At the first college I went to, which I later dropped out of because it was austere, cruel, and awful, I went to a little high school tour day thing. They had a seminar for prospective students; one of the faculty talking had people coming up and asking him questions at the end, in a classroom. This was fairly informal, but it had this stuffy bullshit ‘prestigious,’ ‘serious’ academia vibe like, ‘ooh, this school is really tough, gonna be really miserable for you.’

And I asked the speaker at the end, like, ‘So what do computer science majors actually do day to day in classes? Like, what sort of projects do they work on?’ Completely earnestly, because I was curious because I thought it’d be a cool answer. And he literally said to me, ‘That’s really more of a lunchroom question,’ in the most pretentious tone I’ve ever heard in my life. good christ.

And I went to that school! And it was miserable! Honestly, I didn’t even fully understand or realize how utterly rude and pretentious this dude was being to me until recently. I thought I was asking a ‘silly’ question, but NO! NO, absolutely not, it is absolutely a valid question at a college tour day as a little high school kid. And this guy genuinely seemed so offended and put off that I’d dare ask him a silly question, like he was above answering. I genuinely did not have the brainpower at the time to process such an upjumped pretentious moron.

  • MudSkipperKisser@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    To me it seems clear this guy didn’t actually know the answer to your question and his ego was too large to just say “I’m so sorry I don’t have a great answer for that but I’ll introduce you to Professor Yada Yada who can better answer that”. I’ve had similar experiences within the medical community where a doctor’s ego prevented me from being able to find someone who understood and could genuinely treat a chronic condition I have while simultaneously making me feel like utter shit mentally. Realizing this person’s ego was too big for them to just admit that they don’t know the answer alleviated a lot of the self-imposed responsibility surrounding the situation.

    Basically this guy is a narcissistic asshat who’s also an idiot (the worst possible combination of traits). Your question was genuinely a good and thoughtful question. The burden of this failed interaction is on him, not you.