by Laura
The Daily Beast recently revealed a ranked list of the country’s smartest places. Apparently, I should pat myself on the back for choosing to be a part of the most intelligent metro area of them all – the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill trifecta of awesome.
On the plus side, the results reaffirm our decision to leave New York City, which in some ways I still believe to be the Greatest City Ever, but here gets ranked thirteenth. Not terrible considering the sheer number and variety of people, but still a far cry from the top. Perhaps that was what was starting to irritate me about NYC – the looming potential for numbskulls to mess with my chi. I could, in fact, come up with a list of people that almost certainly brought NYC’s ranking down, but I prefer not to reveal myself to my enemies.
However, moving to a smarter place also means that you have to prove that you belong. Forget the pressure of joining a freshman class full of valedictorians and perfect SAT score robots. Try becoming part of academia itself, alongside people who are conducting ground-breaking, game-changing research for a living.
To make matters worse, aligning yourself with the elite comes with a stigma. In another recent list, GQ gave Duke the honor of being identified as home of the Original Douche, making the case that people from these parts are smart, but sort of insufferable. But since I am now boldly straddling public/private lines to attend UNC, I’ll assume that I get a free pass on the snobby jerk thing.
Poor me – I just can’t decide if being part of super-smartness is a good thing. I guess I’ll just have to wallow in my intellectual muddle until I become an official Doctor of Philosophy. Fake it ’til you make it, indeed!
Laura
Harold
