Elisabeth Kwak-Hefferan: Ivy League snobs? Maybe

Last week, someone who didn't even know me called me an egotistical snob. This criticism didn't come from any of the usual fountains of snobbery: living in a mansion (I don't), driving a Lexus (I wish), summering on the coast of France (ha!). Nope, this guy was accusing me of intellectual snobbery, based solely on the fact that I attend an Ivy League school. At first I was indignant; hey, you don't know me! How dare you judge me according to whatever prejudices you have against Penn? But after my initial anger faded, I realized something rather disturbing. I may not think I'm a snob, but I must admit some of the noses around here are turned up pretty high. Even more alarming, it's not just that already snobby people are attracted to the Ivy League. In fact, this group of schools, this very university, is a breeding ground for snobbery. That's the danger of an Ivy League education. At the same time that our minds are being opened and our horizons broadened by all Penn has to offer, we're being set on an elitist track. The things we learn and the tastes we develop during our short stint here could very well alienate us from those poor suckers who don't have Ivy League diplomas (yes, that would be the vast majority of the world). While we're in college, it's easy to start believing that we're smarter, more refined, just plain superior to most other people. From there, it's even easier to close ourselves off to what these other people can teach us. And that would be a shame. First things first. What makes us think we're so special anyway? Well, Penn students aren't exactly slackers. Nearly everyone here is intelligent, and most know how to work hard. This university is teeming with talented people. It's the kind of place where you can stay awake until 4 a.m. arguing about politics and you overhear conversations on Locust Walk that contain words like "ideology" and "postmodernism." As a rule, Penn students aren't too shabby, and there's nothing wrong with a healthy self-esteem. The problem comes in when we start thinking that we're the only people around with these good qualities. Perhaps it begins with our classes. At some point, after days of lectures with world-class professors and access to fantastic resources, we start thinking that we're learning more than our peers at the state schools back home. Add to that the way we're shaped by what sorts of things are valued in the Ivy League, and egos begin to inflate. We scoff at any newspaper that isn't The New York Times. We laugh at our siblings when they don't know what Gertrude Stein wrote. We take for granted the fact that we can go to Broadway shows or the symphony. The Ivy League encourages us to embrace this elite culture, and we start to think we deserve these privileges more than the next person. That's where we're wrong. Yes, Penn and its sister institutions of higher learning do offer an excellent education, but we're not the only game in town. There are plenty of other ways to get a valuable education, other universities being only one other option. Wisdom is a funny thing. If you're looking to buy it, struggle and experience are more accepted forms of currency than tuition money. And we, ivory-tower dwellers that we are, would do well to remember that we're fairly short on experience. Others have gone this way before us, and they've learned things no PowerPoint lecture could have spelled out about our future careers, relationships, lives -- basically, how to get along in this crazy thing we call the real world. Think of the possibilities if we'd just forget our pretentiousness and admit we don't know everything, that even the guy behind the counter at the deli or that uncle with half a community college degree can show us something valuable. Unfortunately, too many Ivy Leaguers mistake their luck in having the opportunity to study at some of the best schools in the world as justification for putting on airs of superiority. We're not all like this, of course, but the atmosphere makes it almost difficult to resist embracing the rampant snobbery. Perhaps this attitude would be tolerable if we really are the smartest, most culturally refined people around, but we're not. No wonder the Ivy League has such a bad reputation when it comes to conceit. Maybe I can forgive the stranger who called me a snob. After all, he was just playing the odds. Elisabeth Kwak-Hefferan is a junior communications major from Wheaton, Ill.

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