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Old 09-23-2011, 09:03 AM
 
Location: West Paris
10,263 posts, read 12,476,118 times
Reputation: 24470

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(Reuters) - Los Angeles is the entertainment capital of the United States and New York is the financial hub but Madison, Wisconsin gets the highest marks as the most educated American city.

Madison, Wisconsin ranked as best educated city in U.S. | Reuters
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Old 09-23-2011, 09:22 AM
 
5,680 posts, read 10,312,528 times
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Yup, Madison is probably one of the few cities where you can have an in-depth conversation about existential philosophy with your cabdriver, or discuss quantum physics with the barista at your local coffee shop.

The UW-Madison has a lot of grad school programs, and huge numbers of folks go through those programs, get their Masters or PhD, and decide they like the city so much they want to live here after graduating. Problem is, though, that there are only a certain number of PhD-level jobs in a city of 225K people, so a lot of them wind up working in fields other than their degree work. It does make for an interesting and highly literate population, and you can have some really fascinating conversations in some very unexpected situations.

Thanks for posting the link, Paris!
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Old 09-23-2011, 09:24 AM
 
Location: West Paris
10,263 posts, read 12,476,118 times
Reputation: 24470
Quote:
Originally Posted by MidwesternBookWorm View Post
Yup, Madison is probably one of the few cities where you can have an in-depth conversation about existential philosophy with your cabdriver, or discuss quantum physics with the barista at your local coffee shop.

The UW-Madison has a lot of grad school programs, and huge numbers of folks go through those programs, get their Masters or PhD, and decide they like the city so much they want to live here after graduating. Problem is, though, that there are only a certain number of PhD-level jobs in a city of 225K people, so a lot of them wind up working in fields other than their degree work. It does make for an interesting and highly literate population, and you can have some really fascinating conversations in some very unexpected situations.

Thanks for posting the link, Paris!

your welcome
i know that many cold cities of Midwest are underrated
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Old 09-25-2011, 09:09 AM
 
607 posts, read 973,607 times
Reputation: 1003
Quote:
Originally Posted by MidwesternBookWorm View Post
Yup, Madison is probably one of the few cities where you can have an in-depth conversation about existential philosophy with your cabdriver, or discuss quantum physics with the barista at your local coffee shop.

The UW-Madison has a lot of grad school programs, and huge numbers of folks go through those programs, get their Masters or PhD, and decide they like the city so much they want to live here after graduating. Problem is, though, that there are only a certain number of PhD-level jobs in a city of 225K people, so a lot of them wind up working in fields other than their degree work. It does make for an interesting and highly literate population, and you can have some really fascinating conversations in some very unexpected situations.

Thanks for posting the link, Paris!
Can't say I disagree with what you wrote.

As far as the smartest goes, that just means a subset of the population graduated from college. Doesn't mean the population is any smarter when scaled to the likes of New York, New York.

When I volunteered as a crises line counselor in college the entire staff had a college degree and that included the 23 year old receptionist. When I worked at a small cardiology clinic the entire staff had a college degree (or tech degree) and that included the person scanning in medical records and the receptionists.

I have a friend that use to work as an accountant for a company on the far east side and the entire staff had a college degree but not all of them were actually smart.

Like the poster above said, all it really means is you can have discussions with random strangers (aka your cab driver) about meaningless things.
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Old 09-26-2011, 01:27 PM
 
Location: Portland OR
2,649 posts, read 3,832,690 times
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Lots of college degrees do not make people "smart."
I have worked with folks who have multiple advanced degrees that took them 20 yrs to acquire.

However, once turned loose in the real world , where some sort of result is expected, they really
struggled.
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Old 10-02-2011, 10:12 AM
mlb
 
Location: North Monterey County
4,971 posts, read 4,432,536 times
Reputation: 7903
But, as a Madison native who left (no degree, btw) - how many of those Madisonians are able to put their degree to work - in Madison?

I knew Phds....who drove trucks.

So much for smart.
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Old 10-02-2011, 07:38 PM
 
Location: Chicago
38,707 posts, read 102,874,028 times
Reputation: 29975
Whether they can put their degree to work, or whether you think a college degree makes people "smart" or not.... I can promise you'll never again underestimate the importance of intellectual curiosity as a common feature of the populace once you've lived some place where it's not. Unless, I suppose, you're one of the folks who lacks it.
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Old 10-02-2011, 07:54 PM
 
374 posts, read 980,029 times
Reputation: 453
Quote:
Originally Posted by ccjarider View Post
Lots of college degrees do not make people "smart."
I have worked with folks who have multiple advanced degrees that took them 20 yrs to acquire.

However, once turned loose in the real world , where some sort of result is expected, they really
struggled.
Couldn't agree with this more!

I have never seen a population with so little common sense. It seems to be inversely proportional to the level of education a person achieves.
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Old 10-04-2011, 11:57 PM
 
Location: Madison, WI
5 posts, read 17,445 times
Reputation: 22
Yay!!! Madison is the best!!! LOL
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Old 10-05-2011, 05:12 AM
 
Location: Mequon, WI
8,277 posts, read 23,026,372 times
Reputation: 5633


Some of you will get this reference.
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