Annalisse Mayer mouths off

Thursday, April 23, 2020

extra-curricular activities during COVID-19

I'm getting this question a lot, so I want to memorialize my answer

https://www.quora.com/What-activities-can-students-do-that-will-look-good-on-their-college-applications-during-COVID-19/answer/Annalisse-Mayer?prompt_topic_bio=1

Question answered: What activities can students do that will look good on their college applications during COVID-19?

People seem to discount the idea of solitary creative activity: art, creative writing, music, or even solo dance. Maybe you can even submit such things to contests on line or for publication. It would be really cool to get a poem or short story published. People are so focused on “leadership.” Well, everyone can’t be a leader.

Can you perhaps do something for elderly or sick neighbors, while maintaining proper social distance, e.g. shopping or yard work? I have this fantasy that people will organize delivery of care packages for sick people who are quarantined. I’ve been trying to think of what they would need: non-perishable food, gatorade powder, thermometer, blood oxygen testing device, vitamins?

Can you organize a club online, e.g. book club, acting club or debate club? Can you make some creative videos online, possibly with the help of friends? If you could develop some audio or video manipulation skills and make really creative videos, that might be interesting.

How about designing a creative app for smartphone? Or some interesting lenses for Snapchat? My cousin created a lens that ended up being used by over 20 million people!!! If you could get something to go viral, that would look good.

Can you perhaps think of a science project that could be done while maintaining social distance? Or work on a knotty math problem? Maybe you could learn some non-standard math skill like spherical trigonometry or how to manipulate quaternions or octonions. I’ve always thought it would be super cool if someone could create an animation of a Klein bottle or a hyper cube that would really help the viewer to understand it. Or maybe you could create some fractal art. That’s both mathematical and beautiful.

Another thing that a lot of students need to work on is basic writing e.g.: spelling, grammar, proper word usage, and punctuation. I’m seeing a lot of Quora questions on here from HS students that are deficient in these respects.

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Here's an article about a music teacher and his students who made face shields for health care providers, which is just exactly the sort of thing colleges would love to see

https://www.npr.org/2020/06/11/869948638/music-teachers-weekend-project-turns-into-almost-40-000-face-shields?fbclid=IwAR1fb-ieqYpmdDb7uz7QCi-xMLJxk5lNACc6dmZQ1uQGiHMdMi30i5Jj-qs

Saturday, April 11, 2020

building up resume and preparing for LSAT for law school

Here's another question whose answer I want to remember

https://www.quora.com/Is-2-years-enough-time-to-prepare-for-the-LSAT-and-build-up-my-resume-for-law-school/answer/Annalisse-Mayer

Some people go to law school right out of college. I’m not sure why you feel you need to build up a resume.

I personally did take 2 years off between college and law school. I worked as a computer programmer. During that job, I became interested in being a patent attorney — and in computer related law. That was something I wrote about in my essay for admissions. I have no idea what effect that may or may not have had on my admission.

As to preparation for the LSAT, I got a book of practice tests. I worked through one test and identified where I had problems. Then, on the next tests, I focused on those areas — always comparing my answer with the model answer. I didn’t spend more than few weeks on this — but, then, I happen to be good at standardized tests.

Once I got to law school, I found 3 categories of people who seemed best prepared to deal with the subject matter:

former paralegals and legal secretaries
CPA’s
Talmudic scholars

These people all seemed to hit the ground running, because they had substantial exposure to legal procedures, legal thinking, legal research, and legal arguments.

I found that STEM people, like me, were at a disadvantage, because the way were were taught to think was true/false — with concise proofs of what was true or false. Basically, I had to redecorate my brain once I was there. I had to think about things in terms of every side of a question and being willing to argue all sides. I had to learn to be more verbose in my arguments, showing more of my thinking process.

Still, we need STEM people in law.

how to raise GPA

I'm getting this question a lot on Quora, so I want to remember what I said, by memorializing it here.

Here's the link to the post

https://www.quora.com/My-GPA-for-this-high-school-semester-so-far-is-a-2-6-How-can-I-raise-it-by-the-end-of-the-semester/answer/Annalisse-Mayer

It may be tough, depending on how soon your semester ends.

Are you turning in all assignments promptly? It is much preferable to turn in an assignment on time and get 50%, as opposed to turning in nothing and getting zero. It brings down your average much less.

If you don’t understand something, are you asking your teacher for help? Are you being proactive about starting your homework early so you have time to ask for help if you don’t understand something?

If you get a bad grade on an assignment or a test, are you making sure you understand why you got that grade and what you should have done differently? Please ask your teacher — politely and deferentially — to explain it to you, so you won’t do the same thing again.

As the others have said, communication with your teacher is critical. Be polite. Set up appointments to meet in advance. Keep those appointments. Be willing to accept criticism — and even thank the teacher for it. Avoid getting defensive. How your teacher perceives you is going to make a big difference in how she treats you.

Asking for an extra credit assignment to make up lost points is definitely sometimes an option.
Do you have a quiet place to study? Are you getting enough sleep? Are you getting a healthy balanced diet? Are you getting enough exercise? These are all critical to good thinking and problem solving.

Is something going on at home that’s making it impossible for you to do work? If so, communication with your school and your teacher is critical. It’s tough now, with the quarantine, but there might be places where you could study undisturbed. I was just suggesting to my son that he might want to sit in the car and study, so that no one would bug him.

Monday, March 23, 2020

opinions about the effects of free tuition

I keep getting asked on Quora about my opinion about free tuition. I figured I had better remember where I put my answer, so that I can link to it more easily and not have to repeat myself.

Here's the link to my answer https://www.quora.com/Does-having-free-college-lessen-the-value-of-a-degree-If-college-is-free-what-would-be-the-difference-between-going-to-the-library-and-learning-the-same-material/answer/Annalisse-Mayer

Here's a transcript of what I said

Does having free college lessen the value of a degree? If college is free, what would be the difference between going to the library and learning the same material?

Annalisse Mayer, Author Specializing in Autism Themed Novels at Novels (2001-present)

Answered just now

I spoke with a taxi driver in NYC who was originally from Egypt and who was an attorney in Egypt. He said that in Egypt there is no tuition, so many people have useless degrees. It does not guarantee employment there at all. He did not feel that he could make as good of a living as an attorney in Egypt as he could as a cab driver in the USA.

I studied in France, where tuition was also free. There, education was essentially rationed, by triage. They weeded out students based on competitive examinations and expelled large percentages of students based on lower scores.

The value of education in the USA has, in the past, come from scarcity. There are currently too many college graduates and not enough people with vocational education in the USA. As a result, there are shortages of people in skilled trades. Unfortunately, entry into many of these trades is governed by a corrupt old boy network.

Therefore, imho, free education will be worth less than education you have to pay for.

That is not to say that it is worth nothing. If you are trying to get a job, an employer is going to be much more impressed by a degree than by your statement that you self-studied in a library.

If you’re planning to start your own business, self-study might be adequate, though, again, if you’re trying to get a small business loan from a bank, they might like to see a degree as well.

Sunday, November 17, 2019

My Quora posts that have lots of views

https://qr.ae/pN2Tw6 (which Indian universities equivalent to Harvard, Stanford, MIT & CalTech)

Tuesday, November 5, 2019

What isn’t being taught in schools

I just wrote a long answer on Quora about the deficiencies in schooling today. I think I’ve posted about this before, but it’s very important to me. Therefore I am cutting and pasting my response into this blog.

There are a lot of life skills that I feel should be added to the curriculum, but are not there.

Some of these have never been there. These include parenting — in particular how to approach different stages of development and a child. I feel many parents make critical mistakes which could be avoided with proper education. These would include shaking babies, which can easily kill them, and becoming enraged when very young children are not yet toilet trained, despite the fact that their development is within normal limits and they’re just too young.

Another thing that is often not taught is group ethics. We see many people getting swept into corruption or other illegal activities in offices and schools. I feel this is because they have not been adequately prepared with techniques for how to resist and recognize inappropriate pressure.

Also I feel physical education is too oriented around team sports. I feel there should be more emphasis on what individuals should be doing alone in their homes and neighborhoods to stay in shape for the rest of their lives. Realistically that doesn’t mean playing team sports. Also, people should not feel that they have to pay money to join a gym. There are many exercises that you can perform in your home or outside walking or jogging in your community. You shouldn’t have to join a gym. Yet people are not adequately trained so that they know what to do without joining a gym.

Another thing is basic personal finances. We spend a lot of time teaching young people math skills such as addition and subtraction, algebra and geometry. However in reality what they need to be able to do is plan a budget. They need to know how much they can afford for certain things and how they can most effectively use their money and save for the future. I so often hear stories about people running up huge debt on credit cards. They don’t seem to realize how the interest expenses are going to overwhelm their finances in the future. They should be learning about that in courses at school. They should be learning how to plan for reasonable expenditures, rather than impulse expenditures.

There are also topics that used to be taught in school, which have been removed these include home economics and shop. We all used to have to take those things. Those things are absolutely critical. There has been an extreme over emphasis on college preparatory courses recently in the United States. We are raising a generation of children who are helpless, who don’t know how to do anything to take care of themselves. We need to go back to more vocational courses as well, including: electronics, auto mechanics, carpentry, even handyman stuff…

The over emphasis on college prep is misplaced. We have a glut of college educated people in the United States. We have a shortage of skilled trades people. Moreover college prep courses really don’t teach you use for life skills. They’re just abstract knowledge. People need to know creative problem-solving much more than they need to know these various academic details.

In that regard, the elimination of art and music programs is appalling. Scientific research has shown that art and music programs improve neurological development, creativity, and intelligence. By eliminating these courses, we are destroying children’s brains. These are not optional courses. They are absolutely mandatory to maintain the intelligence and creativity of the population.

Testing that emphasizes academic achievement as a measure of the quality of students is completely misplaced. In the past, Americans have always been the best problem solvers and the most successful economically in the world. Crazy people have compared our children’s academic achievement to those of students in other countries, without seeing that this academic achievement is irrelevant in general to the population and to our economic and academic success.

my father was a professor of physics in as research oriented department. He also was on the graduate admissions committee for his university. He found that student who had been raised on farms in the United States were the most successful physicists. This was because as children they had learned to do things, useful things. They knew how to build things. They knew how to design new machines and repair old ones.

Moreover, obviously children who are raised on farms had lots of opportunities to play, unsupervised outdoors. Looking at nature also improves neurological development. Playing unsupervised outdoors allows for a great creativity.

Also, children who grow up on farms are physically stronger than other children. If you take a city then and put them out in a farm and ask them to do farm work, they won’t be able to do it. They won’t be strong enough or have enough endurance.

Basically, we are raising children to be helpless droids. All they know how to do is sit passively and watch screens. They may have great factual knowledge. They don’t know how to do anything practical in the world. And, physically, they are very weak.

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Addendum: 1/10/20

I saw a question on Quora about teaching kids dating skills. This is another good idea, IMHO. There are a lot of dating disasters going on -- including date rape. Maybe some training would help people.

Wednesday, October 16, 2019

Comments about warren

I received these comments about Elizabeth Warren on FB. I am not endorsing these comments. I have them here to think about them myself, as Warren is my second choice amongst the candidates after Tulsi.

she steals Sanders' lines but her record is telling: 09/19-Warren quietly turns to Hillary Clinton for help
08/19-Warren tells the establishment elites that she will not challenge their power
08/19-She holds $10,000 private fundraiser dinner with big donors after criticizing others for the same
05/19-Warren called on more funding to military budget, calling it a climate plan as cover
04/19-Warren took $175,000 from big donor after promising not to during the primaries
02/19-Warren flip-flopped on her stance regarding sanctions on Venezuela
02/19-She qualified pledge on not taking big donor money to the primaries only. General election is ok
~~02/19-Warren took heritage test that proves she is not Native American, as she has claimed~~
09/17-Warren voted for giving trump MORE than he requested for the defense budget
11/16-Warren is silent on the Dakota Access Pipeline protests, ~~though falsely claiming the same heritage~~
09/16-Warren signed right-wing lobbyist group AIPAC letter urging Obama to veto resolutions in Israel
01/15-She took money from hedge fund millionaire in exchange for praising his company, Better Markets
08/14-Warren defended Israel bombing schools and hospitals, and her vote to send Israel $225 million
09/12-She lied about helping asbestos victims, but she helped the company get immunity from future suits
01/96-Warren leaves republican party, saying they used to support "level playing field". When, Reagan years?
07/95-Warren helped Dow Chemical get out of liability to breast implant victims
05/95-She attempted to overturn ruling that said LTV Steel had to pay former employees what was owed
06/90-She helped corporation buy and liquidate company instead of saving it, leaving many out of work
08/80-She argued that utility companies are over-regulated, in spite of consumer advocate concerns.

I've crossed out some aspects that I know are false.

WAPO about Warren's DNA

re: asbestos
WAPO about Warren's litigation while a Harvard Professor

(I actually hadn't know she was a Harvard Professor.)

re: breast implants
WAPO on Warren and corporate bankruptcies