RATS

Today was the Triangle GT Club Freshman Send Off gathering. I don't recall being invited to such an event when I started but I know the West GA club holds one now. There are 12 freshmen this year from the Triangle which is a decent amount of out of staters. Five of the twelve were at the reception today and they all seemed like very bright kids and were eager to head out. One of the girls is going to be a swimmer and another was on a three time national champion jump rope team. I also didn't really notice any of the freshman jitters in them that I know I was feeling at that time. They all were pretty mature as well. I also learned that Tech has started optional summer reading to "may be" discussed in Psych 1000 or GT 1000 as they called it. Overall a great crop of RATS.

One interesting story from the event was talking with the father of one of the freshman. He's an electrical engineer that works at IBM in the park. He's of East Asian decent and I think he's a first generation immigrant. I spoke with him at length at the recruiting dinner earlier this year about Tech and what his daughter could expect. We remembered each other and were speaking in a group in the kitchen when one of the current students in attendance asked if I used my Public Policy degree. I said not directly and went onto elaborate how it was good for essentially designing my own major, critical thinking, etc... I also said I enjoyed taking the sciences and math classes also. The father said something to the effect of it's good that politicians don't know calculus, at which I said political science and public policy are different and I proceed to try to explain why. He said I know you didn't go to school to be a politician but it's good that they don't know calculus. So I asked is it because if they know calculus they should be doing something else and putting it to use? He said yes. I then told him I disagree and went into how Tech's experience taught me how to think logically and solve problems and those skills are exactly what I want in a politician. He seemed to have the short sighted view that is somewhat pervasive at Tech in that science and engineering are the supreme disciplines and if you have those skills you should waste your time on other pursuits. Anyway, I think I started convincing him otherwise but we changed the subject and he got really interested in real estate and me trying to explain tax credits so it worked out.

It was also interesting at both events seeing how thedaughter, who clearly has taken on the American culture, interacts with others compared to her father.