California Culture: Circa 2000

[B1ue]

UCLA is a research university. I'm rather surprised they have a nursing program, actually.

 

She could have gone to Calstate Los Angeles. Its a perfectly fine school, and one with a Kinesiology program.

[Daddydavek]

UCLA doesn't have a sports-related undergrad degree program? Seriously? A school that known for their basketball program doesn't have sports medicine, physical therapy, sports management, or any kind of related degree? Damn. I had Tiffany in my mind as a UCLA graduate who has a degree that would allow her to coach or become an agent, but I guess maybe she went to USC instead? Hmm.

 

 

Their website below explains their undergraduate internship....

 

http://www.uclabruins.com/school-bio/sports-med.html

[methodwriter85]

UCLA is a research university. I'm rather surprised they have a nursing program, actually.

 

She could have gone to Calstate Los Angeles. Its a perfectly fine school, and one with a Kinesiology program.

 

I was really surprised that they don't have a business administration program. I thought all universities had one.

 

Tiffany got kicked out figure skating at age 18 in 1994. The timeline I worked out for her is that she then left Michigan to go back to California and attend college, someplace that would have been nearby where JJ learned how to figure skate. Given what Wade said about Tiffany's background, I think her grandparents definitely would have encouraged her and supported her through college, and since Tiffany's pedigree was shot, she pretty much had to go through college to get into coaching. I'm thinking Tiffany started her degree in fall 1995, and finished in spring 1999, which would have made her a senior in college when she became JJ's unoffical coach. It would make sense that when it became obvious that JJ had Olympic-level potential, Tiffany knew that she had to send him over to El Segundo because she didn't have enough experience, and she's still blacklisted by the USFSA.

 

Speaking of El Segundo, it'll be interesting when Evan Lysacek arrives in California for the '03 season. I can see JJ and Evan being good-natured rivals.

Edited March 5, 2012 by methodwriter85

[George Richard]

I was really surprised that they don't have a business administration program. I thought all universities had one.

 

 

At the top private universities, business is usually graduate level only. UCLA must have decided to follow that model. Northwestern has compromised a little by offering undergrad certificates in financial economics and managerial analytics.

[B1ue]

Their website below explains their undergraduate internship....

 

http://www.uclabruin...sports-med.html

 

And if you read down, it points out that it is not an accredited health science program, though I've no doubt the experience is valuable and educational. Actually, I snickered while reading the opening paragraph, one of these kids alone with, say, Matt or Gathan.

[Mark Arbour]

At the top private universities, business is usually graduate level only. UCLA must have decided to follow that model. Northwestern has compromised a little by offering undergrad certificates in financial economics and managerial analytics.

 

Absolutely. Business is considered a "trade", and thus somewhat plebian. Best you can do is a major in economics.

[methodwriter85]

It's kind of interesting though, that between two men who were Ivy League graduates, Brad and Robbie raised three sons who don't really seem all that Ivy-inclined. Darius just wanted to go wherever. Will is a strong student academically and obviously could go Ivy if he wanted to, but he doesn't seem like he's that interested. And then JJ doesn't seem like he's all that into school- I think he probably does just enough to get by. If JJ does wind up going to college, I think it would be with a school that has a well-known, extremely well-ranked figure skating club that has produced some well-known figure skating champions and would be relaxed about him only taking a class a semester because of school's said experience with figure skating champs. I mean, I know JJ and Will are only in 9th grade- but seriously, the Ivy-League gunning kids were displaying signs of being Ivy-League gunning in like 9th grade, if not earlier.

 

Although I guess the answer lies in the scene where Darius talks to Brad about his college plans, and Brad pretty much didn't care where Darius went as long as Darius went. Which makes me wonder if JJ will be able to get away with saying he doesn't plan on going to college, or if he'd get pressured to go. I really think it could go either way with this family.

 

I wonder how Claire and Jack are in terms of raising their kids- if it's just, "I don't care where you go to college as long as you get in" ala Brad, Robbie, and (maybe) Jeanine, or if they're very much into the whole "you must get into a 'name' school" deal. I think Claire would probably be pushier with her kids- not a helicopter-level, but I don't think she'd be as laidback with her kids as Brad and Robbie were with Darius.

 

I'm assuming at some point, we'll start meeting kids who are under the gun by their parents to get into Ivy League. Especially considering the caliber of Harvard-Westlake. The whole "trophy kid" phenom, while not a new concept, definitely seemed to become pretty massive during this decade as college admissions got even more cutthroat. Tommy's recounting of kids who'd down Adderall like candy to get an edge definitely rang true to the A.P. kids I knew in high school.

[methodwriter85]

This is mostly-tongue-in-cheek, but eh, I like all the footage of SF.

 

 

Fitted plaid shirts and those dumb hats. Ugh.

Edited March 8, 2012 by methodwriter85

[PrivateTim]

The way it works in CA is that the the UC has the mostly useless undergraduate majors (Art History, Philosophy, Statistics, etc) and the state universities have the practical undergraduate majors (Accounting, Physical Therapy, Engineering, etc). It is a gross oversimplification, but largely true.

 

If Tiffany were to be an agent, she'd do the combined JD/MBA at UCLA or she would take Integrative Biology and Physiology for coaching.

 

Long Beach State is where people go for physical therapy, etc. It has one of the finest schools in the country for it.

 

What I would call the practical programs, Management, Engineering, Architecture, etc kick in at the graduate level. The School of Nursing is a legacy program.

[PrivateTim]

It's kind of interesting though, that between two men who were Ivy League graduates, Brad and Robbie raised three sons who don't really seem all that Ivy-inclined. Darius just wanted to go wherever. Will is a strong student academically and obviously could go Ivy if he wanted to, but he doesn't seem like he's that interested. And then JJ doesn't seem like he's all that into school- I think he probably does just enough to get by. If JJ does wind up going to college, I think it would be with a school that has a well-known, extremely well-ranked figure skating club that has produced some well-known figure skating champions and would be relaxed about him only taking a class a semester because of school's said experience with figure skating champs. I mean, I know JJ and Will are only in 9th grade- but seriously, the Ivy-League gunning kids were displaying signs of being Ivy-League gunning in like 9th grade, if not earlier.

 

Although I guess the answer lies in the scene where Darius talks to Brad about his college plans, and Brad pretty much didn't care where Darius went as long as Darius went. Which makes me wonder if JJ will be able to get away with saying he doesn't plan on going to college, or if he'd get pressured to go. I really think it could go either way with this family.

 

I wonder how Claire and Jack are in terms of raising their kids- if it's just, "I don't care where you go to college as long as you get in" ala Brad, Robbie, and (maybe) Jeanine, or if they're very much into the whole "you must get into a 'name' school" deal. I think Claire would probably be pushier with her kids- not a helicopter-level, but I don't think she'd be as laidback with her kids as Brad and Robbie were with Darius.

 

I'm assuming at some point, we'll start meeting kids who are under the gun by their parents to get into Ivy League. Especially considering the caliber of Harvard-Westlake. The whole "trophy kid" phenom, while not a new concept, definitely seemed to become pretty massive during this decade as college admissions got even more cutthroat. Tommy's recounting of kids who'd down Adderall like candy to get an edge definitely rang true to the A.P. kids I knew in high school.

 

I simply think Mark hasn't concentrated on that part of the story. Darius didn't have bad grades or SATs, he would never have gotten into an academy if he did and Santa Clara isn't for slouches.

 

We really haven't seen Will and JJ's inclinations to school and studying etc. Having parents like Brad and Robbie and JP for a grandfather they have grown up in the environment of rarefied universities. They don't have to be all panicky like the poor kid from Montebello High School or Bell High School whose parents probably did not go to college or probably did not go to an elite university. Again, that is an oversimplification, but I grew up in an environment not unlike Will and the kids. It was never a question of were you going to college, but where. Everybody in my family went to college. All my aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins, etc, not one isn't a college grad and several went to prestige universities. The point I am making, is that because of that, it wasn't something you dwelt on. It just was what it was. College was the next step of your life. I stressed more about where to go to grad school that I did undergrad when I was 15.

 

Bringing it back to Will and JJ. I think the academic environment at H-W will keep them in line and keep them focused. And again, just because Mark doesn't talk about it a lot, doesn't mean that Brad and Robbie don't take an acute interest in the kids academics. Their simply isn't time enough to go into detail about every aspect of their lives. It is likely that the boys went with Brad and Robbie on trips back east where they went to events at Princeton and Yale. It is likely that they have been to many Stanford football games with JP as would be expected due to JP's standing at the university. It is also THE thing to do in Palo Alto in the fall so even if JP didn't go (which he would) Will would have gone with Jack and Claire and John.

[methodwriter85]

I can see Will going to college, with there being no question mark. JJ is the question mark, I think- likely he'd take a few years off after high school to pursue the '06 Olympics, which may or may not cause problems with the family. Going by how Mark's written the family at this point, I think they'd probably realize that while college is always there, JJ's best years for figure skating are at his late teens and early twenties. I can't see them pressuring JJ into attending college right after graduation in '04. If JJ does go to college, I do think he'd pick a school that had a really prestigious figure skating club attached to it- they'd probably be more understanding about all the absences and the whole "taking only one class a semester" deal.

 

As for the "panicky" part, I get that was the environment you grew up in, and I understand that they just take it for granted that they're going to get into a good college, but Tommy's description of kids from Menlo and the like who were using Adderall as study aids does suggest that these kids do experience at least some anxiety about college.

 

Interestingly, I did remember someone talking about how, on the East Coast, parents tend to be pushier about academics with their kids than they are on the West Coast, which does kind of jibe with what you're saying here, that they expect their kids to excel but there isn't that enormous pressure that you get from East Coast parents, more of just a friendly indoctrination into the culture of the prestigious colleges through football games and such.

Edited March 18, 2012 by methodwriter85

[B1ue]

Tim was just saying what it was like for his family. I met people whose parent's were just as crazy as you've described, thought not in any kind of numbers until I was in college myself. That was more to do with where I grew up; most people did not expect to go to college. You were doing well to finish high school, although most of my class did pull it off.

 

It also may have to do with our respective ages. Tim may have just missed the beginning of the helicopter parenting years, and my parents are half a generation older than those of most of my peers. It's hard to draw broad inferences from little data.

[methodwriter85]

I had a mix of that- the thing about Delaware is that parents who really care about their kids education don't really send their kids to neighborhood schools if they can get them choiced into better school districts. I went to a performing arts magnet school that was downstairs from an extremely competitive science and math charter school. We were allowed to slack off at my school, but there were also plenty of helicopter parents. Upstairs at Charter School of Wilmington, the pressure was magnified- and it wasn't like these were first generation college kids here. These were kids who's parents were working for Astra-Zeneca and du Pont. Charter was competitive enough that parents who might have ordinarily gone private took their kids there instead, so there was a pretty broad mix of working class kids to at least upper-middle class. I hung out with kids who were scraping by like I was, to kids who got to travel abroad to Europe and the like and drove fully loaded SUV's. There were definite expectations for these kids and it wasn't easy- I remember the majority of them were hopped up on caffeine(later Adderall) pills like it was candy.

 

I also considered that Tim was born in the mid-1970's instead of the mid-1980's- I think the peak of the whole "helicopter parenting" phenom occurred when kids born in the mid-80's to the early 90's hit college, because that's when colleges were hitting their peak enrollments and it was getting harder for kids to get in. I've talked with a college counselor who retired around the early '00s, and around this time was when the emphasis on volunteer work and the like was starting to get pushed.

 

I'd be interested in hearing more from people who graduated from high school around 2002 to about 2008(i.e. people born from about 1984 to 1990) on what they observed.

Edited March 18, 2012 by methodwriter85

[PrivateTim]

I also considered that Tim was born in the mid-1970's instead of the mid-1980's- I think the peak of the whole "helicopter parenting" phenom occurred when kids born i

 

Ummm, excuse me bitch, that was LATE 1970's

 

I think you may have missed what Tom was talking about. He was talking about kids whose BACK-UP school was Dartmouth or at least kids who thought that only getting into Columbia and no's from Harvard and Yale was a disaster. They could save face if Stanford accepted them, but only getting into UCLA or UCI, even though they are elite schools in their own right, would a reason to stay home sick two days.

 

Not every H-W student wants Ivy, some want top liberal arts colleges like Wesleyan, some want top performing arts schools, or top schools in engineering & science like MIT, but the point is, the top H-W students are applying to top schools in various fields.

 

If you look at the stats for admits for H-W students for the class of 2010 and 2011, not where they went, but where they were accepted, the numbers are stunning. In two classes, 59 were admitted to Cal, 28 to Stanford, 23 to Brown, 32 to Columbia, 43 to Cornell, 13 to Harvard, 82 to UC San Diego, 16 to Yale and the numbers just roll on.

 

HWS College Counseling Handbook

[methodwriter85]

Right, but your point that you were making was that for these kids, college was a given, and therefore none of them were panicking and then chowing down on Adderall. I wasn't saying that JJ and Will needed to be like those panicky kids- I was saying that it was interesting that they didn't turn out that way, but also that I figure that they'll run into the kids for whom Dartmouth is their backup and who mainline coffee into their system at some point. That's the reality of competitive schools- some kids are fine with wherever they go as long as they go, other kids are obsessed with getting into their first or at least second choice. And because this generation of kids happens to have been somewhat of a baby boomlet, there's a lot less spaces for them as opposed to when Gen Xers like you were applying to school.

Edited March 21, 2012 by methodwriter85

[methodwriter85]

Hey, I was on Funny or Die and found this.

 

The Seven Types of People That Attend Coachella

 

Will and Ryan would be the Teenagers on E, JJ would be the Music Lover, and John would sooooo be the Bro. Lacrosse players are basically grouped in the same genus as frat boys.

Edited April 13, 2012 by methodwriter85

[Mark Arbour]

Hey, I was on Funny or Die and found this.

 

The Seven Types of People That Attend Coachella

 

Will and Ryan would be the Teenagers on E, JJ would be the Music Lover, and John would sooooo be the Bro. Lacrosse players are basically grouped in the same genus as frat boys.

 

Actually, I think they all might be industry assholes, courtesy of Robbie.

[methodwriter85]

It does seem like a cool graduation gift, and a nice way for Robbie and Brad to send off their remaining kids into adulthood.

[methodwriter85]

I wonder how many references would have to be changed for this to be a good guide to Stanford Circa 2000....

 

 

Towards the end, I seriously had trouble understand what they were saying until that one guy ended with "fro-yo." And of course, the bit about his super-chill quarter lined up. The tall lanky dark-haired guy with glasses was cute as fuck.

 

Mark, I've gotten you to add in "chill", right? Some major early '00s slang that doesn't seem to have gone away.

Edited April 18, 2012 by methodwriter85

[methodwriter85]

[media=]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCP2oGdl-c4[/media]

 

Rue...*sobs*

 

Seriously though, if Mark sends any of Gen 4 to Cal, he's going to need to add a lot of Asian characters. Cool.

Edited June 5, 2012 by methodwriter85

[PrivateTim]

Rue...*sobs*

 

Seriously though, if Mark sends any of Gen 4 to Cal, he's going to need to add a lot of Asian characters. Cool.

 

I want to know who got those Asian students to stop studying for 2 minutes and 23 seconds to make a video.

[methodwriter85]

I want to know who got those Asian students to stop studying for 2 minutes and 23 seconds to make a video.

 

According to other copies of that video, it was for the Spring 2012 Sociology 167 class. So it was actually a class project.

Edited June 5, 2012 by methodwriter85

[methodwriter85]

I'm posting this here because it was filmed in Malibu. Also, it's funny.

As a side note, the blond guy they have playing Niall is actually kind of how I picture Private Tim. Edited July 13, 2012 by methodwriter85

[Mark Arbour]

 

I'm posting this here because it was filmed in Malibu. Also, it's funny.

 

As a side note, the blond guy they have playing Niall is actually kind of how I picture Private Tim.

 

And you also posted this to validate my assertion that you are completely fixated on this boy band. I'm about to award you stalker status.

[methodwriter85]

I'm not fixated on the boyband, per se. I'm fixated on the parodies of the boyband.