Under the title Former Arlington High School student challenges Harvard University Andy Metzger of the Arlington Advocate has scooped the MSM.
Who knew that one way the elite help their own survive and thrive at Harvard was by “finals clubs” where only elite members can access notes from classes, other ‘finals club’ members papers, and more? I sure did not.
FinalsClub gets its name from Harvard’s secret societies, or “finals clubs,” which boast libraries available to members only.
Apparently, those secret libraries contain class notes, papers, essays and more. I am not at all sure that the state-run universities I attended in Michigan would have even allowed anything like this, or viewed such secret societies with class notes and student papers that were only available to ‘members’ of the right sort as ethical.
However, Magliozzi has leveled the playing field. He has created a professional-level non-profit website finalsclub where notes taken at classes at Harvard and Brown are available free to anyone. The site contains:
Magliozzi’s site offers notes, taken by students during lectures delivered by professors at Harvard and Brown universities, as well as briefly annotated classics. Most of the lecture notes posted on FinalsClub are available to anyone, while certain classes are password-protected and only available to students enrolled in the course.
What is revolutionary, is that to use the website FinalsClub, you don’t have to be a member of a secret society, have the ‘right parents’ or be a member of an elite who is properly subservient to the senior members of a secret society.
Says Magliozzi:
“Harvard’s not interested in sharing things in general,” said Magliozzi, a graduate of the school who majored in history and literature. “They’re not happy about it.”
But Magliozzi – whose father, Ray, gives out free advice about cars and car repair on the public radio show “Car Talk” – said he has an anti-authoritarian streak, so if anything, the institutional disapproval only motivates him.
Andrew Magliozzi’s famous father must be proud – he too uses the web to open up information to the rest of us, albeit about cars, not about succeeding at Harvard at Car Talk
My thanks to Andy Metzger, ace reporter of the Arlington Advocatefor drawing my attention to Andrew Magliozzi’s pioneering efforts in support of use of nonprofit websites to level the playing field, share information, and demonstrate democracy in action via the internet.
I know some fraternities on my campus kept exams and papers on file for members in future years for reference. Of course professors often hung on to copies of papers too in order to cross-reference for signs of plagerism. How does one get into one of the Harvard groups?
My understanding is that this type of practice is common amongst fraternities, sororities and other social organizations on campus colleges (not just Harvard). I know at my law school, the various journals had files that contained things like outlines from past classes and information on law firms where past journal members had clerked/worked. Those were only available to those students who currently worked for the journals.
The Phoenix did an article on this last yr. I see it as part of the democratization of knowledge .
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p>http://thephoenix.com/Boston/L…
do you think Harvard Syndrome is an example, to a degree of narcissistic personality disorder?
and what is with your recent obsession with NPD?
It is kind of a funny situation.