Tuesday, August 15, 2006

How to Save $100,000

According to AOL, you don't need to pay for an expensive college: you can just learn how to "act Ivy." This is a little silly, I think! The tips aren't bad advice, but you could just as easily label them "how to act professional." The only tip that specifically relates to getting Ivy League cred is the advice to take online courses. All learning is good, but if you are in a situation where an Ivy League vs. non-Ivy League pedigree matters to someone, an online course or the Harvard Extension School probably won't make a difference. (I'm not saying that it shouldn't make a difference-- just acknowledging the reality that there are a few arenas where people are going to be snobby about these things, and if a non-Ivy university degree doesn't cut it, an Ivy-affiliated online degree probably won't help.)

AOL also has a run-down on the financial personalities of the different signs of the zodiac... do you think these profiles hold true? Can you guess what sign I am?

You can also test your personal finance IQ... AOL is on a money roll lately! But I have to say, the way some of these questions are written is a bit misleading-- try it and see what you think!

When you get tired of all the financial tidbits on AOL, you can get back to their usual home page fare: a juicy tidbit about how Tom Cruise used to stalk Joe DiMaggio!

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

...virgo? (other guesses: cancer, scorpio, maybe taurus.)


~ib (regular my open wallet blog reader, pisces)

mOOm said...

That's got to be like the worst personal finance quiz ever saw - full of vaguely worded questions with dubious answers.

Madame X said...

Good guess anonymous!

Ceetar said...

having graduated within the last 3 years from a SUNY, and with friends that went to Cornell, Columbia, and Upenn, i can say with some certainty that the ivy-league name does count for a good deal, and there is no way to fake it other then lying on your resume.

mOOm said...

Ivy and other top schools including some state schools like UC Berkeley count very much. This isn't just undergrad but certainly for degrees like MBAs and for PhDs especially in the social sciences and humanities. The best jobs tend to go to the grads of the elite schools and the others have to work very hard to prove themselves and try to level the playing field.

That article was in otherwords almost as bad as the quiz.

Anonymous said...

I'm an Ivy grad and a corporate executive. I found the article on how to act Ivy quite amusing. Indeed those tips are really just how to be a professional.

There is a bit of truth to the humor. I remember Freshman year, we all came from different backgrounds, different parts of the country, different regional accents. And then with the application of subtle and sometimes not so subtle peer pressure combined with the stress of a highly competitive environment, we were molded by each other into what I affectionately call "future Masters of the Universe".

My classmates are some of the most successful people I know (I usually feel like I'm holding up the rear end in any gathering). They are doctors, lawyers, professors, entreprenuers, CEO's... leaders in their professions.

While it's certainly a boost to the ego to get into an Ivy, it is also a totally humbling experience. One of the things you learn is that there is always somebody who is a bit quicker and brighter than you are. This bit of humility is probably the most important Ivy lesson of all.

Madame X said...

Miguel, that is so true-- I also went to an Ivy school, and found it extremely humbling! I never understood what kind of underlying personality allowed someone to come out of that environment thinking they were God's gift to the world... even if there was something you were #1 at, there would be some person who was #1 at 10 other things, and #2 at your thing too!