University of Pittsburgh PA

[HoneyRyder]

Class of 2008, so one yr ahead of you

[kiggis13]

know any Betas?

[HoneyRyder]

Maybe I do but not well, my old room mate is practically married to somebody on the CMU football team.....he was not in any fraternity though.

[Humanoid]

The students at CMU do not use that expression.

Again I've heard it used many times, I quick google search shows others using the phrase:

The Cathedral of Learning
What happend in Pittsburgh and on the way to Boston - duergner.de Blog
chrismetcalf.net » The “Tower of Ignorance”
Views of Pittsburgh, December 1997

etc.

Pitt students often refer to it as the "tower of ignorance" too.

[Copanut]

I'm gonna take a guess that Mr. H did his grad work at CMU.

[HoneyRyder]

I'm sure it exists and you didn't just make it up out of thin air, but it's not a commonly used expression among CMU undergrads.

[likepgh]

Looking at the dates of the web pages using the expression "Tower of Ignorance" that Humanoid has found; at Humanoid's general use of various forms of the past tense; and at the report of a recent graduate from CMU, let me guess that:

a) students at CMU used to refer to the Cathedral of Learning as the "Tower of Ignorance" even up to the early part of this decade; and that alumni of CMU, posting comments on blogs, circa 2005, used this term assuming (as alumni tend to do) that although they have moved on, their alma mater stays as it was;

and b) some Pitt students used this term as well in the same time period (an indication that Pitt and CMU students did mix, don't you think?);

and c) that students at CMU these days (since circa 2004 when HoneyRyder arrived on campus) don't tend to call the Cathedral of Learning this much or at all.

Perhaps the CMU-Pitt gap is narrowing given the following: the dramatic improvement in the quality of Pitt undergraduates over the last decade or so; Pitt's rise in all sorts of rankings in that timeframe; and the increasing number of out-of-state students at Pitt paying higher tuition rates and thus, tending to come from more similar class backgrounds to CMU undergraduates.

However, all that said, CMU does rank higher than Pitt in USNews (which is the rankings bible for undergrads, high school students, and parents of high school students); undergraduates at schools in close proximity to each other have been known to develop rivalries; and undergraduates have occasionally been known to display sophomoric "put-down" humor when it comes to their rivals. (Ever been in the stands at the Yale Bowl during a Yale-Cornell football game and heard the Yale students chanting "safety school; safety school"? Then you'll know what I mean.)

So it's not surprising that the "Tower of Ignorance" thing started and it wouldn't be too surprising if CMU students still pulled it out of their "make fun of Pitt" toolbox on occasion; it also wouldn't be too surprising that most CMU undergrads today just look on the Cathedral as part of the landscape and haven't used or heard such an expression.

So everyone's right! What this has to with the OP's original question about whether he should look at Pitt for college, I'm not sure.

[Katarina Witt]

RE: Humanoid's use of the past tense, I suspect he is referring to his days at CMU. I think these expressions are common. I will repeat my post of some time back:

Originally Posted by Katiana

I have a cousin who went to CMU at the same time I was at Pitt. He said at CMU they called Pitt "Forbes Ave. High" or something similar. Interestingly, when we were both kids growing up in Beaver Falls, we called Geneva College, located there, "the high school on the hill". DH said that growing up in Omaha, NE, they called the University of Omaha (now U. of Nebraksa at Omaha) "West Dodge High" for its location on Dodge St. So not only are such jokes not particularly unique, they are high-schoolish.

Note that the above was happening in the late 60s, so not much has changed in 40 yrs.

Originally Posted by HoneyRyder

Pitt engineering isn't bad. Not everybody has the scores to get into CMU or wants to pay the price tag, and Pitt isn't a bad school. Don't compare Pitt to CMU just because they are in the same location. Pitt isn't bad, but obviously it stands in the shadow of CMU because of it's location right next to it. If you are a PA resident and want to live in a city w/your kids, go to Pitt. Penn State might be a better program but it's in a college town.

Just wanted to clear up a few misconceptions:



This is completely made up

CMU students do not look down on Pitt students really. They are pretty caught up in their own world.

I think that is both true and untrue. This whole "Tower of Ignorance, Forbes Ave. High", etc, did not just come out of thin air. But yeah, most college students are caught up in their own lives.

CMU students are as a whole not lazy at all. They are generally very hardworking.

I just wanted to point out too that CMU students are not all rich kids. It's not a country club type school like many schools that rank similar, such as Vanderbilt, Duke, etc (not that those schools aren't great). CMU was founded by Andrew Carnegie for the children of engineers in his steel mills. So, CMU is pretty loyal to accepting people from Pittsburgh and not just accepting prep school kids.

Well, CMU is really more on a par with MIT, CalTech, etc, than the above schools, IMO. So no, I don't think of CMU as a country club school. BTW, the % of in-state students at CMU is not noted in my edition of USNews. 11% of undergrads are international.

[apotter82389]

I am not able to post a forum.........so i will like to know how safe and diverse is the university of pittsburgh. from other post i know oakland area is safe but it seem like the unsafe areas are close to the university of pittsburgh so it seem like the safe are in oakland is safe. even thoughi am from detroit and attended spelman college(campus beautiful; neighborhoods dangerous) since i will be all alone safety is my main concern

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by apotter82389

I am not able to post a forum.........so i will like to know how safe and diverse is the university of pittsburgh. from other post i know oakland area is safe but it seem like the unsafe areas are close to the university of pittsburgh so it seem like the safe are in oakland is safe. even thoughi am from detroit and attended spelman college(campus beautiful; neighborhoods dangerous) since i will be all alone safety is my main concern

Most of the neighborhoods around Oakland have crime rates as low or lower than Oakland itself. The one neighborhood nearby that people talk about as a "bad area" is the Hill District. I personally think that reputation is overblown (e.g., as I recall the major crime rates on the Hill aren't notably worse than nearby neighborhoods). But in any event, there is a very sharp geographic distinction between Oakland and the Hill (as the name of the latter implies, it is on top of a big hill), so it doesn't feel much like part of the same general area.