<p>Thank you for your insightful post, gadad. What I find most interesting about what you said is how the arrogance and snobbery rarely survive the transition. Not a frequent visitor to Harvard myself, I’ve always assumed that Harvard is full of pretentiousness and open competitiveness.</p>
<p>@1987612345896715348967123456789678245678452768;oghawrglhj;gafnjk;</p>
<p>Can you, like, ■■■■■ somewhere else?</p>
<p>What is your guys’ take on the sense of math>liberal art education one gets from reading about Evan? I know math is good and all, and I love math myself, but, personally, I rather be ok in math and have the thinking ability you only get through liberal arts than to be extremely good in math but, when going to vote, not being able to fully interpret/understand what I’m doing. </p>
<p>Maybe I’m looking at this the wrong way but what do you think?</p>
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<p>Speaking as someone with a humanities-esque concentration, I think it is much easier for a math prodigy to know what’s going on in the news than it is for your average political science junky to do complex math. In other words, if the average American has X amount of history knowledge and Y amount of math knowledge, a recent graduate with a History degree might have 2X but a recent math graduate might have 10Y. Advanced math is further removed from the average Joe’s capacity than advanced humanities stuff is, I think…and I comfortably say that as a humanities concentrator myself. </p>
<p>That doesn’t mean that math prodigies make better potential students of history than actual students of history, but if they had to swap classes for a day I would bank on the math prodigy doing better.</p>
<p>Being from a metropolitan hyper-competitive area I wouldn’t say anyone I’ve known who’s gone to harvard was considered a local celebrity… On a different note, my Harvard interviewer said the college’s notorious competitive reputation has factual basis. She said a majority of students had little intellectual curiosity, taking classes and studying for grades to build transcripts and resumes… apparently people also steal backpacks and notebooks come exam time</p>
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<p>:o</p>
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<p>Aha! I’ve been wondering where my notebook went. Now I see what’s really been going on!</p>
<p>:rolleyes:</p>
<p>^Well said. There couldn’t have been a better way of putting this. :D</p>
<p>I agree with you 100%, Dwight, as long as we’re talking about math prodigies or people of high math skills. But the average joe concentrating in math doesn’t seem to go in depth as much as a math prodigy, which is partially why they aren’t as good in math. They remember formulas and memorize when and where to apply them but fail to truly grasp the concepts. So, while they’re memorizing and mechanically applying the formulas, they really haven’t expanded their thinking ability as much as someone studying plato-esque logic. Now, imagine if they traded places. The average math joe who hasn’t really used his brain much apart from memorizing will have more trouble grasping philosophical concepts or other liberal art ideas than would a liberal art major grasping mathematical concepts. After all, math and physics are, when looked at in depth, philosophical arguments.</p>
<p>If you don’t want to feel one-upped, this isn’t the place for you.
Short, blunt - but true.</p>
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Why don’t you ■■■■■ somewhere else?</p>
<p>You haven’t even gotten in to Harvard. Look at you. Making stupid threads implying that you already got in.
Don’t speculate anything.</p>
<p>I know that Evan is a math prodigy.
But I hate how everyone follows the mainstream.</p>
<p>Just because he is all over Youtube for Spelling Bee and as an epitome of an autistic kid does NOT mean that he is the GOD or the KING of USA IMO team.</p>
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<p>I know people from the US IMO team and the Bulgarian IMO team.
I know what I am talking about.</p>
<p>This experience causes people to grow up.</p>
<p>It’s wonderful, and it happens quickly for most of us after we get to Harvard/Yale.</p>