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    • Posts Tagged ‘Goal’

    New Goal


    2010 - 01.24

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    Posted in Industry | Comments Off

    I have thought a lot over break about what I will be doing the coming year. While I have planned my life to be attending graduate school immediately after I graduate, I do not think this is the best choice for me anymore.

    I know I’d get into most schools. But, I don’t know that I would be happy in them. I can only point out something obvious before I just give up. (How many times have I heard people brag about the accessibility of virtual worlds? I guess only wheelchair users are disabled.)

    Getting into a school of choice doesn’t mean it’s where one belongs. Before entering computer science, I had been accepted into a top advertising department. While I liked my courses and profs, I didn’t belong there. Many of my peers did not relate to me. I don’t know if the stark contrast between my peers and my profs was from a maturity gap or what. Either way, it didn’t make me happy.

    … I have gotten disgusted by academia’s insistence that I prove I’m worthy of something without doing the same for me. They brag about papers and research, but never say what I get in return for joining them. Big deal if I get my name on publications; this assumes I don’t earn it. I get a degree that I earned. Yet, the university gets cheap research and teaching labor. While there is the employer-employee format, there is a lack of the cross-interview portion.

    In industry, I don’t know whether I will be happy either. Being a code monkey is a frightening prospect. But,I don’t want to believe that a company wouldn’t want to fully utilize it’s workforce. Would be a rather ignorant and inefficient format.

    Meeting Dr. Duck & More Ableism


    2009 - 12.18

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    Posted in Disability, Goal, Graduate school, Research | Comments Off

    Dr. Duck has done wonderful work towards outreach and encouraging children to pursue science and math. His name is on several papers that I have come to love, rereading as if they were a beloved novel.

    I wanted to work with him.

    Up until I met him.

    Oh, and did meeting him hurt. My chest, two days later, still feels heartbroken. And I’m so tired of crying.

    I spent my time with him having tears welling up in to my eyes. My anxiety echoing through my head, telling me that I wasn’t safe here and I needed to leave. I cried most of the hour drive home. I didn’t realize why I was so upset beyond that he caused it. I was so happy about meeting him, and now…

    Turns out the person I admired counted disabled people as “other.” He repeatedly told me that his lab does education, not disability. These two  things are mutually exclusive in his mind. I guess disabled children aren’t worth educating; it isn’t an unheard of belief. But, to hear this from someone I admire, someone whose fucking research is education…? I was godsmacked. All the data and stories indicating that society has enforced the failure of persons with disability, the number of children that are disabled, the National Science Foundation (which doled out a lot of grant money to this guy) pushing that people with disabilities are needed to attain diversity in the sciences, none of these things occurred to him.

    When asked about my grades, I mentioned that I got two Cs in Calculus. And I briefly stated that my unaccommodated attention deficit was one of the reasons. “Yes, but what about your grades now?” I know that tone. I’ve heard it before. Directed at my brother who is on the more severe side of ADHD. That’s the tone of a pseudoskeptic. Someone that feels ADHD isn’t really a disability. Obviously, I just didn’t do well in Calculus and am making excuses. (We’ll just ignore the As on my assignments and the confused TAs.)

    I’m still upset now. But, I’m comforting myself best I can that I could have had him actually had him as an advisor; that would be infinitely worse.

    Unusual job suggestion


    2009 - 11.04

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    Posted in Work | Comments Off

    My official title is Assistant to the Director of Mentoring and Retention. My work has varied from cleaning to keeping the Director sane to web site design to an in-class teaching assistant to mentoring to running a student group to grading. So far I haven’t had a significant amount of say in what work I will be doing.

    This semester has been hell though with grading. I am grading, by hand, the quality of the code submitted (the equivalent of a grammar check on an essay) for the second semester programming course. This latest assignment is taking 20-30 minutes to grade each student and with 66 submissions I can feel my brain melt.

    Because I’m having to use more mental and time resources than the Director expected when she signed me over to another prof, she has asked me what work I want to do my final semester. And the idea that I have in mind is very unusual.

    We have 200 and 400-level independent study credits. For several years, excluding last year, there has been a group independent study in the spring with students from both the 200 and 400 level. This is led by the Director and usually another faculty member with approximately 10 students. The purpose being to do undergraduate research as a group or groups and practice presenting findings in the spring poster session.

    I have asked to be the teacher for this course next semester.

    I know that at some point of my academic career I will be a lab/recitation teaching assistant. Between my social anxiety and attention deficit, I can honestly say that teaching will be difficult for me. So, I want practice first.  The group study seems like a good place to get my feet wet.

    1. No preset agenda.While I enjoy structure when learning, it will take some coaxing to keep me from going on a tangent.
    2. Minimal grading compared to normal TA work.
    3. Encouraging creativity and critical thinking. I’m passionate about learning; creative and critical thinking are fantastic skills for others to develop.
    4. Writing reports and researching literature are two of my strongest skills which I can teach to others.
    5. Small group size. Less people means less anxiety.

    The Director approves of this suggestion. Now, we just need to know whose approval we need for me to do something that’s never been done before by a graduate student, let alone an undergrad.

      Trying to Make a Happy Place


      2009 - 09.24

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      Posted in Goal, Miscellaneous, Personal | Comments Off

      I’m a chronically unhappy person to the point of being somewhat cheery about it. And, to some degree, I think that’s because the little spark of optimism that I have keeps hoping for the world to get better.

      It’s a very silly thing when I describe what I want to do for the rest of my life: I want to make toys that help people. But I really want to create devices that are entertaining to use while serving a practical benefit. I firmly believe that designs work best if the widest range of backgrounds and implementations are considered. And I mean wide:

      • economic backgrounds
      • cultural heritages
      • education level
      • experience
      • age
      • gender
      • disability
      • ethnicity

      And I do care about practicality. I want to create things with some purpose so that they have a use beyond temporary amusement.

      I’m going to change the world. And I’m going to make sure that others have just as much fun while I’m doing it.