Life in America: The Bell Curve

The bell curve, also commonly known as normal distribution, is one of the more unfamiliar concepts that I've encountered when I first came to UW-Madison. So what is a bell curve, and what is it used for?

The bell curve (or normal distribution) has a wide variety of applications; in my case, it is used by my professors to grade us in our courses. How does it work? Well, essentially that means that there is no absolute score for a grade, i.e. no "pass score" or "A score", and the grade you get depends on how well you do in relative to other students taking the same class. So even if you get 95% for your whole course, if everyone else gets 100% you still will not be able to get an A (or you might even fail if 95% is the lowest score in the class).

I am taking 4 courses this semester, which are Academic Writing, Cultural Anthropology and Human Diversity, Physics 2, and General Genetics. Out of the 4 classes, only academic writing has absolute score for grades, which means there is a grading guideline that is not dependent on how other students do in the class. Professors in Physics 2 and Genetics uses the bell curve; while it wasn't mentioned explicitly in Cultural Anthropology, although I suspect the bell curve will be used too.

Ohh, if you do not know how does a bell curve looks like, here are a couple of examples:

Bell curve of IQ

Score distribution for my Genetics class

So you can see from the second picture that is the score distribution of my genetics class after 4 weekly quizzes over the last month, totalling up to 100 points after 4 quizzes. Notice the score distribution resembles the shape of the IQ distribution (a real bell curve) above. So what did I mean when I said the professors grade using a bell curve? It means the professor gets to decide at which score is the cut-off point for grades A, AB, B, and so on. Like for example in my class, the current cut-off point for A is at 79, so anyone who gets more than 79 will receive an A. However now is only one month into the semester, so no real grades will be awarded, it just serves as a guideline for us to see how well we are doing compared to others.

I noticed that there are differences in classes that uses a bell curve and classes that does not. One noticable thing is that people are more reluctant to discuss and help you out with your work, because you might become better than them and cause them to receive a lower grade. So there is a competition in the classroom and it feels real to me because I paid expensive tuition fee, so it's really high stake. I think long term exposure to this system may cause someone to be slightly more individualistic, although that itself is not a bad thing unless you put it into certain context such as in environment where cooperation is essential.

Another thing it does to you is that you feel like you just have to do better than everyone else to get a good grade. Not a bad thing if you have many good students in your class, but if you get a class that on average have less competition, the mentality starts to seep in and you might be less motivated.

That being said however, UW-Madison is a top flight school (bias alert: of course ma, because I am studying here), so I guess there is no problem getting a competitive class. Sometimes I tell myself not to take a break because people will overtake me. So in that sense the usage of bell curve becomes a good motivator; it is also a very annoying though when you find yourself stuck with a homework problem you cannot solve.



So as you can see, I got my score for genetics class, just today. I am quite happy with my results. Do you want to know where I lie in on curve?

I got a 89. And I was surprised with the score distribution graph when I saw it, I was expecting someone to be getting 90+, because in the first two quizzes I wasn't even on top 10%. I am not bragging or anything, just thought that by showing you where I am on the curve, it can give you an idea of what is the level of competition here in UW-Madison, known for being a leading institution in biosciences. So if you are planing to study here, you can sort of predict your performance by comparing with mine.

Oh well, to celebrate this occasion (I just finished my first physics midterm exam today, another reason to celebrate ma), I bought myself a slice of chocolate cake and gave myself a break tonight, which also gave me time to blog. We all need a break sometimes kan? ; )



Till next time, cheers~

Life in America: What keeps it going

So I've lived the whole September here in Madison, Wisconsin. I am starting to get into the rhythm of the life here, though the weather is still one of the things I am not used to. The weather here is unpredictable, sometimes you get a temperature of 5 degrees celcius, sometimes about 20, sometimes the wind howls across the city. The other day I was walking from class to my dorm, a wind so strong hit me it blew me a couple of meters sideways and knocked the wind out of my lungs, that is how strong it gets.

That being said however, I still remember the first night I was in my dorm when after taking a shower I was shivering, the temperature was about 15 degrees; now, 15 degrees is nothing, my new cold thresold is something about 2 or 3 degrees C.

Anyway, in the midst of all these studies and classes and homeworks and quizzes and exams and more homeworks, one will go insane pretty quickly if there weren't anything to keep you grounded. I try to have the little things to look forward to everyday to keep me going through week after week.


First, is my bath time!

Dorm bathroom

Of course, this might not seem like anything to you. But in a climate this cold, taking a shower under the hot water is the next best after (insert favorite thing to do here). In fact, after getting in, you don't feel like you want to get out, you'll just want to stay in there forever, and ever. Of course at some point I will have to reluctantly get out of the shower into the cold again, because I didn't came all the way here just to indulge in a shower. But it's okay, because I can look forward to the next one.


Second, my 10:10 pendant.

10:10

If you've noticed, I've been wearing this since about exactly one year ago. It was to celebrate the world climate action day last year on the 10th of October. But I've been wearing that since. Whenever I feel drown under homeworks, it reminds me of the happier days in Malaysia when I was actively involved in voluntary services and environmental movement, the friends that worked side by side at that time, how we had fun together. Then I don't feel like such a mess anymore.


Third! My little kids.

Music Club 2011

I miss the people at my high school Music Club. But they are also part of why I look forward to each day. Everyday, I will wake up checking my Facebook notifications to see if there is anything going on in the club, whether they are doing fine. I am counting the days when I get to see them again, to work and play music together.


Fourth, my guitar!

Yamaha FG700S

A relatively new addition into my daily routine, it just arrived earlier this week. This guitar keeps me sane more than anything else (I think). It's just hard to live for a month without a guitar to play. Now I got one, I find myself more motivated to finish homework so that I can practice guitar. Now learning - Andy McKee's Drifting. And of course, I can't wait to get back to Malaysia to show how much I've (not) improved when I was in Madison!


Lastly! The actual learning itself.

I came here to study, so I might as well look forward to class each day. Surprisingly though, I find myself liking the classes here. Although it is definitely different from Malaysia. But the professors here are generally very happy to teach, unlike in Malaysia where being a teacher was something you don't do unless you want to be poor and grumpy everyday. I am taking one genetics course this semester - General Genetics. It is a bit difficult, but it is inspiring to be able to learn it at the epicenter of genomics revolution. If you didn't know, University of Wisconsin-Madison is one of the leading universities in bioscience research, if not the leading university. So it is great to be learning from the people who are doing the actual research themselves.


Alright, that's all for today. Oh and by the way, today is the first conference game of the football season! That means teams with huge rivalries playing each other. And our school is going against University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Both teams having 4 wins and 0 losses in the pre-season games last month. The atmosphere in downtown is just crazy, but such a pity I did not bring my camera with me. Next game I will try to take some photos and show you what it is like to be in a football town on college game day.

Wisconsin hoodie!

Till next time, cheers~

Life in America: Where are all the insects?

They say people never appreciate what is around them until it is taken away from them. Living in Madison, I can say that the statement has some truth in it. The family, friends, food, and all the other things I did back in Malaysia, yeah I miss them all.

But there is one more thing that I think we should appreciate, and that is the rich ecosystem we have in Malaysia. Yes, it is true, Malaysia is a country blessed with many species of animals and plants. And it is a stark contrast compared to Madison, Wisconsin.

Let me tell you how many species of natural occurring insects I had encountered since I came to Madison. Oh you are going to be surprised. It is less than 5. LESS THAN 5!!!

We have the common house fly, which is not common at all. And it is relatively smaller than the Malaysian counterparts ('cos our government welfare system very good ma, can even afford to feed the insects till they are fat). And they are less sensitive to movements around them, which means I can move my finger to almost an inch to the fly and it still won't fly away. These flies won't survive long in Malaysia, the entire population will get flattened under the flyswatters.

And then I've seen one grasshopper, smaller than my fingernail. One mosquito, so feathery that I suspect it wasn't if it didn't have those long legs. And... That's it! I do not remember seeing any more insects than these.

There has got to be this sign somewhere in Madison

Why do they have so little insects here? I'm not sure. But my theory is because the climate is colder here. If you read one of my previous posts Size Does Matter, it has quite an explanation on why insects does not stay in cold climate.

Either that, or this guy here has been real busy.

Because they have less insects here, consequently, they have a simpler local ecosystem. The other animals I've encountered are one or two species of squirrels, some small sparrows, ducks down at the lakes, and rabbits. Those are just about the animals that live appears in Madison. Dogs are all owned by people, so that doesn't count as natural occurring.

Speaking of which, the dogs here are so much friendlier. Of all the dogs I've seen, only one ever barked. I guess there's no need for guard dogs in Madison, that is why dogs are generally tamed. Oh tell you what, tame dogs just appear to be a bit smarter too. But that is just appearance lah.



Oh well. Till next time, cheers.

Life in America: Honest life

Honest Abe, every child's story book.

People here in Madison are generally nicer than back in Malaysia, you can't argue about that. When you walk up to a counter (let it be whatever counter you want), someone will greet you with a big smile and ask "Hi how are you?" Because you know what, they are paid to attend customers, and they are expected to greet the customers. Back in Malaysia though, and I am not saying everyone does this, but you know there are many times when a shop employee just wouldn't be bothered to give you any attention.

"Hey, may I ask where can I find X and Y and Z?"

You will get two typical responses:

1.) "Harh? I don't know la," and then the conversation ended, the person continues to do what they were initially doing.
2.) "Harh? I don't know la, let me ask my supervisor," and then the person leaves and disappear until you get tired of waiting.

So naturally, I didn't know how to respond the first few times I went into a shop when all the sudden the person at the counter asked," Hi how are you today? But I got used to it. The standard response would be "Pretty good, you?" And then the person would reply," Good, so what can I do for you?"

Somehow though, it is a very scripted line, nobody expects you to tell your grandmother story when they ask you how are you. Just say "Good" or "I'm fine" and you will do alright.


Speaking of being nice, the people here are so used to being nice to each other, they think everyone is honest and sincere. Which they are, most of the time. Several incidents led me to this discovery, such as when I wanted to buy a stack of paper from a bookstore a few weeks ago, the cashier simply asked," How many papers are there in this stack?" without even counting it. Being the honest guy I am (don't doubt, ok!) I told the person I took 10. Then he charged me the price of 10 papers, without again counting the stack.

There was also once at Walmart, during the first week I arrived at Madison, my friends and I bought some buckets and a whole chicken and many other items. Due to the difficulty or carrying everything, we put the chicken in the bucket and loaded it onto the payment counter. We forgot about the chicken in the bucket, and the cashier checked out the bucket with the scanner without checking if we put anything inside. So we got the US$5 chicken for free for dinner that day. Oh well, "Wasn't our fault," we thought.

Sometimes we feel so bad trying to take advantage of their honesty. What to do lah. Try not to do it intentionally lor. But wouldn't it be good to live in a place where everyone is just honest to each other? Then we don't have to waste so much energy trying to find out if people are cheating. Baik kan?



Till next time, cheers~

Life in America: How you walk

So a lot of things surprised me when I arrived here in the US, like people driving on the wrong side of the road (that's what they say about us too haha), or how the houses weren't fenced (I knew about this, just that seeing it is another feeling altogether). It was a little bit of a culture shock. But today, I'm going to talk about one of the most notable thing - at least to me - about the people in Madison when I arrived.

And that is the way people walk here.

No, it is not that they walk in a weird way or something. But they walk real fast!

Some of you might have had an opportunity to hang out with me and do a little bit of walking together. You may have noticed that I walk very fast most of the time. But here in Madison, the speed I walk in is just the average speed.

How I walk in the streets of Malaysia

I first noticed this when I was walking in the streets of Madison. Then all these people kept overtaking me from behind, which immediately caught my attention. Back in Malaysia, noone overtakes me while I walk, usually anyway. Which is kind of weird when we consider that the world's fastest walkers are Singaporeans, our neighbor in the south.

There are probably a couple of reasons why they walk so fast here though:

1.) Just because they can - Well, most people here are taller than me, and thus have longer legs. Makes perfect sense.

2.) People here are more time conscious - I do not mean to generalize, but overall time is seen as something valuable here. People tends to walk faster because it saves time.

There might be more reasons. But I will try figure that out on another day. Meanwhile, more homework!



Till next time, Cheers~


p.s. Like the post on facebook if you want to see more mini-posts about the life here. Greatly appreciated!

Life in America: Not your reality TV show

Oh hi! Sorry for taking an extended break from blogging. In case you haven't know. I AM NOW IN AMERICA!

I am currently studying at University of Wisconsin-Madison, as you may recall from this post. Anyway, I am now 3 weeks into my first semester in this awesome university, and I want to say this: This is not a place for you to fool around. Classes here means business, you pay for education, it is education you get. And I have been super busy with studies, which explains my lack of presence here on this blog since I came to US. To explain why I had not been blogging while I was in Malaysia before I came to US, well, let's just say I needed some time to contemplate about my life before I fly. It was a time when I was really uncertain about what lies ahead. But more of that later!

So, today (and for most days of the coming weeks I hope), I will take some time to talk about what is it like to be here in US. This is a short entry, as will most of my future blog posts be. What I hope is to give you a glimpse of the real US from the perspective of a boy from Malaysia.

So one of the most common thing before people arrive to US is to think that they know what is it like to be in the US (or at least I did). You thought you know what is it like from the books you've read, the TV show you've seen, etc. But that is wrong. Way wrong.

There is no one unifying culture in US. None. Your idea of US culture is not applicable to every part of the country, and there is a reason why. THIS IS A BLOODY HUGE COUNTRY!

If you do not know how huge is US, let me show you what is it like when you compare it with Europe:

That's right, the country itself is larger than Europe. So we are talking about thousands of miles from the West Pacific coast to the East Atlantic coast here.

Think this, can a TV show from England tell you what is it like in France, which is just across a strait? Absolutely not, right? So it is actually unreasonable to generalize Americans into one culture.

There is an appreciable difference between people of different states, much like the differences between the people from different parts of Europe. The only thing that is keeping these many states from having distinct differences like European countries is federal governance (which means they are under one government), while every country in Europe is an own and self-governing entity.

Also there is the historical factor. Europe had a longer time for development of distinct cultures, while US was only discovered and colonized about 500 years ago. So there wasn't a lot of time for the first settlers in America to go separate cultural pathways before it was unified into one country.

That is one thing to keep in mind: do not generalize Americans although they may be somewhat similar. People differs from region to region. One good practice when arriving to US for the first time is to keep an open mind and expect the unexpected (as cliche as it may sound lah).

That is all for this time. Next time, I will talk more about the people here, especially in this city of Madison a.k.a. Madtown.



Till next time. Cheers~

Born This Way?

Hi there. Apologies for long absence but let's get straight into the topic of the day.

Today we are going to talk about the brain. Human brains.

Have you ever wondered, if some people are really born geniuses while some are born dull? (Shall be very careful about using the seemingly politically incorrect term "stupid", though it means just the same.) I'm sure you had at least once during the course of your life, wonders how the hell did that smart kid in your class breezed through the exams without much effort, while you struggle to even stay awake to read the first page on your exam topic. "He's just born smart," you said to yourself, conceding defeat.

You may had even come across this situation where you are in a peer study group, a friend of yours asks you a question, and the next half an hour was spent just to explain to him why 5+3(2*3) is not the same with (5+3)(2*3), without getting a bit of it into your friend's head. You find an excuse to go to the toilet, leaving him to bug the other friends. "He's just born stupid," you think to yourself, thinking why did you even agreed to study together with him in he first place.

And you wonder if your friend's was eaten by zombie.

Let me tell you something. You may be right. Some people may be born smart, while some may born with less capable brain.

If this notion makes you uncomfortable, or strike you as a little (or very) offensive, ask yourself, "why not?" Some people are born tall, some are born short; some born with long limbs, some have short stubby fingers; some people are born with darker skins, some are born with lighter skins. It makes perfect sense then, that intelligence could vary between people too, however we chose to define intelligence. Some people could really be born geniuses, with above average mental capability.

Notice here I had been very careful with my words, the use of words "could" and "may" says that I do not have a definite answer for you on whether absolute intelligence varies between people. But I do believe it to be very plausible, if not a sure fact. Unpublished studies have been done on this topic many times before, often treading on ethical minefield and deemed offensive, or biased, or baseless, or racist, or... you get the idea. It is a very difficult study to conduct, given that we people usually do not take personal insults that well. Imagine if you are born short and was stuck with the nickname "shorty" throughout your high school, now imagine if you substitute the words "short" and "shorty" with "stupid"s, how does that feel? Well, sucks I know.

So, studies have been done. Mostly unpublished for the fear of public repercussion, can't really be blamed when most societies would value equality highly, except this country where we still have constitutional discrimination. (You know, sometimes I really wonder if we really think of each other as equals, given the way we treat each other. Hmm... )

I have no published studies to back me up. Which is fine, as I am going to appeal to logical reasoning based on our current model of the theory of evolution. This will get dizzy so hold on.


Suppose we are evolved from earlier hominids (great apes), we have to agree that our ancestors were not as intelligent as we are. How do we know? Well, their brain size are smaller than ours, and they had no evident technological advances. We must take note though that the brain size is not an absolute measurement of intelligence, as we can see from elephants having bigger brains than we do. But gives a fairly good comparative measurement for members of the same evolution lineage and we shall take it as that.

Premise one - Ancestors not as intelligent as modern humans.



Now how does evolution work? It may look complicated, but it is actually many theoretical models unified by one simple concept - survival of the fittest. I am going add a bit of explaining on that - each individual of a species are slightly different from each other because we possess different genes, such as everyone is this world is unique in the sense that no two people share the same characteristics, personality, and identity.

How do we get different genes? Well, sometimes genes mutate when they are passed down from parents to offspring, it may be harmful, it may have no effect, or it may be beneficial to the offspring. The individual who gets the beneficial modification to the genes has an advantage over the other individuals of the species, it then has more chance to mate and reproduce more offspring possessing the same beneficial genes. Over time, the individuals with the beneficial genes will out-compete the ones that do not, replacing the population. Thus the gene gets fixed in the species.

That being said, we have to understand that evolution can only happen if there are genetic variations for a trait. That means, in other for a body part to evolve, the population has to have different versions of the body part for nature to "choose". For example, skin color may evolve easily because we have different versions of gene s coding for skin color; while evolving a whole new limb may be near to impossible because the genes coding for the number of limbs are fixed.

With this in mind, we can establish another premise.

Premise two - evolution of a trait can only happen if there are genetic variations within the population.


Here comes the punchline. If we put the two premises together, we must conclude then that for our ancestors to evolve better brains, some of our ancestors had to be on the duller side, while some had to be on the brighter side. If everyone was born equally smart back then, nature couldn't have selected on smarter brains and brain power couldn't have made any improvement down many generations. But we are in fact smarter than our ancestors, therefore surely they are not all born with equal intelligence then?

It is possible that the variation persisted till today, although there is also a possibility that we have a reduced variation, if not fixed. It could be as varied as skin colors, or it could be as fixed as the number of fingers. Both are probable, but if daily observations were to go by it would probably lean more to the skin color side of the scale.

This does not mean however that we may still evolve into smarter human beings in the future even if there are variation in intelligence. Simply because our society has grown to the point that everyone, regardless of the level of intelligence, gets basic rights that ensure one's survival. People with less than average brain capability do not have selection pressure against them like our ancestors, they get to live and get married and have kids too. And the genes will swim around in the gene pool with other versions of the gene and codes for smarter brains. We may have already reached the point where our raw brain power will not grow on natural selection anymore.

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Although it is quite clear that I do believe that some people are more blessed than others, I do not advocate discrimination based on intelligence any more than I advocate racism. What am I trying to achieve by telling you this? Well, frankly speaking, I do not know. Maybe I think, it would be better if we can all accept the fact that not everyone is equally fast at learning and do not take it too personally. After all, if it's in the genes, we can't do much to change a thing about it. That doesn't mean though, that we should all stop our work on something altogether just because it takes a long time to accomplish it; we just have to try our best and if it works, it works, if it doesn't, it doesn't. Accept the fact that you are born this way.



Till, next time. Cheers~