Welcome to the 50th Percentile

or below.

Perhaps one of the most surprising and yet most obvious things about Mudd is that there's smart students here. The obvious factor is, well, quite obvious. It's bragged about, stories are written about it, and the statistics support it. The surprising part is what students do when they get here.

They think it's gonna be like High School.

You know. The place where you're the best of the best. Maybe valedictorian, top 10, National Honors, smartest person around, impressive and gawked over by teachers by your natural insight and talent. Plus, you've probably got some other talent, such as being involved in Band like I was, or art, or a sport, or taking over the student government. You were on top of the class. Maybe a little socially ostracized, but you were excelling nonetheless.

The problem is that everyone at Mudd was the same as you. They all were near the top of their class, they took advanced courses, they have special talents, and they're also here to prove their mettle before stepping out into the real world and dazzling it with their brilliance and awesomeness.

This presents you with some interesting circumstances. Best case, you're still the brightest in the class and breeze through your homework. Lucky you. For the rest, you're not on top of the grades, you're dreaming of As while you shoot for that B and sometimes settle for the C or even the D. You're not admonished with proposals to do extra work or to be on the team for the big project. Next best case is you've still got that special talent. You wow people with your guitar skills at parties or your ability to frag anyone on the net. You dazzle the halls with art or show the competition who's boss on the court.

But then again, maybe you're not. For perhaps the first time in your life, you have to be the average person. Or, even worse, you're the baseline, the minimum passing grade, the straggler.

The question is what to do?

I've mentioned before that you don't want to become the attention seeking jerk who annoys everyone, so here's some alternatives. Be content that you're the 50th percentile of the top 10% of the nation, and perhaps even the world. Improve yourself so you still shine in the areas you want, even if you're not the best. Diversify and pick up new things that interest you. Reach out to others. Do something. Do not sulk about not being the best around.

Personally, I'm somewhere just below the 50th percentile. The thing is I've never quite been on top. I was in low end of the top 10 of my class, but couldn't move up no matter how hard I tried. I never made first chair Flute in Band. In some ways, I always knew I wasn't gonna be on the top. Coming to Mudd solidified that idea. Now I live with Cs on my report card, and I'm OK with them. I've chosen some areas and hobbies that I enjoy, and have diversified my resume. For those who know me, they know I'm quite interested in games. I enjoy games for their novelty, the competition, the balancing, the strategy, and even the critique of games. Even though I almost never top the scoreboard. Perhaps more surprising is that I didn't play many video games before arriving at Mudd. I've also worked on my musicianship. I am still a far cry from my musical peers who can tear up the room with amazing ingenuity and skill. I've decided that I won't give in to failure, and will enjoy myself and do my best while I'm at Mudd.

It all boils down to this: don't sweat it. Yes, coming to Mudd is difficult. It will most likely challenge you. People have been scared away by this. Most people will break down and cry eventually during the course of their education at Mudd. There have been stories of people who had to be forced to come back to Mudd.

However, you are also coming to one of the most accepting community imaginable. You don't have to go out of your way to prove yourself the best. Just do your best and make sure to have some fun along the way. I'm sure you can find yourself a niche if you really wanted. Even if it's just being the person who hangs around the lounge too much.

Oh, and on a brighter note, the two people that I know of who were forced back to Mudd eventually found their place and graduated from Mudd, content and glad they came back.

Don't Panic (?)

While the witty Douglas Adams placed this little gem of wisdom on his Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, we have to ask ourselves why not?

We live in a time where there’s plenty to panic about. There are global items, like global warming and theories of peak oil and that California is long overdue for a giant earthquake that will eventually split us off from the rest of North America. There’s local stuff, like the fact that both Obama and McCain don’t seem to be all we thought they were, or the state of the economy and the housing bubble bursting. Then there’s personal stuff. You’re moving up in life, getting a job, moving out of the house, heading out to college. Face it, there are plenty of good reasons for why we might go running around the neighborhood grabbing dried and canned food and buying plenty of weapons and ammo and a shortwave radio.

Of course, we haven’t yet. Most of us believe that there’s no reason to go nuts. It’s either in the future so we’ll worry about it then, or we can handle it, or there’s nothing we can even do about it. After all, giant meteors crashing into Earth is a very real threat, but the probability of it happening is close to nil and there’s not much you can do if it does come along. Same with the Sun going supernova, although they expect we’ve still got a couple million years to go, and we should have intergalactic space travel by then.

But here’s a question. Should we panic more often? Or, conversely, should we never panic at all?

In the past, there was a famous theory that the population of humans would increase exponentially, and the food supply only linearly. Basic math indicates this would have caused a giant famine, and the only way we would survive would be by portions of the population dying by war, famine, or disease. Well, we’re still around. Why? It is because we’ve been able to increase the food supply to match the needs of our exponentially growing population and not because we’ve managed to kill each other off for that little bit of food. Ah the wonders of science.

Economists have often been called the scientists of doom. Inflation will not stop, and eventually things will spiral out of control as the inflation compounds upon more inflation. That is, at least according to classic economic thought. Mind you that’s a huge oversimplification, but we’re still alive. Sure the inflation rate is high, the dollar is getting weaker, and oil prices are higher than we’d like, but there hasn’t been a giant communist revolution nor have there been huge upheavals of the economic system. Well, unless you count those couple of stock market crashes.

One might argue that the only thing that fuels science, or any advancement in general, is fear, and to an extent a bit of panic. Or, to borrow another saying, necessity is the mother of invention. If there is a need, and someone cares enough, it can probably be fixed. Except if the need is faster than light travel (or some FTL drive) without the folding of the space time continuum. We’re pretty sure that’s impossible. Thus, it is sometimes a good idea, and even healthy to panic just a bit.

Let me give a more practical example. There’s a saying around Mudd that you should take your high school GPA, subtract 2 points, and then you have your new Harvey Mudd GPA. Probably you’re panicking about getting a 2.2 GPA average and how horrible that will look to the scholarships and graduate schools. So, what should you do? If you allow yourself to panic just a bit, perhaps you’ll work harder and exceed that prediction and maintain a 3.5 GPA instead.

On the flip side, there’s stuff you shouldn’t panic about. Meteors are a prime example. Even the Harvey Mudd GPA curse isn’t that big of a deal. After all, the average GPA is closer to about 3.2 at Mudd, and graduate schools are glad for Mudd not having grade inflation. It makes those grades have weight and they can understand much better your abilities just from a look at your GPA. They also understand that there have been less than 10 students who have graduated with a 4.0 in the history of Harvey Mudd College.

So, what am I getting at? Fundamentally, a little bit of panic and worry is healthy. It keeps you going and helps put stuff in perspective. There are things you should panic about, like the energy concerns or nuclear war or your checking balance. Then there’s stuff you can loosen up a little bit once you know all the facts. Trust me. Those headlines on the newspaper are just to sell pages. If you actually read the whole article, thing’s aren’t quite as bad as you may be led to believe. Especially with some of those more slanted papers. But I digress.

In closing, be afraid. Be very, very afraid.

In moderation.

Your View, My View: a Survival Guide

I mentioned that I'm a Christian in my little intro. Just want to preface this by saying I don't speak for Christians, I wouldn't call myself a model Christian (then again, by definition a Christian should be someone who realizes they're flawed, but I'm getting off on a tangent there), and etc. all that legal stuff that gets me off the hook should I say something stupid.

Anyways, the main thing to note is 1) there are other Christians on campus and 2) there are people who are NOT Christian.

The first point in pretty obvious, as should the second.

The key is understanding what this means.

You'll recall in a previous post I talked about how small and tight knit the Mudd community can be. Everyone more or less can know everyone, or at the very least have heard about them or passed them on their way to class. I also talked about how you can't hide.

So, people have different views on life. For example, I'm not a fan of alcohol, whether it be underage or legal. If I was a jerk, this could lead to me shunning those who do drink, me ranting loudly about how alcohol is a social evil, and basically be a jackass. After all, there are those who do think alcohol is OK. Heck, there are those who think getting yourself drunk is a good stress reliever, albeit can cause hangovers. Never got why they still like it, even those who regularly get hangovers, but then again I don't drink.

So, I recognize others are different than me. Now, once you make this realization (if you haven't already) you need to choose what you do about this.

Mudd is a very small community, so being a jerk is not a good idea. In fact, it's a very good idea if you want to get shunned by everyone. Instead, usually people either agree to disagree or you accept the person and shun the crime (or habit, or sin, or whatever). So, bottom line, don't be a jerk. I guess this applies to lots of other things as well, but here it applies very rigorously.

Now that we've established what not to do, i.e. go around acting superior, let's look at some more reasonable courses of action.

I would personally recommend being a good friend. This entails accepting people of different views. I'm using the word accepting in a manner that does not force you to embrace or promote their views, just accept the person. After all, even with different views on certain topics, there's plenty of other topics that you should be able to find common ground. Like how expensive war can be. So, be a good friend, and make your view a positive influence in yourself and others. No body likes a jerk, but sometimes if people see something they like about you, they just might change over to your perspective. Plus, it's always good to have friends you can mess around with. Now, this doesn't mean you have to be the most outgoing get all the attention person, just be considerate and even being available to talk to can make a big difference.

Of course, with differing views inevitably comes discussion. Since there are many very intellectual people here, we often get into discussions about our different views. And this isn't random tossing around ideas, often people cite studies, personal experience, philosophical rants, etc. And it's not just about drinking, but also on the Problem of Evil, where a particular phrase came from, and of course politics and religion. So, if you have a certain view, there is a chance it will come into question. The key is that people here tend to argue on a very logical system. Leave a hole, and people will tend to find it. So, feel free to believe whatever you want, but the moment you step into a discussion, you'd better be prepared to defend yourself.

This, unfortunately, can lead to a problem. Since it's a small community, it can actually become a very strong priority to be accepted by others. This might mean hiding or burying your personal views in fear of them being picked apart by the heavyweight argument lawyers. Also, your view might be perfectly valid, but if you don't support your view, it can be extremely disheartening.

Trust me, I know. I've taken the minority side on a couple of issues. This tends to lead to me arguing against several others, each with their own wit and skill. On some topics we find mutual ground and agree to disagree, others seem to be extremely one-sided, and while losing an argument doesn't seem that big, it can be. Now only am I disheartened about what I used to believe was right (or maybe even still believe) but it sometimes feels like I've lost credibility. There goes that moron who took the losing side. I mean, it was obvious since we have twenty different statistics and studies to back up our side, and he tried to pull some random babble and maybe a rumor or two.

This is perhaps a very negative aspect of the small community. People feeling the need to hide their views because of fear they won't be accepted. However, as much as I personally feel defeated, I still have great relationships even with those I argue quite a bit. You see, the Mudd community is usually pretty good about accepting people, as crazy as we all might be. Sure there's been a few bruises, but overall I'd say the discussions have been positive. If anything, they've helped clarify my ideas, and actually fix some really bad old presumptions I'd had. Also, I've let other people know what I think, and maybe some people have even converted to some of my ideas. At the very least I've shown those with similar views that they're not alone. And finally, it can be a battleground where you can gain respect as someone who's thoroughly thought over their opinions and can acknowledge other people's views without putting them down.

So, what's the point in all of this. First, remember that there are those who see life differently than you. Second, I'd recommend not being a jerk about your beliefs. In fact, be as awesome and fun to be with person as possible. And lastly, be prepared to defend your ideas, because inevitably someone will question them.

And that's my little survival guide on how to deal with differing views at Mudd. Feel free to flame now.