Life in US --- a series of sketches

Yes, please do!

Two Versions, Part II

Although the U.S. education seems much "opener" than that of China, this openness, in my own opinion is eroding itself.

I will not give much reasoning about my judgement. I will only tell you two examples I have observed.

On the official website of the Bowdoin College, there is a table of statistics on almost a decade's enrolled students' average SAT scores. The trend is obvious. In years, the average score has been constantly rising, and has added more than 200 points to itself ever since the first year of the count. What's this supposed to mean? Does it mean the students of ten years ago were academically less adequate than those of today? And if not (which is obvious), what does test score represent then? Is the test really that useful as it is presumed to be? Whatever the answers, one thing is certain. There must be tremendous amount of time and energy spent to make up this 200 points. On the other hand, students 10 years ago did not need to spend their time and energy on this, and may excel as well.


In an admission info session in our summer program, one of my programmates asked the admission officer (AO) a question. He asked about the importance of SAT test in the admission's decision-making. He asked very earnestly. Well, the AO explained to him that there is a list requirements. Although SAT is one of them, it is really at the bottom. Oh yeah, Oh yeah, Thank you. Then the same guy raised another question, this time on the importance of Advanced Placement (AP) test. He asked very earnestly and even ostentatiously, as if he thinks he alone takes the AP courses ,and as if he alone doesn't have a grasp how test scores really work in admission.

This guy, is the same guy who looks lifeless every day, who makes a girfriend in the second or the first week of our program, who is frequently heard to be talking of AP this, AP that, and who, when writing a biology research paper, sleepily admitted that he actually didn't know what he was doing about.

I don't know how he managed to get into the program. I don't know whether it is because of a slip of the AO office, or just a sympton of a much wider phenomenon.

If this phenomenon is really there, I don't think it was the same some decades ago in U.S.

Oh sorry George and Ash...I didn't see your posts until I went back...I didn't take much care of photographing... huh...

I will surely start a China thread again in the future.

At one time, he did post pictures of his home village. I recall them being well received.

J-B, as I recall, there has been a recent change in the SAT tests. By recent, I mean perhaps three or four or even five years ago. Time flies when you get older. My point is that scoring has changed, in terms of the possible numbers you can accrue.

In a similar change, when I was in school, a 4.0 grade average was the highest you could get, but now there are additional points available from certain course choices. I'm not in the academic world so I can't explain that any further, but I suspect that is due to Honor's Courses.

Always great to catch up on J-B's diaries.

Yes, I was probably one who commented on appreciating the photos; they were interesting to see.

I realize that I might have made some slips. I admit I count more on my feeling than on my reason. After all, it's not a serious research paper.

I bet I have seen many things to support my conclusion. But they may be just too subtle to describe....

Two Versions, Part III (unfinished)

I guess, an open, democratic education system has more things in common with a new-born nation. Because it is newly born, it needs new things, new ideas, new talents to help it grow from nothing to something, from something to more things. Whereas, in an aging, devitalizing society which is more and more encumbered with social conventions, we tend to have a "closed" system.

Now I am going to make two bold guesses. First, I presume that a nation's education can more or less reflect the general state of being of said nation. The second guess is even bolder ---- considering how I leap prematurely to the conclusion ---- the U.S. is aging. More precisely, she is diverting slightly from her original cause, which is closely associated with individual freedom and consequent vitality of the society.

Indeed, I not only feel it from American education, but from phenomena in all ways: Politics, election, diplomacy, economy, culture, violence, military, etc. etc. This is easy to understand. After the age of boisterous life and strife, boundaries of interests settle down. The society makes low-status members' "American dream" harder and harder to achieve. While the big families, big powers used their established privileges to ensure that such privileges are well-guarded. At some point, I guess, stratification will prevail over individual's potential for achievement. And then there will be a new face of the society.

Again, all my conclusions and ideas are mainly based on my own "feelings" and guesses. They can't be taken too serious (Although they must have certain degree of truth). Moreover, I am merely a silent observer in all these thinking. I am not representing any school of thoughts or any side of nationality.

One last word: Despite what I have said, American society's degree of freedom for individual development (including her "openness" in education), are still far more noticeable than those of China.

A photo of uchicao campus featuring Kurt Vonnegut

Being with others

I failed to successfully socialize this time. That does not mean I was excluded from people. It's just that I haven't experienced that American-type socialization. I seldom go to bars, cafes or to the downtown with a bunch of people. Around the dining table I was usually a passive listener. After 1 month of the program, I still haven't known more than 10 names.

This certainly had its advantages. Because I mostly kept to myself, I had ample time to feel the real sense of academia. I was the frequent visitor to bookstores, libraries and museums. During the evenings I inhabited in the Joseph Regenstein Library so late that I might stay over night, if there was no time restraint. During the summer I read a number of books which I had long wanted to read, yet not permitted by time. Hence, my program result was not surprising. A- for Critical Perspective, a literature class; A for Contemporary Human Rights. I don't think it's easy for a purely foreign student (By saying this I refer to those who are born and complete brought up in an country foreign to the U.S. In fact, I am the only such kind of student among all in the program.)

The chief reason that I always remained passive on the dining table was that, I sometimes missed what they were talking of. This is understandable. Since we are raised in different cultural context, they have many stories, slang, TV programs, celebrities, sports etc. that I haven't learned of. My trouble was, I didn't want to learn. Though I didn't understand them completely, I could roughly feel what they were talking of were only gossips and other trivial things. What they discussed and even debated over were only insubstantial issues. Those are things which I didn't wish to drag the unwilling self into.

But this kind of haughtiness must pay a price, especially in the long run. People may be always kind to me. But they may only be kind. If I don't integrate well, people may just habitually forget to add me up into activities as well as opportunities. I am not a bookworm kind of person. I need social interaction. I need real life. I was bookwormish this time only because this was the first time for me to expose myself to a rigorous academic life, and I wanted to taste well what kind of life it was.

However, these thoughts may serve as a good lesson when I really study in the States someday. I have to integrate as soon as possible if I ever have at least 4 years ahead of me. To integrate is easy. It's just a matter of will to show, or even pretend a strong curiosity of the daily life around. It's just a matter of asking questions about what this is, what that is. Yet to realize the need of integration takes time. In Chinese slang, "it demands a tuition fee". Probably I have waived this tuition by what I have seen.

We look forward to each of these little sketches, please keep them coming. As you already know, the more you write, the easier and better the results. Your message is almost always clear, but you need to still be very attentive to structure and word usage. Edit and pare those sentences down to short, simple statements, and pay especial attention to insuring that all the tenses agree.

You are providing a wonderful service by giving us an outsider's view of our society, and that in turn helps to understand your culture.