Do top tier graduate programs inadvertently breed an anti-question culture?
My undergraduate career was largely defined by my willingness to ask questions and seek out additional help on my own accord. I graduated from a small(er) institution, small classes were the norm, recitations were largely non-existent, and office hours were both plentiful and accessible. See, asking the right questions was the key input to my academic success. Everyone knows someone who just gets it right away. Those types of people almost appear to skip over the confusion step of learning and jump right into the understanding phase. I envy those people. Propelled by phenomenal professors and a commitment to academic opulence, I graduated college Magna Cum Laude and atop the Economics department.
The resource model
My approach to academia was largely built on what I like to call the “resource” model of learning. That is, by way of paying tuition to a university, a student has access to a myriad of resources like office hours, a directory of email addresses to everyone in the institution, a certain amount of “face time” hours with the professor per week, among many others. Knowing that, my analytical brain automatically realized it would be a waste not to maximize those resources since I am paying for them, anyway. For example, if I was confused about a particular topic during a…
