I apologize for all caps. It's not meant to be flaming, just emphasis. This is supposed to be a lively debate.
🙂
Also, none of my questions are sarcastic or for driving points... if anyone wants to philosiphise (bad spelling, i know) or discuss answers, i am very curious!
Lizard king....
I'm not going to continue to debate and argue with you if you are simply going to be extremely closed minded, stating your point, and not bothering to read what I write. You only seem read enough to find points to knock it down, and don't concede to the fact that there is any credibility to what I'm saying.
Instead, you are going to find any half baked excuses to support your view. your points have little basis. provide me statistics, stories, or any reason to believe your viewpoints have any credibility.
I've seen my story, and those of many of my friends. I've guided many other homeschooling families and others at the youth/high school programs at my old community college.
I'm only saying people should be open minded. THAT'S ALL. I'm saying, people should not throw tons of steryotypes on someone just because they are young and smart WHEN THEY NO ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ABOUT THE PERSON.
granted, in medschool admissions/jobs/etc, they have a limit to what they can ask in the personal essay, etc and they need to judge you as a person. Thus, everything counts, and there are always going to be steryotypes.
But I am much more talking about PERSONAL interaction with people you meet on campus, internet, wherever. In personal interaction, there shouldn't be this a large set of steroytypes.
My brother (maybe around 12 or 13 then) met and becomes aquantinces with this guy and a social indian community dance. A few days later, he meets him on the college campus. The guy is totally shocked my brother is in college when he's barely a teenager and is like "what are you doing here?? you're gonna go brain-damaged!!" yeah, he used words to those effect.
Yes, age brings maturity. But, it is not pure age that brings the maturity as much as what I'd call "life experiences" (you know what i mean, tough situations, unusual experiences, poverty, etc, etc). But if people based maturity more on that than age, they would be making a more valid judgement. I told you some example of my friends story... and the point of that was that sometimes people can be quite young yet faced a lot of "experiences" in life than older people (if you don't get what I'm talking about read "Small Victories" or "And Still We Rise").
Whether you realize it or not, lizard king (and some others), you guys are making a lot of assumptions about me or people in my situation w.r.t. to age and academic achiements.
THIS IS WHAT REALLY GETS TO ME. PEOPLE DO NOT EVEN REALIZE THEY ARE MAKING ASSUMPTIONS AND THINK IT IS ABSOLUTELY NATURAL THAT SOME STUFF COME AS A CONSEQUENCE OF BEING YOUNG AND SMART. IN FACT THE REALITY FOR MANY OF US IS QUITE THE OPPOSITE!
Okay... at few things that have come up here (and they are very typical).
* Being young means and academically advanced means our parents pushed us through it. That it wasn't our choice. Would someone tell me why this is a pervasive assumption?
* Being young means we were deprived our our "childhood" or "adolesence". What exactly were we deprived of? Is it exactly something totally good? I have on the whole enjoyed my life and education, just as do others my age. granted academically were at a different level, and most of my friends are older than me. But what was I deprived of? and why does being deprived of this have a negative connotation in the society?
* Being young means that we rushed through it.
This is a STERYOTYPE! Steryotype as in NOT true!
There was never any rush for me to finish my schooling. To the contrary, my dad all told me to take it easy. I could take whatever classes interested me and didn't have to overload myself above what i could handle. I just started early.
None the less, this "steryotype" does hold true for many others. I don't see why they want to push themselves or what the rush is. But for me, there was quite the opposite of a rush.
For the rest of you,
I know that analogy with african americans isn't very strong. It wasn't really well thought out our anything, and probably there are many flaws. It just came to my head at the time I wrote that post.
Originally posted by locitamd:
•I apologize to all if this post proves to be an exercise in rhetoric.
Sonya,
there is a significant flaw in your analogy between prejudice towards African-Americans and the young. For those who are not, can never know what it is to be black, whereas we all know what it is to have been young.
While my experience is not too far different from your own, I moved away from home at the age of 16 and, well, all I can say is that I know a whole lot less now than I did then.
Don't care what anyone says, I don't want to have a conversation about birth control with an 18 yo.
Though I could go on, I won't, and just wish you luck with your MCATs and medical school.•••
you raise a lot of good points! Especially the one about birth control. Of course there will be disadvantages of going into medicine at a young age. But, there are also a lot of advantages... considering how long the medical education process is. I can see not having to raise a family while in residency to be a big plus.
You have all been young, and you have all been med students etc. BUT YOU HAVE NOT ALL BEEN BOTH! you can not say that you can combine everything YOU know in YOUR experience as a teen and what you know about stress/pressure of college and combine them and conclude IN MY OPINION QUITE WEIRD FACTS like we're totally being pushed, and loosing our "child hood", and will go crazy, etc.! Listen, in many ways, my upbringing has been different from that of many other kids. NOT just in academics. I am NOT saying it is true for everyone in my situation though. But the majority of kids I have known in my situation are happier than without academic acceleration!
I have known many kids who have been forbidden from acceleration (by their parents, and more often beuracracy and money oriented public school systems). This has made the kids much more unhappy/stressed than
Of couse we all are always growing. Between ages of 14 to 20, we are growing and learning about life the most. And it will always improve us and add maturity, strength, and a lot more. I know how much I have grown since I was 13.
and that's why i say the stuff about life experience. there are events in my life that have happened that have changed me and been difficult to get through, and led to maturity.
Ofcourse maturity helps. What is so special about having it right before you enter medschool or college, or whatever? As different stuff happen if you life, you will gain maturity.
Originally posted by LizardKing:
•It's not wise to toss racism around as an analogy unless you know, or have experienced, what you're talking about.
...
For example, there tends to be the attitude with young, smart individuals like yourself, Sonya, that you think you know everything you can know before you go to med school.
...
All I can say is no matter how mature you think you are, the mere fact that you claim to be so mature is immature in and of itself. No one is mature enough, and we all have stuff to improve...So ask yourself: What is the rush and what am I chasing toward in my life?•••
Okay... I'll forget the african american analogy... whatever... if i made it seem like that was an important supporting point for my discussion, I must have been unclear.
WHEN THE HECK DID I SAY THAT I KNOW EVERYTHING I CAN BEFORE MEDSCHOOL? (anwer that question! and that is flaming, not emphasis) If I did then I didn't mean to. If you're just saying people who are young tend to think they do (in general)... you need to honestley ask yourself how many people do you know (and how well do you know theam) who are young and academically advanced? if you feel your knowledge about people in my situation has reasonable basis, then you are free to have that opinion. If you are making that up from your guesses or superficial judgement of people, or knowlege of just one of your friends, then you need to realize you are just setting accusations.
"The fact that i claim to be mature is immature in itself" WHAT??????????? okay.... that is (IMHO, not trying to be rude) a stupid enough statement to discredit most any and everything else you've written! (i'm not saying you're stupid, just that was a real stupid argument).
THAT EXACTLY PROVES MY POINT!! first of all, perhaps I was unclear. I'm not saying I am as mature as someone 30 yrs old. A big point I made was that some really young people can be quite mature, while some grownups can be quite immature, and age is often not a good quantitative measure of maturity. That just shows that you barely get to know these kids. you have some pre conceived ideas in your head made up mostly by your ignorance and you are going to take one sentence they say and judge ALL kids like that based one little experience with one. One CONTORTED little experience with one where you are not even bothering to understand that person.
I'll tell you why I think I'm more mature than many kids my age. it has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with knowledge. Constantly i am interacting with others much older, and I adapt to be more like them in some ways. of course, in many ways I'm still 17.
okay....
I have made my points and had a great time debating. But really, I've probably most of what I have to say, are re-iterated it. over and over. Read what I have to say and think, and decide as you please (basically, i'm tired of debating considering my interests have ventured away from SDN)
Please look at what I think are typical steryotypes that people make without even realize they are making(OUTSIDE of the issue of maturity, the things with *). I am not trying to just say those for debate or trying to convince you that we are not pressured or whatever. I honestley believe those but have seen those steryotypes absolutely everywhere in my life. If I convince you of those facts, i'm happy, and my jobs done here.
okay.... so whatever I'm missing out in child hood, it'll be over for good in 6 days (I turn 18 😉 ). So then, everything i miss out from then will be what I miss out in "adulthood". 😀
oh yeah... those links in my previous post were stories of other "genius kids".
Here's request for all of you... especially those who think negative of persuing an educational path like it did. List all you steryotypes/beliefs/reasons why its bad for us to go to medschool young. give brutal, blunt, first impression of someone that young in medicine. (let me know it's just your impression and feeling though, or I'll attack the statement as debate 😉 ). This is just for me to understand peoples perspectives on it. (so... you know... when it comes to medschool essays/interviews i will understand peoples reactions and this is always interesting). And I take nothing personally... i've learned not to.
