An Insight Into Aspiring Development Professionals

Over the past few months I've done a fair amount of research into policy schools.  Along the way, I found an interesting study on how a certain school viewed diversity.  Even better, the study linked to an excel file of survey responses with quantitative rankings and free text comments.  Brilliant. 

I of course saved this file and started exploring the content.  The prompt asking for opinions on fellow students was far and away the most interesting.  My favorites are below.

For starters:

“The students are below par, almost embarrassingly so...”

“...Teach for America alumns should not be given as many spots in the class.  Their "experiences" do not contribute anything valuable to classroom discussions.”

Playing the race card:

“From an Asian student's point of view, a good portion of HKS students have serious problems with anything involving numbers, such as stats and econ. It is simply shocking to see their middle-school-level math.”

But (aside from Asians) the other countries are really dragging the smart, hard working Americans down:

“A little less diversity and a little higher standard of quality wouldn't go amiss.”

“Fulbright students from abroad are brining down calibre of school and reducing the 'value' of our program even in those countries.”

The second quote really catches my eye.  We know that our snooty writer is English (or is pretending to be; c.f. "calibre") and these Fulbright students have found a way to brine down the quality of something.  Didn’t realize you could “brine” something intangible.  Also, questionable if this even matters since we are only talking about the program's supposed 'value'.

And the riposte:

“Students sometimes take themselves too seriously and bring ego into the classroom.“

“No need to recite your experience ad nauseum before each comment.”

“Students tend to be narcissistic and long winded.”

And probably my favorite:

“Some of the younger students whine more than I think they should.”

Future of development and policy right there.  Hopefully they'll let me in.  And for my nerdier, data minded friends, links!

Check out the study here.

Or focus on mining the data here.