Does your undergraduate education matter?
Université du Québec professor Daniel Lemire doesn’t think so. Read his comments on a previous post of mine where I discussed the importance of school rankings.
My stance is that while rankings are important, they aren’t everything. One can move within a certain range of rankings and maintain a similar quality. I also believe that the competitiveness of the student body is important to teach you and to build a strong network.
Daniel believes that an undergraduate network is outgrown shortly and that a brand-name school is ultimately useful for nothing more than the first job. The name or reputation of an undergraduate program is inevitably overcome. Read the details here.
I recently discovered Daniel’s blog, and it’s fantastic. I highly recommend it for reading about academia, research and programming. He’s a professor that actually took the time out of his day to read my blog and comment–what a cool guy. Connecting teachers and students through blogs; now that’s education in action.