“Excellent Sheep”, by William Deresiewicz takes a sharp look at America's elite schools and explains how they are producing intellectual clones instead of creative intelligent human minds. When you think of Harvard and Yale you may associate them as the cherry on top when it comes to top-tier universities. While they may provide students with a great education, these educational institutions have been alienated from their true purpose: making college a place for self-discovery and critical thinking. Not to mention that the stress piled on elite students nearly destroys them. The authors primary objective was to show how fundamentally broken elite education is, leading students to feel depressed, lost , and left without a sense of purpose
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For many people rising to the absolute top means being consumed by the system. These schools and students expect so much of themselves that they are living in a constant state of fear, anxiety, depression, and aimlessness. In a recent survey - summarized by the American Psychological association- nearly half of college students reported feelings of hopelessness , while almost a third spoke of feeling “so depressed that it was difficult to function during the last 12 months”. This data is astounding and really illustrates how unhealthy the mental health of students has become . The main factor that brings out these emotions is the fear of failure. None of these students can cope with the fact of doing poorly, so they are taking all these high level classes and spending all of their time consumed in homework and studying. They don't give a second thought on whether they even take pleasure in these courses, instead they are just taking them to succeed in life and receive as high paying career. This is why so many graduates end up in jobs they don’t care for. Most students didn’t even have the time to do the kind of self-searching college is actually meant for. For example the author explains on page ( ) that almost half of all Harvard graduates end up in finance or consulting, even though very few of them indicated any interest in these
For many people rising to the absolute top means being consumed by the system. These schools and students expect so much of themselves that they are living in a constant state of fear, anxiety, depression, and aimlessness. In a recent survey - summarized by the American Psychological association- nearly half of college students reported feelings of hopelessness , while almost a third spoke of feeling “so depressed that it was difficult to function during the last 12 months”. This data is astounding and really illustrates how unhealthy the mental health of students has become . The main factor that brings out these emotions is the fear of failure. None of these students can cope with the fact of doing poorly, so they are taking all these high level classes and spending all of their time consumed in homework and studying. They don't give a second thought on whether they even take pleasure in these courses, instead they are just taking them to succeed in life and receive as high paying career. This is why so many graduates end up in jobs they don’t care for. Most students didn’t even have the time to do the kind of self-searching college is actually meant for. For example the author explains on page ( ) that almost half of all Harvard graduates end up in finance or consulting, even though very few of them indicated any interest in these