correct me if i’m wrong

I want to record an unconventional idea I heard today from a professor of mine which I greatly admire, Greg Lavender:

Don’t attend a top-10 program. Why? The relationship between ranking and esteem for computer science programs do not fall on a linear slope. They are exponential, in one sense. The top four–Carnegie Mellon, MIT, Berkeley, and Stanford–are light years ahead of the rest in terms of funding, faculty, and admissions choices. Therefore, the differences between the top four schools and the tenth-ranked school, for example, is MUCH greater than the difference between the tenth-ranked school and the subsequently ranked programs.

Let’s disregard the top four schools for the time being. Chances are, if you are reading this blog instead of practicing for your GRE or publishing a research paper, you are not destined for the elite four. Instead, you set your sights on the top 10 or 15 for a better chance of admission.

The problem with having such a ranking-focused approach is that they are out of date (approximately 12 years old), and the process is very unscientific. Many well-ranked schools have been complacent. They get their research money, they have competitive admissions, and, overall, are well-established. They function “good enough” as is and don’t have the drive to change to become more competitive.

You are better suited to target a lower-ranked school that has this competitive drive. These are the schools that are adopting new educational techniques, updating their curriculum to keep the pace with the rapidly moving technology world, aggressively recruiting professors, students, and building relationships with new companies for recruiting. They are essentially the same as the startups trying to knock out the 800-pound corporate gorillas. They must be innovative to succeed very much in the same way that a curriculum must.

…the social scene.

As a 22-year old recent college graduate, adjusting to an “adult” social scene is a new endeavor. I have been spoiled by the virtues of university social life. Having 50,000 aspring college students residing in a relatively small city, Austin, TX, around the central campus location makes socializing virtually effortless. It’s much different in Silicon Valley.

I live in Palo Alto, California. For those unfamiliar with the area, here is a quick description of the geography. There are three major cities–San Francisco, San Jose, and Oakland, forming a V-shaped or triangular settlement, with the cities being each point of the triangle and residences spanning between and around the three. Palo Alto is in the middle of the left-side of the “V,” between San Francisco and San Jose, but closer to San Jose. If that’s not clear, Google Maps is only a couple clicks away.

San Francisco is what I consider a great American city. It has a unique character, spanning from it’s architecture to its people to its industry and history. San Jose doesn’t. It feels like an overgrown suburb, and that’s a fairly accurate description.

According to wikipedia, San Jose started as a farming town in the late 18th century. It’s development really took off starting in the 1960’s, when families started suburbanizing it. If you’ve been to San Jose, the urban growth laws are readily apparent. The hills and bay are unpopulated, despite the huge geographical span of the Bay Area. As a result of this legislation, San Jose’s growth was heavily fragmented, with the population developing in independently incorporated cities nearby, such as Campbell and Santa Clara.

This is the crux of the problem with social life in Silicon Valley; it’s very decentralized. There’s few urban centers that have vastly taken off. Each individual province has a “main street;” Palo Alto has University Ave.; Mountain View has Castro St.; Campbell has Campbell Ave., and so on. While these are quaint, elegant centers for restaurants, cafe and shopping, they do little do perpetuate large-scale growth for entertainment districts on which residents can consistently rely.

Unfortunately, for 22-year old aspiring yuppies like myself, social life suffers because Silicon Valley has mostly families. Approximately 60% of households in San Jose consist of families according to the wikipedia article. Therefore, there is not a huge demand needed for the growth of entertainment districts.

This family domination leads to a perpetual cycle of Silicon Valley having a perpetuating suburban feels. There are many houses, and thus a low population density. Everything is spread out. Getting from Palo Alto to the adjacent city, Mountain View, can be a 10-15 minute car ride. This is very different from going from North Beach to Mission in San Francisco, for example, in which people can span a significant fraction of the city in car, bus, bicycle or on foot.

The fact that everything is so spread out and decentralized has ultimately restricted from any single part of Silicon Valley to develop into a reliable entertainment district. Instead, there are multiple, spread out centers which have a small variety of bars, clubs, theaters for temporary gratification.

All in all, adapting to such a difference in social environment has been an unsuccessful endeavor. I am sure it’s not absolutely hopeless, however, with so many diverse, unique people with common interests to me. I must be doing something wrong, or need to try harder and persist more. Any suggestions?