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‘I believed I didn't have the right kind of brain for science’

theguardian.com

1–10 of 91 posts

Re: ‘I believed I didn't have the right kind of brain for science’

#3
The article seems kind of unfocused and meandering. It touches on the common talking point of women being discouraged from STEM, then about the good time the author had doing research for her fiction novel, and some scenes from the novel, but it never actually says anything about the plot of said novel. "There's a professor who may or may not be creepy and a student who may or may not fall in love with him" is about as far as it goes.

An area of academia as seen by an outsider usually makes for good storytelling but this article is a mess.

Re: ‘I believed I didn't have the right kind of brain for science’

#4
Getting so sick of the discraceful meme that teachers tell students who are capable of X that they can't do X because of arbitrary reasons.

It's disgusting and untrue.

Teachers teach because they love to help people learn.

Yes there's a few bad apples, but not enough to change a person's life. And certainly there's no trend in teachers.

This article is awful.

Re: ‘I believed I didn't have the right kind of brain for science’

#6

> by the time she reached Harvard, hoping to study medicine, she was so far behind that “I couldn’t even take a remedial math class” Wat? How'd she get into Harvard then? Legacy admission?

Harvard offers undergraduates remedial classes through their extension school. In fact, you may be surprised to hear that so many admits have issues with writing that they offer a non-extension remedial writing class (Expos10.)

These are just undergrads - students come from a variety of educational backgrounds and are admitted for various reasons, of which legacy is just one possibility.

Re: ‘I believed I didn't have the right kind of brain for science’

#8
post #6

> by the time she reached Harvard, hoping to study medicine, she was so far behind that “I couldn’t even take a remedial math class” Wat? How'd she get into Harvard then? Legacy admission?

Harvard offers undergraduates remedial classes through their extension school. In fact, you may be surprised to hear that so many admits have issues with writing that they offer a non-extension remedial writing class (Expos10.) These are just undergrads - students come from a variety of educational backgrounds and are admitted for various reasons, of which legacy is just one possibility.

That may be the highest days-since-account-creation to karma score I've ever seen. Have an upvote!

Re: ‘I believed I didn't have the right kind of brain for science’

#9
post #6

> by the time she reached Harvard, hoping to study medicine, she was so far behind that “I couldn’t even take a remedial math class” Wat? How'd she get into Harvard then? Legacy admission?

Harvard offers undergraduates remedial classes through their extension school. In fact, you may be surprised to hear that so many admits have issues with writing that they offer a non-extension remedial writing class (Expos10.) These are just undergrads - students come from a variety of educational backgrounds and are admitted for various reasons, of which legacy is just one possibility.

I think there are 2 things that make math different than writing in this case.

1. I expect the main reason for needing remedial writing would be English as a second language people. That is, smart people who got a good education, but that education wasn't primarily English. That doesn't really apply to math.

2. I expect standardized tests can more easily test math than writing due to the nature of solving math problems vs writing. Thus Harvard would be able to filter out people who are bad at math more easily than people who are bad at writing. Then again, maybe Harvard doesn't want to filter out people who are bad at math.

Re: ‘I believed I didn't have the right kind of brain for science’

#10
You do have the right kind of brain for science. Even healthy brains are desired.

https://braindonorproject.org/

https://www.brainsupportnetwork.org/brain-donation/

https://www.alz.org/alzheimers-dementia/research_progress/br...

https://hbtrc.mclean.harvard.edu/donate/

I love how the NIH explains things: "As an organ donor, you agree to give your organs to other people to help keep them alive. As a brain donor, your brain will be used for research purposes only—it will not be given to another person." That's good to know.

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