Adam Kissel

Slacking: Wandering Through the Ivies Adam Kissel

Don't trust the Ivy League to produce well-educated students. Sticker prices of $80,000-plus buy prestige but not knowledge or wisdom. Just read the course descriptions.

Cornell has “transgender animal studies," Cardi B, and "intersectional disability studies." Yale has "pop sapphism" and "comparative settler geographies." Penn has "reality TV and gender" and "decolonizing French food." Princeton has "shoes."All these courses meet general education requirements. A generation ago, the question was: Do the great universities still require Shakespeare, Western Civilization, and American history? The answer was, increasingly, no. Today, the question is: Do the great universities still offer even one worthwhile course on Shakespeare, Western Civ, and U. S.

history?The answer is: yes, barely. Serious students can still get a great education at Princeton, Harvard, Yale, Penn, Columbia, Brown, Cornell, or Dartmouth, but they have to work for it. This book provides strivers with the information they need to get the education they deserve.

A content-rich, classical education remains available if they know what to look for. Columbia is the exception—maybe. But if its courses are so good, why were the encampments there so imprudent and immature?Each chapter ends with a Tale of Two Cornells.

If a dedicated slacker wants to skate through the requirements for entertainment, reinforcement of political biases, and narrow specialization, it's easy to choose poorly. If a striver wants the opposite, it takes effort to choose well. The contrast provides a stark wake-up call for curriculum reform at America's best-known colleges.

Make college great again!