Asymmetrical Information

Unlike Kieran Healy, however, I am embarassed enough not to link to them

No, I was too embarrassed to link to your student columns as well. ;)

I wrote op-eds for the Fordham school newspaper way back when. (I prefer "way back when" to "back in the day.") I took myself way too seriously. Despite a couple of gems, most of what I wrote was absolutely garbage. Yet if anybody told me that at the time, I would have been offended and dismissed it as "They don't like because I'm conservative, smarter than they are, etc."

One of my Jesuit professors also wrote op-eds for his college newspaper. He also does not look back fondly on his student journalism at U Penn in the early 1970s.

A friend who also graduated from Fordham admitted that he surpressed memories of what he published.

The writing discussed here is opinion journalism. I've never met a single person who wrote op-eds for their student newspaper and looks back with pride at their work.

Is there anyone here who wrote straight news, sports, or other features for your college newspaper and finds that it still holds up in the sense that it's well-written and could have been published in a professional, real world newspaper?

Are you embarrassed because you argued positions you no longer hold or because the writing was objectively bad (or both)?

"Why is this funny? The business my team and I pitched to him was a valet parking service for the business school students."

In lieu of charging them, you could offer to park their car for 0.0002% of their reported gross annual income from 10 years in the future. Sure, it would be a few bucks here, a few pennies there, but there could be a big payoff that would make it worthwhile.

I wrote sports, opinion, and news for my college paper, and I think D------ has a point. The average sports/news story holds up a lot better than the average opinion piece. The (few) good opinion pieces don't embarrass me, but the bad ones are so much worse than bad sports or news stories.

From what I recall as an undergrad at Princeton, Kieran's columns were the kinds of things that one really ought to be ashamed of years later. He probably got a good bit of hate mail for them... and deserved all of it. Basically, Kieran's columns made him look like an asshole. Upon re-reading a few from Jane's link, I continue to believe that Kieran is an asshole.

Of course, if I were a grad student at Princeton, I'd be pretty bitter and would likely relish the opportunity to pen obnoxious columns making endlessly witty observations about how all of the undergrads are exactly the same. Oh, what fun! How clever!

I liked Shawshank Redemption, but I gotta say, Capitalism and Freedom was a bit overrated.

Caio:

I liked Shawshank Redemption,

Really? You like the literary technique of Deus ex machina? (That's Latin for "cop-out ending".)

Howard brings up a good point: a graduate student bitterly lording it over undergrads in print isn't a great way to make friends.

I don't know that the grad/undergrad ratio is at Princeton, but if it's significantly less than 1, that'd be a good way to be unpopular.

He teaches New Venture Strategy at the University of Chicago, the highlight of which is a final project in which you design a new business and pitch it to him as you would a VC, whereupon he systematically destroys the egos of arrogant students with visions of getting rich quick.

I wonder if any of the business designs he's gotten were as goofy as the one submitted elsewhere by a college student, of setting up an air service to fly documents around the country for the Federal Reserve bank and anyone else who might be willing to pay a premium for prompt delivery.

Wow, person, thank you for that brilliant Latin lesson. I never did high-school English so that explanation really opened me up to new and unexplored worlds of intellectualism I'd never previously dreamt of. Not only that, but your unequalled powers of logic and observation revealed all the informational and aesthetic dilemmas inherent in my corny fucking joke.

You must teach at Harvard amairite?

You were trying to be funny?

Klug - you're right. The ratio is far less than 1 to 1.

Honestly, I felt for the grad students at Princeton - they were isolated socially (with the occasional exception) and we as undergrads considered them a weird bunch. They seemed far less happy (again, with the occasional exception) and it was easy to tell why.

PARKING??!?! Yes, more cars, more driving....smart professors who think they know it all while they ignorantly play into My Carbon Plan for my final rise to power in the ultimate Armegeddon foreseen so long ago...the death of humanity by fire and ice. Yes! Drive, Schrager, DRIVE!!!

You were trying to be funny?

Based on his follow-up, not even close. The dropping of an eff-bomb is a de facto declaration that the dropper has long since abandoned humor in favor of cheap shock value. If it were even shocking any more, that is.

Pardon my Latin.

Njorl:

Aw, c'mon. At least .001%. Go for broke!

The "f-bomb" is shocking? Gee, you'll have to pardon my language, anonymous. I didn't realize I had wandered into a tea-party.

The "f-bomb" is shocking?

As noted, it has ceased to be. Now it's merely irritating on account of frequent and useless repetition -- in essence, the leaky faucet principle.

I didn't realize I had wandered into a tea-party.

Right, because casual vulgarity is only unnecessary at tea parties. Well, if that's what it takes to remind people that we're trying to run a civilization here, then sure -- break out your Earl Grey and join the fun!