[kenberg]

http://www.washingto...ff6a_story.html


Becky got a kick out of the predictable claim that "Even with her lofty accomplishments, Pooja is like most other teens". It actually is not necessary to be like most other teens to have a good life, but journalists seem to feel the need to assure us of this when they write about the exceptional young person.

[barmar]

kenberg, on 2015-April-13, 07:36, said:

It actually is not necessary to be like most other teens to have a good life, but journalists seem to feel the need to assure us of this when they write about the exceptional young person.

It may not be necessary for a good life, but the natural assumption that a reader is likely to make is that someone like this is a nerd who spends all their time working and studying, and is socially awkward. So it needs to be said to counter the stereotype and describe her fully.

[y66]

Wow! That's an incredible story. For me, not so much the Ivy League admissions part, which is impressive, or that Ms. C is "like most other teens" (ha), but that she appears to be firing on all cylinders on a path that she loves and has, at age 17, created a network of friends and colleagues that looks like it could solve global warming and have fun doing it.

[kenberg]

y66, on 2015-April-13, 09:24, said:

Wow! That's an incredible story. For me, not so much the Ivy League admissions part, which is impressive, or that Ms. C is "like most other teens" (ha), but that she appears to be firing on all cylinders on a path that she loves and has, at age 17, created a network of friends and colleagues that looks like it could solve global warming and have fun doing it.

You bet! I agree entirely.

I don't at all regret the way I lived out my adolescent years (stupid choices and all) but there are times that I just look in wonder at what some others have done.

[mgoetze]

barmar, on 2015-April-13, 08:54, said:

So it needs to be said to counter the stereotype and describe her fully.

It's so cliché that it's not descriptive at all.

[manudude03]

I guess there is an assumption that parents of child prodigies spend a lot of time and money training their child to the point that it gets in the way of the child living an otherwise normal life.

As a bridge player, I had a slight chuckle at the author being called T. Rees(e) Shapiro.

[kenberg]

manudude03, on 2015-April-13, 15:48, said:

As a bridge player, I had a slight chuckle at the author being called T. Rees(e) Shapiro.

i missed that!

[kenberg]

manudude03, on 2015-April-13, 15:48, said:

I guess there is an assumption that parents of child prodigies spend a lot of time and money training their child to the point that it gets in the way of the child living an otherwise normal life.

I joined the faculty at the University of Maryland just barely too late to meet Charlie Fefferman but a friend described the experience as follows: First you think that he cannot possibly be as good as they say he is. Then you find out that he is. Then you think that he probably spends all of his time with mathematics and doesn't know anything about anything else. Then you find that he knows a lot about a lot of things., Then you think well he is probably an arrogant jerk. Then you get to know hi and find out that he is a great guy. Then you give up.

Some people are just smarter than the rest of us, no need to fight it. A colleague who had him in an advanced class loved to tell about the time another student came up after class and said "That little kid who sits in the front row. Am I supposed to understand the questions he asks?"

In a world of so much trouble and dismay, it is a joy to see such things come flashing by.

[akwoo]

kenberg, on 2015-April-13, 18:55, said:

A colleague who had him in an advanced class loved to tell about the time another student came up after class and said "That little kid who sits in the front row. Am I supposed to understand the questions he asks?"

I suppose the response was along the lines of "I wish I was smart enough to understand all the questions he asks."?

[kenberg]

akwoo, on 2015-April-14, 15:17, said:

I suppose the response was along the lines of "I wish I was smart enough to understand all the questions he asks."?

He never said, but yes, that would probably be about it for me anyway.

[barmar]

mgoetze, on 2015-April-13, 13:56, said:

It's so cliché that it's not descriptive at all.

The descriptive part is what follows, which describes some of her "normal" attributes.

Statements like this might be unnecessary if the "unsocial geek" were an unfounded stereotype. But we really do exist. The characters on "The Big Bang Theory" might be exaggerations, but not more so than many other sitcom characters.

[mycroft]

That was my reaction to meeting Ian Goldberg and Nikita Borisov. "Now, I know what brilliant looks like. I'm pretty smart." *And* [edit: they were] social, *and* multi-lingual, *and* able to take down US government regulations in a single bound, *and*...

[kenberg]

barmar, on 2015-April-15, 10:51, said:

The descriptive part is what follows, which describes some of her "normal" attributes.

Statements like this might be unnecessary if the "unsocial geek" were an unfounded stereotype. But we really do exist. The characters on "The Big Bang Theory" might be exaggerations, but not more so than many other sitcom characters.

Yes, but she watches Shark Tank so she is normal? If I hear that she is normal I think "Oh, so she came home at 2 in the morning and forgot to phone her parents to let them know where she was and whom she was with?" Watching Shark tank strikes me as what some forty year old reporter thinks all the cool kids are doing.

I was not normal, and really I hope I still am not (although I hope that I have matured at least a little). She sounds like a fascinating person, to hell with normal.

[barmar]

kenberg, on 2015-April-15, 17:03, said:

Yes, but she watches Shark Tank so she is normal? If I hear that she is normal I think "Oh, so she came home at 2 in the morning and forgot to phone her parents to let them know where she was and whom she was with?" Watching Shark tank strikes me as what some forty year old reporter thinks all the cool kids are doing.

"Normal" in that she watches mindless TV like most other kids. The specific show is not as important as the fact that it's not a genre associated with geeks.

[blackshoe]

Isn't "mindless TV" pretty much redundant?

[kenberg]

barmar, on 2015-April-17, 09:07, said:

"Normal" in that she watches mindless TV like most other kids.

Like most other humans, I suppose.

It's a longtime quirk with me that I react badly to being called normal, no matter how well intended the comment.
As an adolescent, at the end of a school year I reported my algebra book as lost. We had not covered everything in it in class and I wanted to finish it on my own over the summer. Surely this mad me weird in many eyes. So what.

You never know how someone will react to what is intended as praise. When I was 12 I got very tired of hearing my mother brag to the neighbors about my grades in school so I set out to deliberately get bad grades. I was quite successful at this, almost too successful.

The young woman seems comfortable in herself, much more so than I was. That's the message I like to hear. Probably we agree on that.