a lot of sadness hiding in those STEM dropout rates, especially Harvard's. Imagine the dazzling promise of those dropouts in their high schools. And then they get accepted at HU. And the not to succeed . . . ?
O. M. G. Big Fish in Small Pond strategy is an absolute winner. Thing is, it rings true in my experience though I was afraid to put a finger on it -- how could you *not* want to be in the highest caliber arena you can possibly stagger into...seems chicken.