Excellent Sheep
The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life

I still remember my first exposure to Deresiewicz. I had recently dropped out of graduate school—full of disgust and indignation—and as a form of self-therapy I was busy reading everything I could find about the flaws of higher education. Naturally, I jumped on Deresiewicz’s essay in The American Sc......more

As I’ve said in other reviews, every time I read a book about higher education, it stirs my emotions up to such an extent that I cannot help but write an intensely personal review. You’ve been warned. Here goes. If you were raised in a middle class American family, then quite likely, the main goal no......more

Absolutely one of the best books I've ever read about higher education, but so much more than just that. This is a dangerous little book, it really exposes some dirty secrets of the hidden American class/caste system. This is something you almost never see talked or written about, an expose of how t......more

Worth a read, but is really a good magazine article stretched into a meandering book (that's ok, "idea" books these days are. My suggestion is read the Part 1 (Why our colleges are filled with overstressed, well trained, bland, rich kids) and Part 4 (Why these same people are doing such a crappy job......more

Dennis slogs into my therapy office at about 5:30 in the afternoon, looking worse for the wear and tear. He’s a good looking 33-year-old guy, nattily dressed in his bespoke suit, but his face and body sags. He sits down and says, “I’ve done nothing to improve my lot this week. I’ve had to work till t......more