@nicespice, I agree with you ( doesn't happen often ). This thread made me cringe right from the start, more about envy and self hating, and believing nonsense, than trying to learn anything about our society.
@CC99, you don't actually believe that there is such a social hierarchy, or that these "popular kids" actually have something you don't? It's all happening in an artificial and very limited world. Its not social skills which are in play, its social status, and that derives from lots of stuff, like money and degree of conformity, just for starters. And then as far as who ends up high placed in corporate America, who the hell cares. This world is what you make of it, and there are lots of far more interesting things to do than being a corporate CEO, like going to strip clubs. And then look at someone like Elon Musk, he was always a nerd among nerds. He hated South Africa.
The post college world is far more open and flexible than the college world.
@Mark94, First time ever I have agreed with you on anything. Yes, very little about college is causal about what people do after. There may be correlations, but as they are not causal, these do not mean that someone who wanted to could not do otherwise. True, over a lunch interview a CEO tried to tell me about how he was in a college frat and all. But that guy was one of the biggest reasons why that start up company failed. He was just not able to understand people who were not conformist like he was. At a Christmas party he was talking to a young woman and so I asked him, "Was that your daughter?" He never answered me, he just started going on and on about which college she was going to. As the company nose dived into the ground, about the only thing people could still agree on was that that CEO was a bozo.
@Nidan111, very interesting to know that you were in a frat, the President of such, and that you stayed alcohol and drug free. Most encouraging. We need people who have a spine.
@IceyLoco, your account is the most interesting, the most contrary to my own experience, and the most contrary to what everyone else on this thread seems to be saying. And if only it were always that way. I think for one thing there are just different sorts of people. And doing a regular radio show would be fun, and I can see how it would gain one a following.
I think some schools have two big differences. First, there are impacted and very competitive programs. People had to do well to get into them, and it presses them to the max to stay in them. And so people are focused on the high powered careers they expect. And so the women do not want college relationships. The last thing they would ever want is to get shackled to someone who does not yet have such a high powered career. So the most they will do is drunken party hookups. But the morning after, they want the guy to go away.
Then the second thing is, some schools are much more socially narrow. What you are describing sounds to me like CSU or Community College. It is more diverse, racially, socio-economically, and then age and maturity wise too.
Impossible to talk about this without talking about Elliot Rodger and UC Santa Barbara. That is not the most competitive of schools, with most majors, but it is one of the most socially narrow. Very few students are much older than just out of high school. So it is like a continuation of high school. And for someone who has never known anything other than that and living with their parents, it could look like the whole world is that way. With all due respect to our OP, I think he is rather like Rodger, in that he is seeing the frat boys dominate a social scene. And though he is critical of it, he still seems to believe that they have something he doesn't.
And then in such schools, very very few have anything like a part time job. The school scheduling is just not set up for it, and the work load is just too high, not for one who wants to do well and graduate. So that means that it is populated by students who don't need the income, making it more socially narrow. And then the work place is usually what exposes people to a broader slice of life, to people who are not just their age or their parents' age, but of the full inbetween range. It helps a guy to mature, and it makes him less subservient to schools very limited social dynamics.
Definitely CC99 posts some of the most provocative stuff. It would have to be that way to find people on opposite sides of the spectrum being in agreement.
In the post college world of varying ages, socio-economics, education levels, occupations, religion, and national origin, there is far less concern about who does and who does not 'fit in'.
And again, this is part of my basis for saying that we need an alternative kind of educational system, one oriented to life long learning.
And then further, I do feel that many young men who want to graduate from college are in effect having to opt not for being Incels, but for Voluntary Celibacy, just to avoid all the problems. And probably when they first went to college, this was not what they were expecting.
SJG
