I’m cracking up at the first post that held up a business degree as some pinnacle of rigor and employability.
Anyway, I’m a working engineer and some of my toughest courses were social science courses. Don’t underestimate the difficulty of reading and writing critically about subjects where there aren’t necessarily correct answers.
Smith is not only a genius but a legit good hearted person. He has created a top running program in a school with limited resources. NAU is now the school every high school runner in the USA dreams about. The best part about it is that he has done it the right way. Runners thrive because his program takes care of the kids physically, mentally, and emotionally. What a great environment!
WTF is wrong with this site? Wanting to tear down great runner/ great programs for no reason
130 upvotes so far to this comment and only two downvotes. Right on. That tells you how many people here agree the letsforum forums have some serious problems.
Year after year, so many posters try to tear people down on these forums. It’s sad. These forums need to be moderated, with defamatory comments deleted and posters banned.
Smith is not only a genius but a legit good hearted person. He has created a top running program in a school with limited resources. NAU is now the school every high school runner in the USA dreams about. The best part about it is that he has done it the right way. Runners thrive because his program takes care of the kids physically, mentally, and emotionally. What a great environment!
Do you work for NAU or something? let’s correct a few things
1.) distance runners want to go there. Mid-d/sprinters /etc would be foolish to go there.
2.) NAU is not a challenging school otherwise.
3.)NAU was initially built on a high concentration of foreign nationals, that has change but it’s first success was not homegrown runners
4.) I coach HS. NAU is one of a dozen schools kids mention. Not the only school like you act.
5.)not criticizing NAU, per se just the bandwagon fools on let’s run who are dazzled by a few championships
If you want to know why Mike Smith the greatest college coach ever go watch his interview after their 2019 loss. College xc coaching is so much about the people and the mental side, training is all the same. 10 mile tempos, mile reps at threshold etc etc. None of that is special. There’s a reason all these kids want to go to NAU and want to run for Mike Smith even though there’s dozens of schools with bigger budgets and better academics.
Because it's at near perfect altitude for endurance training? (half joke) Also, you need to get around more if you think training is all the same. And there's an additional component into how Mike Smith peaks his athletes so well.
as a european, reading all these americanized comments about how an education from each university matter compare to other universities is both hilarious and mind boggling
as a european, reading all these americanized comments about how an education from each university matter compare to other universities is both hilarious and mind boggling
I'm curious what you mean. Are you saying that Europeans do not believe that there are differences in academic quality of universities? Or just that they are less snobbish about it?
as a european, reading all these americanized comments about how an education from each university matter compare to other universities is both hilarious and mind boggling
I think it’s apples and oranges on a number of levels. Your population density is much higher; Euros don’t realize how geographically enormous the US is.
We have a population of 330 million, and 4360 accredited institutions of post-secondary education. Europe had a population of 740 million with only 2725 post-secondary institutions. That’s 75600 people per college/university compared to 271500 in Europe. We simply have far more options; of course there will be a greater range in quality and subsequently more concern over the quality of the institution.
The overwhelming majority of the best universities in the world are in the US, but we also have community colleges where the department chairs aren’t as bright as a typical Ivy undergrad. Only ignorance or disingenuous would lead to surprise that Americans care more about quality of institution than Europeans do.
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And people in the States wonder why they are despised
such a stupid comment. the problem with athletics today is that the weakest people in the room can turn on the strongest and attract other douches like yourself to support their baseless claims.
What needs to happen is the end of anonymity on the board.
Yes- every other message board in the world requires registration. You can still be annon, you just can’t post with impunity under 16 different screen names like we all do. It’s quite stupid.
But when you get into technical majors like engineering or other STEM degrees people don't really care much about where you went. You either know how to do it or you don't, and there's not a huge surplus of people who know how to do it. It is a lot easier to do 'business' because the concepts are pretty straight forward, and the toughest math might even be compounding interest rates. But in many STEM fields the math is very difficult to comprehend, so if you can do the job it doesn't matter what university you went to, you're hired. My economics courses as general electives were the easiest classes I had, engineering courses are way harder and have a tougher curve because many of the students are better at math/science.
Take a calculus-based intermediate micro or macro class or even econometrics and tell us all how easy it is.
I did. I took the lower level 'intro' macro and then the 'upper level' macro course. As well as account courses which is basically addition/subtraction/multiplication. The calculus in there is a joke, super basic calculus. How about you take differential equations which is calculus on steroids or something even higher than that. Or pattern recognition/machine learning algorithms. That stuff is actually challenging to comprehend. Basic calculus in economics is easy.
If you want to know why Mike Smith the greatest college coach ever go watch his interview after their 2019 loss. College xc coaching is so much about the people and the mental side, training is all the same. 10 mile tempos, mile reps at threshold etc etc. None of that is special. There’s a reason all these kids want to go to NAU and want to run for Mike Smith even though there’s dozens of schools with bigger budgets and better academics.
Because it's at near perfect altitude for endurance training? (half joke) Also, you need to get around more if you think training is all the same. And there's an additional component into how Mike Smith peaks his athletes so well.
What is this “additional component into how Mike Smith peaks his athletes so well?”
as a european, reading all these americanized comments about how an education from each university matter compare to other universities is both hilarious and mind boggling
I think it’s apples and oranges on a number of levels. Your population density is much higher; Euros don’t realize how geographically enormous the US is.
We have a population of 330 million, and 4360 accredited institutions of post-secondary education. Europe had a population of 740 million with only 2725 post-secondary institutions. That’s 75600 people per college/university compared to 271500 in Europe. We simply have far more options; of course there will be a greater range in quality and subsequently more concern over the quality of the institution.
The overwhelming majority of the best universities in the world are in the US, but we also have community colleges where the department chairs aren’t as bright as a typical Ivy undergrad. Only ignorance or disingenuous would lead to surprise that Americans care more about quality of institution than Europeans do.
The ratio in Europe is that way because there are more small institutions that just focus on a small number of focuses. The big universities in the U.S., which there are a bunch of them, all have sub colleges within them so there is a ton of options to study within the university. Like a college of engineering, college of business, college of liberal arts, education, nursing, many others. These would often all be their own 'institution' in Europe and not grouped into a major university.
I think it’s apples and oranges on a number of levels. Your population density is much higher; Euros don’t realize how geographically enormous the US is.
We have a population of 330 million, and 4360 accredited institutions of post-secondary education. Europe had a population of 740 million with only 2725 post-secondary institutions. That’s 75600 people per college/university compared to 271500 in Europe. We simply have far more options; of course there will be a greater range in quality and subsequently more concern over the quality of the institution.
The overwhelming majority of the best universities in the world are in the US, but we also have community colleges where the department chairs aren’t as bright as a typical Ivy undergrad. Only ignorance or disingenuous would lead to surprise that Americans care more about quality of institution than Europeans do.
The ratio in Europe is that way because there are more small institutions that just focus on a small number of focuses. The big universities in the U.S., which there are a bunch of them, all have sub colleges within them so there is a ton of options to study within the university. Like a college of engineering, college of business, college of liberal arts, education, nursing, many others. These would often all be their own 'institution' in Europe and not grouped into a major university.
I just want to comment on why an extra layer of anonymity can be important here. WE are talking about a sport based in hard numbers, and posters sharing info about themselves, their athletes, their programs, etc. Without the ability to post anonymously, it is very easy to be cyber stalked and have your identify found here. Some of the posters here are very good at taking a couple of numbers combined with some geographical info to pinpoint who somebody is.
Some people want that. Some don't. Some people are good with 90% of the time, but want the ability to post anonymously if they are going to post something that easily leads to pinpointing.
Mike Smith was head coach of Georgetown Women in 2012. He ended up marrying one of the athletes on his roster. Nothing he ever accomplishes will wipe out this gross, predator behavior.