No conocía nada de la tan tempranamente fallecida (accidente de coche con 22 años) Marina Keegan, ni de su elevación a los altares: Remembering Marina Keegan. Su converión en mito es algo muy propio de ese universo progresista que es el The New Yorker. Una selección de su trabajo encantó a crítica y lectores con los 18 ensayos de ficción y no ficción reunidos en The opposite of loneliness (Lo opuesto de la soledad). Frank parece tirar por tierra, en su ensayo "Where You Go Is Not Who You'll Be", esa creación artúrica alrededor de las grandes universidades. A mi la chica me parece una cursi de campus. Como ejemplo chocante de inconsistencia presidía el Partido Demócrata de Yale —la organización política más grande del campus y que estuvo detrás de Occupy Wall Street. Logicamente, su muerte temprana ha sido una catástrofe y no tengo la energía para aplicar el rigor antihagiográfico de Rodrigo Fresán en su crítica de Lo contrario de la soledad, que si gusta, cómo no, a El Pais.
El título, Lo contrario de la soledad, proviene de su ensayo más conocido en la revista conmemorativa de su graduación en 2012. Es muy naif por momentos: “doy las gracias por haber encontrado en Yale y lo que temo perder cuando despertemos mañana y abandonemos este lugar”. El artículo en la web Yale Daily News, recibió más de un millón de visitas en una semana, a pesar de lineas adolescentes como ésta "cuando ya has pagado la cuenta y te quedas en la mesa. Cuando son las cuatro de la mañana y nadie se acuesta. Esa noche con la guitarra. Esa noche que no podemos recordar. Esa vez que fuimos, vimos, nos reímos, sentimos…"
"Where You Go Is Not Who You'll Be".
Over the last few decades, Americans have turned college admissions into a terrifying and occasionally devastating process, preceded by test prep, tutors, all sorts of stratagems, all kinds of rankings, and a conviction among too many young people that their futures will be determined and their worth established by which schools say yes and which say no.
That belief is wrong. It's cruel. And in WHERE YOU GO IS NOT WHO YOU'LL BE, Frank Bruni explains why, giving students and their parents a new perspective on this brutal, deeply flawed competition and a path out of the anxiety that it provokes.
Bruni, a bestselling author and a columnist for the New York Times, shows that the Ivy League has no monopoly on corner offices, governors' mansions, or the most prestigious academic and scientific grants. Through statistics, surveys, and the stories of hugely successful people who didn't attend the most exclusive schools, he demonstrates that many kinds of colleges-large public universities, tiny hideaways in the hinterlands-serve as ideal springboards. And he illuminates how to make the most of them. What matters in the end are a student's efforts in and out of the classroom, not the gleam of his or her diploma.
Where you go isn't who you'll be. Americans need to hear that-and this indispensable manifesto says it with eloquence and respect for the real promise of higher education.
That belief is wrong. It's cruel. And in WHERE YOU GO IS NOT WHO YOU'LL BE, Frank Bruni explains why, giving students and their parents a new perspective on this brutal, deeply flawed competition and a path out of the anxiety that it provokes.
Bruni, a bestselling author and a columnist for the New York Times, shows that the Ivy League has no monopoly on corner offices, governors' mansions, or the most prestigious academic and scientific grants. Through statistics, surveys, and the stories of hugely successful people who didn't attend the most exclusive schools, he demonstrates that many kinds of colleges-large public universities, tiny hideaways in the hinterlands-serve as ideal springboards. And he illuminates how to make the most of them. What matters in the end are a student's efforts in and out of the classroom, not the gleam of his or her diploma.
Where you go isn't who you'll be. Americans need to hear that-and this indispensable manifesto says it with eloquence and respect for the real promise of higher education.
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