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Deresiewicz's Essay The Disadvantages Of An Elite Education

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Deresiewicz's Essay The Disadvantages Of An Elite Education
In his essay, “The Disadvantages of an Elite Education,” William Deresiewicz criticizes his Ivy League education, accusing the system for its students lack of social skills and understanding outside of its elitist echo chamber. Deresiewicz recalls that after more than a decade of Ivy education at Yale, when faced with a simple conversation between himself and a plumber, he was quote “struck dumb by (his) own dumbness,” (73) unable to do such a simple task because he was only taught how to talk within his own circles. With this, he denounces the so called diversity on these campuses that only focus on ethnicity or race, and calls them out for creating environments full of the children of businessmen and women (74) where students are unable

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