Thursday, May 11, 2006
Final day of the blog. On tap for today:
1. Gym and Class
2. Claude Steele
3. More Class
4. BBQ
5. Thanks for reading!
Gym and Class
Thursday started much like Tuesday...off to the gym, then to class. I left class a bit early to attend a symposium by Claude Steele, held at noon.
Claude Steele
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Claude Steele is a psychology professor at Stanford with paragraphs full of awards. He was giving the 2006 Symposium on Improving Diversity in Graduate Education entitled The Psychology of Social Identity: It's Role in Group Performance Difference and the Challenges of an Integrated Society.
The talk was EXCELLENT, I really feel like everyone on campus would have benefited from hearing him speak. Some of the talk focused on the "stereotype threat" and its consequences i.e. if you are in a group in which there's a negative stereotype associated, then you often unconsciously work to "disprove" the stereotype, but in the end, generally perform worse. And when this threat is removed, the differences in group performance are also removed.
Examples include women in math (where there's a general bias against females), minorities in science, and white folks in conversations with minorities about race (where the white person may feel that if they slip up in even the slightest statement they'll be labeled a racist, a stereotype based on the jacked-up racial history of the country). Like I said before, the talk was EXCELLENT and I was so happy that I was able to go.
More Class
After the lecture was more class (biotechniques) where Chris Garcia, a professor here lectured about X-ray crystallography. He's one of the leading researchers in the field. That's another cool thing about being at Stanford, many of the leaders/world's authorities in a whole host of subject areas are here, and many are approachable, which makes learning from them pretty easy.
BioAIMS/SNMA/LMSA Cookout Extravaganza
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BioAIMS joined forces SNMA and LMSA (the Black and Latino medical student associations) to have a cookout extravaganza (at least that's what we called it).
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The idea was that since we share the same spot of the campus, and both of our communities are pretty small, the BBQ would be a good way to foster community between the Medical and PhD students.
It was a blast, though I did end up with about 20 extra hamburgers that I have to try and get rid of. (Note: This is also not a weekly occurrence, in fact, it's our first joint event)
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Thanks for Reading
Now as I prepare to type the final words of my blog, I just wanted to say thanks for reading.
Asides from my parents, I don't know how many people will actually read this. But if you did, thanks for caring and I hope that you found it to be worthy use of your valuable time (either informative, entertaining, or both).
Peace and Blessings.
Kenny
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