<p>I don’t really think being a woman really helps that much getting into college.</p>
<p>@TeamRocketGrunt Ha ovarian advantage? Never heard that one before. I’ll have to start using it 
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<p>@hailbo Yeah, not at all with college, but I think it helps with some of the more selective exclusively STEM summer programs (RSI, etc) as there are usually a dearth of female applicants.</p>
<p>I think in STEM being a woman would help in applications but girls today are doing better than boys overall not by that much though.</p>
<p>Hello! Saw this thread and wanted to participate!!</p>
<p>@hailbo being a woman does help in STEM</p>
<p>@halibo</p>
<p>An MIT STEM summer program designed specifically for women to try and combat what is perceived to be a dearth of women in STEM related fields (WTP) disagrees with you.</p>
<p>@Cloudchamber
I dunno if I’m the first one to use it or not, but I liked the sound of it, so I use it regularly now (when I talk about stuff that pertains to it). </p>
<p>Yeah a lot of people want more women to get into STEM fields but it doesn’t really give them a huge advantage going into college.</p>
<p>@halibo
Same logic applies to females who want to major in STEM. </p>
<p>I’m curious–what are your (everyone here) political views? If I had to categorize myself, I’d say I’m a fiscal conservative and a social moderate. I’ve had people say my views are libertarian like, but I’m an atheist, and to me it seems that libertarians generally tend to be religious Christians. </p>
<p>I’m socially liberal, then my fiscal views are usually conservative but then sometimes I really think socialist views are good as well. I think government restriction is a reason things are way to expensive now a days but then there’s a lot of government programs that help people like me such as Upward Bound, State funded colleges, and good government things like NASA and transportation. I really like Dwight D. Eisenhower’s policies.</p>
<p>I guess I would be liberal. I am all for government programs (except welfare, to an extent though. I believe we should have it but I don’t believe people should use it to get out of the workforce completely because they’re lazy). I’m pro-choice, but also pro-death penalty (serial killers won’t be missed. the system may be flawed, but it’s given all of us a sigh of relief to know that some bad people won’t be there anymore). Religiously I’m deist. I believe in God, but I don’t believe in organized religion, I think all problems start with that.</p>
<p>Just wanted to join the conversation. AA Female planning to major in STEM! lol
Pertaining to the previous conversation, Yes I do know that “minority exclusive” programs do keep out others like middle and lower income whites and asians. I honestly don’t know how that can be resolved. As we all know whites and asians are over represented in all of the top colleges in the US while minorities are…well minorities. </p>
<p>College and enrichment program admissions are unpredictable and unfair. I’m not even banking on my status so much to get me into college. I can only have HOPE, as everybody on this thread does. All any of us can do is be the best we can be despite the disadvantages we have–because we can’t BE anything else. </p>
<p>Ahhh Words of Wisdom (i think)</p>
<p>P.s. Hope I didn’t offend anybody on here. Not my intention. </p>
<p>@TeamRocketGrunt How about radical centrism? </p>
<p>@m4xw3ll dude I have the same views as you really, especially on religion</p>
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<p>I agree with this except for the welfare part. It’s harder to get than [you’d</a> think.](<a href=“http://www.medicaid.gov/Medicaid-CHIP-Program-Information/By-Topics/Eligibility/Eligibility.html]you’d”>http://www.medicaid.gov/Medicaid-CHIP-Program-Information/By-Topics/Eligibility/Eligibility.html) In addition, for renewal, you need to show proof of looking for a job. </p>
<p>Anarcho-communist. Perhaps that’s simply an inevitability of my quixotic, angsty teen phase, but I certainly believe in the malleability of human nature, and the structural inefficacy of capitalism, so it seems like a logical ideology to espouse. Anyone who wants an introduction to the philosophy (and is willing to look beyond the somewhat morbid connotations of its constituent words) should peruse Kropotkin’s The Conquest of Bread or Fields, Factories and Workshops. Goldman’s works would also provide a good intellectual foundation. </p>
<p>Religiously, my feelings are more complicated, more visceral and less easily articulated. If I had to pick an established framework that my beliefs comply to, I guess I’d say “atheistic existentialism” or something similar. But I certainly don’t see god in the traditional, personified sense: more as a pervasive, experiential concept. That is, a supremeness OF being rather than a “supreme being.” </p>
<p>@TeamRocketGrunt Warren Buffet talked about the “Ovarian Lottery.” </p>
<p>A liberal with varying ideas over here. I think many of my ideas are from New Zealand and Australia, though, not that their government is working out so much better.</p>
<p>@PoisonIvy20 I would agree. I also think there’s an element of systemic disenfranchisement and dehumanization (inexorably linked to our country’s violent, genocidal history) that has thwarted racial URMs across all frontiers- academic, economic, representational, personal etc- for centuries. In my opinion, this is something underprivileged whites do not face. </p>
<p>@Woandering True, but if I remember correctly, he discussed it in a completely opposite context: the “ovarian lottery” an illustration of all the seemingly arbitrary traits assigned at birth that determine success and power in an irreparably prejudiced world. That is, a rich, white, able-bodied male (someone like Buffet himself) would have won the “ovarian lottery.”</p>
<p>And since I have time, I might as reply to one other thing: </p>
<p>@m4xw3ll pro-death penalty huh? Let’s not forget that killing individuals will do nothing to remedy the profound societal causes of violence (lack of medical care for the mentally ill, poverty, wide-spread inequality etc). “Evil” is an erroneous and antiquated construct, my friend, and certainly not an inherence. We should be questioning why people commit these heinous crimes, and addressing that, even if it’s less emotionally expedient or imminently morally satisfying than the alternative. </p>
<p>Case in point: ever notice how states without the death penalty have lower rates of violent crime?
Check it out for yourself: <a href=“ABSENCE OF EXECUTIONS: A special report.; States With No Death Penalty Share Lower Homicide Rates - The New York Times”>http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/22/us/absence-executions-special-report-states-with-no-death-penalty-share-lower.html</a>. There are more stats easily available through google proving capital punishment’s utter worthlessness (and chronic myopia) as a form of deterrence. </p>
<p>@Cloudchamber True, Buffet discussed it in that context. However, I don’t see how it can’t easily represent today’s college application situation. The minority (in the college process) has the same advantage the rich white male did in Buffet’s prime. The Ovarian Lottery simply means the advantage of being born some way, such as the white male in a developed society a hundred years ago, or the minority and female in today’s college-obsessed society. </p>
<p>Also, while I completely agree with your reasoning and argument against the death penalty, do we really need to bring these debates here? Continue a friendly debate, but please let neither side become insulting. </p>
<p>@Woandering Ah, true. I can see the contemporary adaption and connection. Just figured I’d point out the original intention of the term for precision and discussion’s sake </p>
<p>As for the death penalty thing, I apologize if my tone sounded hostile or condescending. I can see why you would interpret it that way, but that was honestly just my (apparently rather abysmal) effort to be more colloquial and less formal. Ultimately, I was simply trying to initiate some good old fashioned intellectual discourse and offer a different (empirically-supported) perspective on the very complex issue of capital punishment. No personal attacks intended. </p>