<p>^ yikes. That isn’t good lol.</p>
<p>@ tsubomi and databox, and anyone else who wants to answer, how do you guys go about finding a research topic that you guys were interested in?</p>
<p>@motivated_101: it’s definitely really important to find a topic you’ll stick with. I would do some reading in magazines such as Popular Science or others to see what sort of broad area you’re interested in (ex. more into math or life science or physics or chemistry or something applied). A lot of times the authors have email addresses also. I asked a lot of professors at Columbia just to arrange to talk with me for a while about their research, and I found that a lot of them were really passionate about their work and totally willing to sit down with a high school student to discuss their research, even Nobel Prize winners and senior professors. This really opened my eyes to different fields and helped me identify what areas I found most interesting. I would recommend emailing some professors from nearby colleges. </p>
<p>That was just my experience, so if anyone has any other advice or different experiences, it would interesting to hear it :]</p>
<p>I normally come across research projects by thinking very deeply of simple things, normally stemming from some variant of “what if…?” and work on all of my research independently, without assistance from mentors.</p>
<p>Is anyone else in the class of '11 just sick of all the competition and pressure and want to go live in an isolated igloo in Siberia? I go to a highly competitive school where everyone’s goal is to get into Harvard, probably like many of you on here. So many people have to get straight A’s (by cheating, of course) and so many of them are lying resume padders. I have to admit that even I am guilty of the latter, but just recently I’ve gotten sick of resume padding because it makes so many people so fake. It’s phenomenally disheartening how people just do things like NHS to resume pad and don’t care about helping their communities at all, it’s just sickening to think how selfish some people are, that they wouldn’t give a crap about doing anything in their communities if it weren’t for colleges. I know this is all pretty obvious but I personally have never realized the scale of it until now. Will our generation only be motivated to do things throughout life just for the purpose of putting it down on our resume or showing off? Because I feel that’s what how we’re being raised and being influenced to think. Also, it’s just sick how so many of us don’t view cheating and lying as being unethical and think they are perfectly reasonable means to getting places in life. The competition is really getting to me and it is such an ugly thing. </p>
<p>I am often plagued with the inner conflict of feeling like a failure in comparison to others in my grade. If sophomore year is this bad, I shudder even thinking just how hellish junior year will be.</p>
<p>^ Word.</p>
<p>My friend practically threw a b*tch fit, in the middle of a very fun convention, when she thought she’d missed the NHS application deadline. That was some serious lulz, but I tried to be supportive. ;]</p>
<p>I’m sick of people at school being nosy about my grades, the classes I’m taking next year (pretty normal for CC, but insane at my school), &c. There’s always that one kid, you know?—who wants to know what you got on every single paper/assignment/test. It’s pathetic, especially considering how arbitrary grades are.</p>
<p>The only person I like competing with is myself. Epic winz every time. :]</p>
<p>(Ahh, Siberia sounds ridiculously appealing at the moment…)</p>
<p>^^ Can’t say I’ve experienced that, excluding CC, which makes everybody feel like a failure. At my school, it’s slightly competitive (in comparison to CC) among the top 10, but for the rest of the school, a 1900 SAT is a godly score and a 3.8 W GPA is also godly. 52% of my high school goes to community college…</p>
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<p>@rachael525:</p>
<p>Yeah, I totally know what you mean about grades and the classes next year thing. An everyone wants to know what everyone’s taking next year, and there are even situations such as people taking 5 APs insulting the people taking 4 APs. Since freshman year, my goal has been to get into an Ivy League. I’ve resume padded enough to this point, and it’s been MISERABLE, I tell you, putting myself under so much pressure so I can write an extra few lines on my resume. </p>
<p>But from now on I’m seriously just going to do whatever extracurricular activities I find worthwhile and NOT to look good on paper. This is a big thing coming from ME because I have been a huge resume padder and it’s just made me feel like a horrible person, like a filthy lying loser. If some resume padder from my school gets into Harvard, good for them, it’ll be nice for them realizing for the rest of their life that they wasted their time enduring such stress and misery by devoting so much time to things they don’t even care about to get into a school for its name. (I’m in no way saying that everyone who gets into Harvard is a resume padder) But some day I’ll find a college that appreciates me. :]</p>
<p>^ Exactly what my thoughts were.I’m also sick of resume padding(even though I hate to admit that I do).</p>
<p>Yeah, my grade is very competitive as well. But no where near as competitive as CC. They also are extremely jealous. For example, in the summer before freshman year, i took this math class over the summer to truly pursue math, because i really like it and I wasn’t being challenged in my math class. So I tried to keep it low key and not tell anyone, even my friends. But some how the rumor spread that I was taking a sophmore honors math class as a freshman and everyone got jealous. </p>
<p>And now days, they ask me questions like so, if you took algebra II freshman year, precalc sophmore year, and are taking calc next year. They always ask me, what are you going to do senior year.
And honestly i feel like telling them its none of your business. AUGH that really bugs me.</p>
<p>I’ve never resume padded so I’m not extremely active but not a fake either. Hopefully I won’t be beat out by frauds. =P</p>
<p>My high school isn’t uber-competitive, but I hate how society sort of pits us all against each other and demands that we all resume-pad to be successful.</p>
<p>UGH my HS is sooooo competitive I had a 3.96 after freshman year and (honest to god) wasn’t in the top 10%. We are dropping class rank though so that is good. We have block scheduling so it is normal for kids to take Alg. II and Pre-Calc fresh. year and take AP Calc AB and BC soph year then Clac 3 (which is offered at my high school) junior year and then take math at UMN senior year or just not take it at all and just take more APs and stuff. It is a public high school.</p>
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<p>… ***, I never in my life anywhere heard of an Cal AB + BC combined course…</p>
<p>And there isn’t a Cal 3… it’s Graph Theory after that or Gifted Math Seminar… </p>
<p>What kind of public high school do you go to…? lol</p>
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<p>I’m pretty sure EVHS is a lot more competitve than EP. But I’m pretty sure that during freshman year, a 3.96 would guarantee you a spot in at least the top 5%.</p>
<p>I have the most rigorous courseload available to a sophomore and a 3.92 unweighted GPA, and I don’t think I’m even in the top 15% of my grade.</p>
<p>IB Math HL is Calc AB + BC combined…</p>
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<p>So is Calc BC.</p>
<p>It’s multivarible calc which they just call Calc 3. And I am telling the truth I was in the 11th percentile with a 3.96 after freshman year. And jazrie if you are talking about Eastview you are dead wrong. We have had the most National Merit Scholars in the state for many years in a row. And DoWorkSon, at our school AB is a prerequisite for BC. You take AB first semester and BC second, but we only have 4 classes a day so one semester is like a full year’s worth of material.</p>
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<p>There is a Calc III and I took a combined AB+BC course online this year.</p>
<p>Anyway, my crazy school has made me redo my schedule and I get lowest priority at the college, so none of my college courses are guaranteed.</p>
<p>So my schedule has been changed to:</p>
<p>Biology Honors
CHM 151: General Chemistry I
CHM 152: General Chemistry II
Civics and Economics Honors
Earth/Environmental Science Honors
English III Honors
ENG 111: Expository Writing
ENG 113: Literature-based Research
MAT 272: Calculus II
PHI 240: Introduction to Ethics
Physics Honors (for the lulz)
POL 120: American Government</p>
<p>They took away meh AP Micro and marcoeconomics. :(</p>
<p>^^ But lol, EV hs plenty of national merit scholars as well(and plus, EP is like humongous). And I think we’re ranked like #1 in the state, plus we made it on newsweek’s and USNWR’s best high schools list.EP is really good too but I have no clue why you guys didn’t make the cut. At my school after Calc AB/BC Multi Variable is next in the sequence.</p>