The uncle Ben conjecture

Apologies for not posting form such a horribly long time but school got ugly and I had to focus my attention on all kinds of fun things like Galois groups, wave functions, diodes, dielectric constants and all that. The quarter has finally ended now and I am happily moved out of the dorms, housewife -ing away until I start work in about a week. I hope everyone’s summer has started out equally well, and here are some thoughts on people as absorbed in academia as we are around here doing outreach.

I guess my experience with education in the United States has been a little skewed since I have attended two years of a preparatory boarding school and then moved on to one of the top universities in the country, but at the same time being a part of institutions of that kind and moving almost exclusively in the corresponding social circles has given me a chance to observe what life in academia seem to be like and how easy it is to remove oneself from the so-called real world once you get absorbed into labs, theories and problems that are primarily impressive on paper. Going to the University of Chicago has definitely contributed strongly to this impression since not only are the differences between different parts of Hyde Park and the South Side of Chicago in general fairly prominent and historically connected with the presence of the University in a way that is somewhat hard to ignore but also the atmosphere among those involved with the University seems to suggest that we are indeed here to do academic work and leave the real world alone. While I do recognize that this might seem like a rather strong statement, and there definitely are exceptions to it in the form of multiple student groups involved in all sorts of activism here on campus and everywhere else, the University administration itself still seems to be rather conservative and, in fact, there are documents such as the Kalven report that explicitly argue against the University taking strong political or social views. At the same time the Kalven report should definitely not be cited as the source of what can probably be characterized as some form of social inertia that is prominent among a lot of the students around here, especially given that the authors make some great points about how individuals’ beliefs and freedoms would be affected by the University taking on political views, it is rather clear that the University has fostered something of an academic bubble that we are all more or less voluntarily contained in.

To some extent, I do understand why academia should be kept more or less separate from the, for the lack of a better word, worldly affairs. The reasoning is similar to that behind sending one’s daughter to a single sex boarding school: less distractions, more focus, higher efficiency, better results. As simple as that seems, though, the analogy does not strike me as perfect. While a scientist might be wasting his research time on catching up on world news and forming opinions about countries and conflicts that he might have never heard of and whose faith might be completely inconsequential to any of his life and work, the fact remains that he or she might posses other kinds of knowledge that could benefit people that are way closer and way more obvious, and helping someone in your neighborhood counts as activism and social awareness as much as supporting large scale changes that socially aware groups often try to enforce.

Being a part of an acclaimed academic institution implicitly makes one a part of the project of amassing knowledge, and knowledge and information are what ends up getting us through life. At the same time, not everyone is fortunate enough to have access to this process or even form a good idea of what it would be like to be a part of it. In watching people that are involved in academia make public appearances it can be easy to get lost in the downpour of technical words or simply intimidated by their apparent superiority that comes from knowing that they understand that much more about certain topics or just posses a greater fraction of world’s collective knowledge. Given that college education is not the cheapest thing in the world, especially in the United States, a lot of people that end up being researchers or professors also come from a somewhat privileged background that then seems to add a slight tone of elitism to the whole affair. Obviously, this can be intimidating and somewhat off-putting. And there are definitely people out there that have never considered going to college, that don’t have a very good idea of what going to college would be like or that are convinced that they could never make it in an environment that is fostered in most college campuses. Having been lucky to be flung into the realms of the privileged via a rather unexpected scholarship I have had a chance to witness how insecure about their future teenagers can be even after they have been given the best education possible. This path can only be harder for those that were not lucky enough to attend prep schools and that are by default at a disadvantage because the society seems to expect them to adopt certain behaviors and limit themselves to a particular way of life.

I used to believe that life-changing moments only happen in movies but the fact is that people’s lives change forever by most random occurrences and you never know when you can help someone realize something new about who they are and who they want to be. In a recent conversation a friend told me that he thinks that the parts of Hyde Park south of a certain point should be more consciously isolated as to not disturb the University students and faculty. I, on the other hand, feel as if we should do exactly the opposite and reach out to those parts of the neighborhood as much as possible. There is no precise way to tell how many kids there are in public schools around the city that have potential that no one, including themselves, has seen before. A sneak peek into what college life is like and what academics are about outside textbooks is something that they could only benefit from. It is hard to model yourself as something that you don’t understand and setting highly abstract goals is never particularly motivational. Unfortunately, the present culture seems to point most inner-city kids in a certain direction and it’s not exactly fair to blame them for pursuing certain paths if they have never been introduced to anything better. Being able to visit a college campus, talking to a college student or a professor, seeing some real science or other work done can be just that one little push that motivates someone to do a little better, try a little harder and end up having a better life. And I strongly believe that as long as you can make a difference for one single person it doesn’t really matter how many others didn’t pay attention or weren’t impressed. Most of us that end up being involved in academia have been privileged in a way that we were raised to think that we will and can go to college and get super educated and at this point, even as measly undergraduates, a lot of us have amassed quite a bit of knowledge and information and in this day and age knowledge is definitely power. And as much as I hate to quote a super hero movie, with great power does come a great responsibility and I strongly believe that all of us have at least some responsibility to reach out and help someone else realize that a better future is closer than it might seem.