College life

[Anonymouswizard]

My point about the dorm room wasn't the quality so much as the quantity. Mine was a little larger than my closet back on my parents house. Enough room for two beds, two desks, two tiny closets, and a window. Some places have nicer dorms, of course, but I think that is relatively standard.

Also, is the cute French girl the same as the girlfriend? I'm intrigued now. How did it go? Details, man!

My university actually had unusually nice rooms, being large enough for a bed, desk, chest of drawers, full sized wardrobe, and an ensuite, but most rooms I've heard about at other universities are closer to 'large closet'. Again, it was more a point that cutlery goes missing (I came out of university with one fork).

Yes, the cute French girl is the girlfriend, although it's not a relationship I really can't be asked to use the correct terminology. Long story short, most details are in the Relationship Woes and Advice thread, suffice to say that she didn't admit to having feelings for me until she was back in France. Now she refuses to have a LDR but it's trying to convince me to move to Paris.


On living on your own: have a schedule for when you do housework and buy ingredients. One is required to make food, the other will stop you from getting ill. Also, it's a lot easier to wash up just after the meal than it is three days later.

Also, make friends, especially with flatmates if you're in a flat arrangement, otherwise with whoever you can. Loneliness and homesickness can be a big problem, but even just having somebody to talk to about it (ideally over a cup of tea) can help. Events, societies, social places on campus, these are all good places to meet people.

If you're university offers a Buddy scheme for settling in (a second or third year to make sure you're alright and help with problems), it might be a good idea. Even if you don't need help you can never know that beforehand, and you might make a great friend (I went to my Buddy's wedding, and am one of the few university friends still in contract with them. He gets a lot of questions about relationships and of moving to France is a good idea these days).

[Nemirthel]

While I concur with what's been said about study groups being a good idea, there's a couple of caveats about them that haven't been mentioned.

1. Don't be a part of a study group where each person does part of the homework and then everyone turns in the same work. While not all freshmen realize it, that's cheating. You'll also only learn the part of the material that you did.

2. If there's one really assertive person who ends up dominating a study group, find a new group. Eventually people will stop challenging that person when they're wrong, and then no one will learn anything.

Another thing related to not arguing with instructors about grades: if you think something your professor assigned is unfair, don't bother complaining to your TA about it. They can't change it, so you're wasting their time and yours. I've had students do this, and I can assure you that even if your TA agrees with you it's not going to do you any good.

[SaintRidley]

If you're asking about TA quality, I'm going to assume you're probably going to a larger research university like the one I teach at (in year 5 of teaching here, my last year before I take a fellowship year to hopefully finish my diss and thesis and get done with grad school). In that case, you might not have a huge amount of choice in the matter - some larger schools basically have advisors (paid administrative people attached to departmenrts who are responsible for helping, among other things, undergrads in their department schedule out the next semester's courseload) do pretty much the whole schedule for you. Something like >80% of the students who walk into my classroom at the beginning of the semester have never so much as looked at my course description or have any idea what the course will entail other than the department-mandated part of the course title. I'll have at most maybe three students in a course who deliberately chose my course over another course that fills the same requirement because of the description or because they heard from a friend or partner that I was good.

What I'm saying is it's really not hugely within your control, so just roll with it. TAs are happy to help, and few of us are so completely horrible that it's a problem. Depending on how much control we have over our course design (I completely design my course from scratch, but a TA in another department might be under a more tightly controlled template), we're mostly interested in trying to give you (in a gen ed course) the best first impression of the field and kind of thinking we do to help expand your repertoire of critical skills.

If a class is discussion based, participate. Ask questions or contribute points or volunteer a difficult section of that day's reading that you want clarification on but aren't even sure where to begin.

Email and use office hours. They're entirely for you - I will drop whatever it is I am doing the moment a student comes in during my office hours.

Do also be patient with your TAs. Many are in their first years teaching anything, many of them are also taking courses (and their advisors will tell them that their work is more important than your work [and yet, working with your work is the work that gets us paid, so, you know, not entirely], so you will wind up on the backburner at one point or another as the TA tries to work out that time management), and many of them are absolutely spent because of it. The workload of a TA in coursework is tough.

Happy to answer other questions if you have them.

[Scarlet Knight]

Wow, it's been so long since I went to college, I wonder what still applies. However, I can tell what college means after you graduate.

Do not listen to Toro. What he states is technically true, but only for the 1% of athletes good enough to be paid to play and for children of rich businessmen who have high paying jobs waiting for them no matter how stupid they are.

For the rest, well, remember: 2/3's of high school kids go to college in the US. That means a good percent will go to college and make salaries below the national average, just by the math. Still better than not going. Your major IS important. It is how you get internships, which gets you experience, which gets you hired.

That said, the most important things you will learn are outside of the classroom. You will learn your limits, get to see and speak to people totally different than you, and get to question long held beliefs.

Your teachers are not there to help you pass; often they're there to weed you out. If you want to spend $30,000 and piss it away, they don't care, they got your check, and there are always more kids coming from high school for your slot.

You will learn that its hard to care for yourself, how staying ahead is better than catching up, how much easier it is to spend than to replace what you've spent. All those annoying things adults say because they're true. But you have to experience it to believe.

Be cautious your first year and buckle down, get your GPA up; it will pay off when the classes get harder. You will make mistakes. You may be in an area with 50,000 kids all between 18-21, more than half being women. So many fail because of temptations. Have no fear, once you get through freshman year , the women will still be there, but now you'll have a bit more maturity. Stay sober the first year; learn how to nurse a beer. You will screw up but a clear head will keep you from making mistakes that are permanent.

Good luck! It will be some of the best ( and worse years ) of your life!

[SaintRidley]

Your teachers are not there to help you pass; often they're there to weed you out. If you want to spend $30,000 and piss it away, they don't care, they got your check,

Point of order. Nobody teaching you is getting more than a pittance out of your check. Most of that is funneled to administration.

[Sermil]

So, being 'Murican and a high schooler with some pretty decent scores in high school life and standardized testing, I'm going through the generic college applications process. I'm pretty sure I'll get in somewhere, so I wanted to know from people who know better: what do I expect in the enrollment and moving-to-college process? Any tips? Any ideas as to what I should take and what I should buy in preparation?

If you (like me) tended to be in the top academic bracket during high school (all AP classes, high SAT, lots of As and a few Bs), and are going to reasonably elite college...
Be careful not to assume you can pull the same in college.

Probably the biggest mistake of my college career was in my first semester. I had taken AP Calculus BC and gotten a 5. Normally, if you took AP Calculus BC and passed, you could skip first semester Calculus. But if you got a 5, you had the option of skipping the entire first year of Calculus and going into third-semester math. Being the kind of student who had always skipped ahead, I took that option. And then, on top of that, the third-semester of College Math had a regular and an "honors" version. Just like I did at high school, I of course took the honors version.

BIG mistake. A mistake big enough that it probably changed my entire life. Honors math was intended for people going for Math PhDs, the ones who are going prove theorems about different infinities that I can barely understand, let along follow. I think the class was supposed to be covering differential equations, but we barely even talked about actual work-a-day differential equation solving in favor of... I don't even know, ideas about the fundamental nature of numbers or something. I probably should have just gone into second semester of Calculus, I could have used the review, or at least taken the non-Honors version of the third-semester math class. But I didn't, and I never got a solid grounding in differential equations, and when I got into upper-division Quantum Mechanics (I was a physics major), I was pretty much lost -- QM has a lot of differential equations. In the end, I dropped Physics completely and ended up a Computer Science major -- Computer Science requiring no Calculus at all.

So, Sermil's big lesson? If you were hot stuff in high school -- SO WAS EVERYONE ELSE AT THAT COLLEGE. Everyone who wasn't hot stuff isn't going to the elite universities. Don't assume you can slide by on all talent and no work, like you did in high school. Don't expect to be top of the class any more -- you might think you are smart, but there are people who are nova-bright compared to you. Keep a pretty light workload your first semester until you get used to college. And don't take Honors classes outside your major.

Closing anecdote: On the first day at MIT one year, they gathered all the freshmen on the lawn and and ask "How many of you expect to graduate in the top half of the class here at MIT?" 90% of the students raised their hand.

[M0rdecai[QC]]

Computer Science requiring no Calculus at all.

Machine learning would like to have a word with you.

[OACSNY97]

I don't know about your state, but the community colleges in my area have "rolling admissions," meaning that they'll keep accepting people basically all year rather than having a closed admissions season. It may well be worth your time and effort to look into the community colleges and/or "directional/town name" state college/university to see if they have "rolling admissions." When I was a senior in high school, I was so busy with my classes that I put off applying to college until most of the college application deadlines had passed, so I ended up applying in May/June to the 4 year state college close to my parents for the upcoming school year and lived a home my freshman year.

On that note, if your parents really micromanaged your schedule in high school and you are not good at managing your time/responsibilities, you may seriously want to consider living at home your first year of college. I have seen a lot of people go away to college without knowing how to manage a schedule and really struggle freshman year. By going to a local college/university and living at home you're almost certainly saving at least $10,000-15,000 (that's ~1/2 a new car!). I also think that living at home and commuting can get the best of both words if you treat it like a 8 to 5 job. Get up, go to school, go to class, hang out in the study lounges/library/dinning hall between classes and get homework done, then go home, sleep in your own bed and do laundry for free at home. Your parents will still help provide some structure for the very few waking hours you'll be home but while you're on campus, no one really cares that much if you don't go to class, you should but if you don't the truant officer won't be coming for you so it's a great way to practice managing a schedule.

On money- my general advice is unless you're absolutely certain you're going to be a doctor/lawyer/engineer and a couple of other narrow fields, do NOT go into debt up to or worse yet OVER a down payment on a house. If you must take out loans, assume you WON'T be getting a job that pays much over minimum wage fresh out of college, so don't borrow more than you can pay off living at home and working retail for a year or two.

I have also heard, but have not researched, that there are some very good scholarships out there now for people who are planning on going into the skilled trades, especially the building trades, and that as an apprentice you can get paid for working your way through school AND can expect a much higher starting salary than in many other fields. This may well be worth your effort to look into.

-Good Luck

As good as that sounds, most of my applications have already gone, and most of them are fairly expensive. Parents are paying, since I can't take out loans, so I really wish I had heard this advice in junior year of high school.

.

[Sermil]

You will save upwards of $30,000 if you take two years at community college first, and your classes will be better because the class size is smaller.

Personally, I would not suggest going to a community college unless you need to for financial reasons. I've had family members go to community colleges, and family members go straight to a 4-year university, and I think the quality of instruction is better at 4-years. Yes, the lower-division classes are bigger, often much bigger, at a 4 year. But Universities have grad students to be TAs, and they are often very helpful (not always, but often). Community colleges often have just a single tutor they have hired and the teacher, and the teacher is often overloaded by the more struggling students.

Admittedly, this is based on a very small sample size, so YMMV, but I found the 4 years to be more helpful.

(And I sent both my kids directly to a 4 year university, so I've put my money where my mouth is.)

[Nemirthel]

Your teachers are not there to help you pass; often they're there to weed you out. If you want to spend $30,000 and piss it away, they don't care, they got your check, and there are always more kids coming from high school for your slot.

Just to clarify this: most instructors will try to help you if you go to office hours and ask for help. There are some who won't, but it's usually worthwhile to at least go to office hours if you need help.

What you will probably never encounter is unsolicited help. It doesn't really affect an instructor if you fail, and helping you takes time away from research (assuming you're at a research university). You shouldn't be afraid to ask for help, but you're going to have to ask for it. You also should try to figure as much out as you can before you go to office hours, as you'll otherwise just annoy your instructor and end up figuring out the hardest parts after they helped you with the easy parts. Do the easy parts first so you can get help with the stuff you can't figure out.

Also, don't go to an instructor's office unless it's during their office hours or you have an appointment. There's a good chance they won't be there, and if they are they're probably busy and will tell you to come back during office hours.

[Goodkill]

community college was good to me for computer science. i'm a partly self-taught programmer anyway, but taking classes has helped a lot to push me beyond my ordinary boundaries.

[Scarlet Knight]

Point of order. Nobody teaching you is getting more than a pittance out of your check. Most of that is funneled to administration.

You are correct. I apologize for not being clearer; I should not have used the pronoun "they" twice. What I meant to say was: "If you want to spend $30,000 and piss it away, the professors don't care, the university's got your check".

Just to clarify this: most instructors will try to help you if you go to office hours and ask for help. There are some who won't, but it's usually worthwhile to at least go to office hours if you need help.

What you will probably never encounter is unsolicited help. It doesn't really affect an instructor if you fail, and helping you takes time away from research (assuming you're at a research university). You shouldn't be afraid to ask for help, but you're going to have to ask for it. You also should try to figure as much out as you can before you go to office hours, as you'll otherwise just annoy your instructor and end up figuring out the hardest parts after they helped you with the easy parts. Do the easy parts first so you can get help with the stuff you can't figure out.

I shouldn't speak for all colleges. There may be teachers who truly want all their students to succeed. I can only speak to what happened at my university, which I saw repeated with my younger brothers. At a certain year, it was determined that 2/3 of the students were to be removed ( We've probably all heard the " Look to the right, look to the left, two of you will be gone" speech.) These were specific cut courses, taught by very good researchers who hated teaching or had trouble with English. Perhaps they truly felt culling the herd strengthened the profession. For whatever reason, only token help was there. They had hours, true, but with lines down the hall of students trying to get help; more than they could see. If you were lucky, you might be friends with an upperclassman to help you.

In a humorous twist, my younger brother's class was very smart and it was funny to see the way the professors began to panic when they couldn't get the students to fail. Downward curve anyone?

[Sermil]

Oh, you probably already know this, but I want to make 100% certain someone has told you:

For-profit colleges are a scam. They will ruin your life and give you nothing in return. If a university is advertising on TV, avoid it like the plague.

[WarKitty]

Oh, you probably already know this, but I want to make 100% certain someone has told you:

For-profit colleges are a scam. They will ruin your life and give you nothing in return. If a university is advertising on TV, avoid it like the plague.

The advertising on TV thing isn't entirely true. I can think of at least three local colleges that advertise on TV or radio around here. One's the local community college, one's a 200+ year old religious liberal arts college, and one's the online program run by a local state university. All of these are reputable institutions.

But yes, avoid anything that's a for-profit college. Also any online program that is not associated with a regular, reputable institution.

[Fri]

You mean I won't be able to be a game designer by calling this number!?

[Douglas]

Wow, that ad is terrible. Script, effects, acting, everything. Did they just ask two of their staff to do it rather than hire anyone?

[Sermil]

You mean I won't be able to be a game designer by calling this number!?

Oh, man, back when I was a game programmer, we used to spend SO much time making fun of that ad. It was a running joke for like a year.

[Aliquid]

When you are working on an assignment know your audience. Be that the professor, TA, or whatever... get to know what they want to see in the assignment.

As an example, I knew of two profs who taught different courses in a similar subject. I dug around and found out what their final exams were like. HUGE difference. One was based purely on memorizing facts and trivia.... whole exam was multiple choice. The other was short paragraph type questions asking you to explain "why this happened", or "how that works" (more interested in the concept than the details). Knowing this in advance made a big difference on what I paid attention to in class, and what I highlighted in my notes.

Or if you are dealing with social sciences type courses where you might need to state an opinion and then back it up... find out how opinionated your TA or Prof is on the subject, and how willing they are to give a good mark to someone who has an opposing opinion (well written or not).

[Nemirthel]

There's another thing I have to add. If you aren't happy with the grade you're on track to get, ask for help immediately. Don't wait until finals week to ask your TA if there's anything you can do to improve your grade. Especially for a lab that ended two weeks before finals week.

There won't be anything you can do, but maybe if you'd asked earlier there would have been. It's also important to remember that if you do this and your TA sees that you have missing assignments, they're a lot more likely to wonder why you didn't care until now than to let you turn those in late (especially because the grade has probably already been sent to the professor).

If you have a problem in a class, fix it early instead of just hoping it goes away.

[Scarlet Knight]

...
But yes, avoid anything that's a for-profit college. Also any online program that is not associated with a regular, reputable institution.

Let T$$$P University serve as a cautionary tale.

[GolemsVoice]

On advice I remember from my university days: see if your professor has written a book on the subject you're learning with them. We had a professor who basically taught his own book, so you could buy it (which he recommended) and just learn from there. Also, you might get to know what that particular professor wants to hear when it comes to writing examns.

[RedCloakLives!]

Hi. Lots of good thoughts from others. I'll try to add a few.

1. I think all of the above illustrates the following: In College/Uni, what you get out of it is what you put into it. (Unlike high school, where you are forced to go, they try to make you learn, and you are free to resist or reject it. ) Want the big time social experience? Then direct your efforts there. Want to be a rocket scientist? Different sort of life. Want to be a rocket scientist with the uber social life? Well, if you can figure out how to do it, go for it. It's up to you to do things, to make things happen.

2. Some professions have requirements for what happens in college, and if you have any interest in them, figure out what you need to do. Now, not later; now, if you can, though I know this is unrealistic for most; and I don't know what your situation is. Though it is possible to course correct later.

This is mainly in the professions.

Medical/Veterinary school - typically requires a (very) high college GPA, premed courses
Law school - requirements not as stringent, but it depends on what you want to do
MBA - similar comment as law school
Pharmacy, Optometry - probably similar to med school

Nursing and Engineering - these are specialized degree-requiring professions where you enter the professional work force directly after college, and your college degree is your professional degree, rather than having to go to another professional school. In the view of some, that makes them the most hard core degrees; degrees for highly responsible people.

Med, nursing, eng - typically you start fulfilling requirements in your first semester.

3. Stay away from all the bad criminal stuff. Hazing. Harassment. Also avoid heroin, hellacious overindulging, high times, hetc. None of it goes anyplace good.

4. Your degree vs what you do in life. Sometimes there is a direct line. Sometimes, there isn't, or it is not obvious. There can be a lot of ways to get through life. For example ...

Studied Philosophy -- Steve Martin, Bruce Lee. You can see it in their work. They needed it, it helped them.

Electrical Engineering -- Rowan Atkinson (a.k.a., Mr. Bean, Blackadder), Master's Degree (!)

French -- Corazon Aquino

Med School -- Michael Crichton

Chemistry -- Margaret Thatcher

Dropouts -- Bill Gates, Larry Niven

Math Ph.D. / NFL -- John Urschel

Art/Design -- famous web cartoonist, Rich Burlew, if I recall correctly. It's why OOTS looks so good. Compared to other comics, its Art and Design is second to none. None!

[aspi]

While some answers have hinted at this, I'm surprised no one has mentioned this explicitly: before you start, take a couple of days to research your chances of getting a job that sounds like something you would like to do with the major/minor you plan on taking (you mentioned political science). As some others mentioned, most university degrees (especially outside of STEM fields) are not worth what you think they are worth. Make sure you are on the right track for a job you actually want. Otherwise, you are just going to waste a lot of time and effort to end up in a worse position than you are in now. Don't take that lightly and just go to college because it's what everyone is doing.

To emphasize what RedCloakLives! mentioned: do not expect to be taught what you need to know. Expect help with learning what you need to know. College/University is not supposed to be like school. You are the active party and you have to want to learn. If you expect to be fed information, you will inevitable fail at learning. The first thing you have to learn (which you likely never learned at school) is how to learn.

I shouldn't speak for all colleges. There may be teachers who truly want all their students to succeed. I can only speak to what happened at my university...

Yes, you really, really should not generalize. As someone who is working and teaching in academia, let me assure you that you are being downright offensive by casting all university teachers into this role. While it is true that there are bad professors, most of them are simply jaded by a system that is broken, by overloaded courses, not enough assistants and a continuously decreasing level of prior knowledge in first year students. In my experience, a large part of why professors end up jaded and distant is the number of students with this and similar attitudes that they have to deal with. If everyone treats you like a soulless villain, you're gonna end up being one eventually.

If something is going wrong, definitely do complain - but don't blame professors/lecturers/instructors for everything that is going wrong. They are part of a broken system (just like you are) and usually deserve much less blame than you initially think. The difficulties that most students face are caused by systemic problems that started long before they ever got to college/university.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

Closing anecdote: On the first day at MIT one year, they gathered all the freshmen on the lawn and and ask "How many of you expect to graduate in the top half of the class here at MIT?" 90% of the students raised their hand.

As far as the first day be prepared speech goes I prefer the good old "Look to person to your left, look to the person to your right. At the end of this year only one of you will still be here". (For the real math based studies (which I only have second hand stories about), other technical degrees can use the version where one of you isn't here anymore, but it lacks the same punch.)

[Lvl 2 Expert]

Chemistry -- Margaret Thatcher

Also: Dolph Lundgren

Dropouts -- Bill Gates

I don't know anything about the rest of your list, so I'll refrain from commenting on those, but the idea that Bill Gates was a dropout is kind of plain false. He never finished his studies, that's true, but that's because he had already started running the sort of company other students aspired to one day work at. He was way ahead of not just the class but given the period this plays out in probably a good bunch of the professors as well. And part of that is because he was a rich kid. I'm not even sure how rich, but the story goes that he had much more experience with the very expensive things computers were than most of his classmates. But it's also because he was creepy smart. One of the assignments Bill Gates and his partner in programming took up when starting out their company would have been a pretty standard order for a custom made computer program, if it wasn't for the fact that they didn't have access to the kind of system it needed to run on. So Bill Gates then wrote an emulator for that system, again without being able to try anything out, and the other guy wrote the program on that. The first time the program actually ran on the intended machine was during the presentation to the company, and it worked. And then of course there is the part of Gates' success which is due to hard work. He typically spent less of his weeks not working than most people spend sleeping. The guy was a machine. So yes, technically didn't finish his degree, no, not a typical dropout.

And I say all this being s person much closer to a typical dropout. I know it's not easy, but if anyone out there is looking for an inspirational figure who got to the top while slacking off and having fun because focusing all the time is hard (it is), don't look at Bill Gates. Maybe try some politicians or something.

[Peelee]

Seconding Bill Gates being a horrible example of a dropout. For the reasons already listed, plus a few more (not the least being that if you can choose to drop out of Harvard, you are not a typical dropout).

[ve4grm]

To emphasize what RedCloakLives! mentioned: do not expect to be taught what you need to know. Expect help with learning what you need to know. College/University is not supposed to be like school. You are the active party and you have to want to learn. If you expect to be fed information, you will inevitable fail at learning. The first thing you have to learn (which you likely never learned at school) is how to learn.

This. This is the best advice in the thread.

I'm an engineer. I did great in school. Straight A's, or close to it, every year. When I got to university, this dropped to B's and C's. And this was 100% because I never learned how to study effectively.

Do not listen to Toro's example. He has some good points (especially in the states, a degree is way overvalued sometimes, get any scholarships you can), but his example is based on 1) committing fraud on applications, 2) posing as a lawyer and making legal threats he couldn't back up, and then 3) getting extremely lucky he wasn't sued, expelled, or arrested. DON'T DO THIS!


Regarding the social aspect - as opposed to high school, everyone at university (especially in your degree) is there for the same reason you are. As such, the barrier between cliques breaks down a lot, and plenty of new social opportunities are available. Also, the nerdy smart kid is now someone people want to be better friends with, as their goals are now more education-based.

Regarding greek life - there are bad frats (hazing, drugs, partying every night so nobody can get any sleep and inevitable fails their courses), and there are good frats (moderate amount of partying, help available for courses, good people to spend time with). Heck, sometimes you'll even find a geek frat (still partying in some amount, but also a board game library, school help, D&D groups, etc)! Be careful what frat you join. A good way to tell what kind of frat one is, is by looking at what they do for charity work. Most frats do some, but the bad frats tend to do the bare minimum as lazily as they can. A good frat is usually socially conscious and helps out in the community.

[2D8HP]

...(not the least being that if you can choose to drop out of Harvard, you are not a typical dropout).

.
FWLIW, My wife has a dual English and Philosophy degree, attended and dropped out of Harvard Law School after two years (she hated the east coast), transferred to Boalt Law (U.C.Berkeley) during which time she met me, and dropped out of Law school altogether with less than 6 months till graduation because she realized she really didn't want to do legal work (she had a nice collection of textbooks though), and hasn't had much paid employment since.

Don't waste time majoring in something that doesn't interest you, or that you won't use.

[Peelee]

.
FWLIW, My wife has a dual English and Philosophy degree, attended and dropped out of Harvard Law School after two years (she hated the east coast), transferred to Boalt Law (U.C.Berkeley) during which time she met me, and dropped out of Law school altogether with less than 6 months till graduation because she realized she really didn't want to do legal work (she had a nice collection of textbooks though), and hasn't had much paid employment since.

Don't waste time majoring in something that doesn't interest you, or that you won't use.

On the one hand, I totally agree. On the other, if I went to Harvard and realized I didn't care about the degree, I'd keep going, and just ramp up my socializing. C's get degrees, and there's a lot of value in having friends in high places.

[SaintRidley]

C's get degrees, and there's a lot of value in having friends in high places.

That's an attitude I simply cannot comprehend actually having.