Lands of Contradiction

Many people consider India to be the land of contradictions.  In fact, I'm pretty sure that the very first thing I read when I found out I would be coming here in 2010 described it as such.  A land of great wealth but of great poverty.  A land of the highly educated and the illiterate.  Etc.

Today, however, I was orienting a new employee to the U.S. higher education system.  And I realized that the good old USA is quite full of contradictions itself…

Let’s talk about the difference between private universities and state/public universities.  State schools are generally bigger…oh hold on, that’s not always true.  Stanford has about 20,000 students, grad and undergrad.  Ok…well, private universities pride themselves on their small class size and personable faculty and staff.  But no, my cousin at the U often had classes in the teens and enjoyed much better mentorship with her professors than I did at my small, private, liberal arts college of 3,500.  Well, because state universities are state-funded, they are often less expensive.  Actually, sorry.  We’re dealing with international, non-residential students, so the cost is actually very similar (if not more, because of lack of scholarship opportunities) to the cost of an education at a private university.

I’m not sure that these count as contradictions; the descriptions above of India are more statements of extremes, and perhaps the discussion on higher education in the U.S. is more of a lesson that one can’t generalize or make statement based on common beliefs.  But it definitely made me smile and shake my head, because whether extremes, generalizations, or commonly-held beliefs, it can be confusing.  And I’m sure my poor trainee’s head is a mess.

Speaking of contradictions in the USA, though… what about the English language?  I before E except after C, or sounding like hay as in neighbor or weigh…weird?