Yet they also radically oversimplify the issue. Gladwell's claims are striking and, as he frames them, compelling. "Rarely do we stop and consider," he writes, "whether the most prestigious of institutions is always in our best interest." In academia particularly, he says, "The Big Pond takes really bright students and demoralizes them." If you're a programmer, for example, is it better to take a chance on a small startup or to take that job with Google? Should aspiring bankers aim for Goldman Sachs or start at a boutique municipal bond company?īased on his logic in " David and Goliath," Gladwell's answer would almost definitely be to go small. Gladwell focuses his analysis on higher education, but his claims have obvious implications for career as well. Better to have gone to a non-elite institution, he says - to have been a big fish in a little pond - than have had your dreams and confidence crushed.
But Harvard students compare themselves to their Harvard peers, and that's bound to make those in the bottom third feel stupid and unsuccessful. The worst STEM students at Harvard, he claims, may be as smart as the top third at a lower ranked college. Gladwell chalks this up to relative deprivation.
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