'Project Classroom Makeover: Biographies Of Hegemony'

People are influenced by their environment around them. Properties in one’s environment includes family, friends, media, and schools or institutions. Parents do not always realize it but their child is affected by not only the topics they learn in school but by the policies as well. Cathy Davidson expresses her views on institutional influence in “Project Classroom Makeover.” She is one for believing that schooling and educational institutions do influence students. In “The Naked Citadel,” Susan Faludi discusses the influence an all-male institution has on those men and their individual identity. Finally, in “Biographies of Hegemony” by Karen Ho, she portrays the institutional influence from Ivy League Universities, like Princeton and …show more content…
Almost everyone attends some sort of institution at one point in their life so the education system at institutions are meant to help people make the most of their experience by teaching them values needed in life. Surely, there are many different schools that have different goals set for their students. At institutions like Princeton and Harvard, they look to have each student obtain a general “smartness” meaning “characteristics as being impeccably and smartly dressed, dashing appearance, mental and physical quickness, aggressiveness” (Ho 167). All these qualities are key ingredients for an investment banker on Wall Street. The institutions have a goal to create the best investment bankers for Wall Street and when doing this they teach morals that can be used for life. Ho explains that “to play the role of “master of the universe” requires not only especially strong doses of self-confidence and institutional legitimation, but also a particular set of beliefs regarding Wall Street’s role in the world and one’s own role on Wall Street” (Ho 168). Students are subconsciously learning the best morals for their future selves. They learn that being confident in oneself is a key to success. Also they learn about their self-role versus the role of Wall Street. When students realize the difference between Wall Street’s role and their own role on Wall Street, they have opened up to a whole new reality. A crucial part of this is that they will realize that there are different situations in which you must act in a different way. This leads to the moral of believing in oneself and to go with that gut feeling. Graduate students will face challenges on Wall Street that they have to decide what is the best to do in a particular scenario and go with what they feel is suitable initially. This moral is one they will use their whole life whether they are working on Wall Street or