Are Europeans...

[electricmonk]

as obsessed with where they went to college as Americans? One of our company VPs has had some of our machinery painted in his school colors. Just seems silly to me to be 50 or 60 something and still the most important thing in your life seems to be where you went to college.

[TheBaldyMan]

1. I think it is in the UK, there is a lot of snobbery involved as well.

The posher universities are more prestigious and it sometimes helps if you play down going to a crappy school.

I'm guilty of this myself. (i.e. Liverpool John Moores University = bad , Liverpool University = good)

I've attended both but am mortified by my time at LJMU. To be brutally honest, at the time LJMU was the second worst university in the UK, Salford was the worst.

[SmileyBoy]

2. Are Oxford and Cambridge like the Harvard and Yale of the UK??

And then what would be the equivalent to Princeton (#3)?? :D

[TheBaldyMan]

3. It's complicated because of the collegiate system at Oxford & Cambridge

you don't actually go to a particular university, you attend one of the colleges, for instance Trinity College, Cambridge or Peterhouse College, Oxford. It is a loose confederation rather than a central organisation.

The top places are hotly contested and can vie with Oxbridge. Any university from the following list:

Manchester, Edinburgh, Leeds, University of London, LSE, Imperial College.

There are quite a few shit-hot places that can rival them as well but the above have strong overall ratings. Other universities can boast world class departments within their faculty.

[electricmonk]

4. Do people there put huge school logos on their cars?

Drive around with the school flags? Have specially designed license plates and all that kind of stuff?

[TheBaldyMan]

5. no, that would be dumb.

Maybe a rugby shirt in college colours or a sweatshirt with the logo at most.

[electricmonk]

7. I can live with that

Seems reasonable. I understand people being proud of where they went to school it just seems people here take it a bit too far.

[electricmonk]

6. Also

It's not even about the quality of the schools here. It seems that if someone went to a particular school then that school is the greatest in the universe just because they went there. Hell sometimes it's not even about if they went there. I know people that won't leave the house without some item of clothing on proclaiming their love of some school that they didn't even attend. One guy I know didn't even go to community college and he worships the University of Va like he built the place himself.

[TheBaldyMan]

11. a couple of semesters would cure him of that, I was a bit in awe of university when I went

it took about 15 minutes to disillusion me.

[electricmonk]

12. Could be worse

I know another guy that washed out of the Marine Corp during basic training and you would think that he was career Marine with the way he acts. Denial I guess, can't admit he didn't make it.

[barb162]

9. I noticed the snobbery. It seemed worse to me than here.

By the way, I think Cambridge was a really beautiful campus.

[TheBaldyMan]

13. The urban planners have ruined Liverpool unfortunately

the beautiful Victoria clock tower has been totally obscured by a five-storey glass and steel monstrosity right across the corner from it. A masterpiece of gothic victoriana hidden from view. At least the interior is still accessible.

The bid for modernity is threatening to blanket one of the most impressive collections of civic buildings in England.

[tonekat]

8. It's called "Arrested Development" n/t

[barb162]

10. That' s weird to be painting things in school colors after all this

time. Really weird. I can't even remember my college school colors except I think one of them was maroon. For some reason I remember my high school colors (maybe because there was a reunion not all that long ago).