stereotypes

Just as I'm mugging maths for tomorrow's paper, I've discovered some very interesting things. With the help of my awesome classmates I've managed to have a try on HCI's past year EOY papers which according to my classmates, are "very hard." Seeing the confession on HCI confession page that odd year papers are harder, I started on my epic quest go conquer the 2011 paper.

Turns out that it is not as hard as what I thought, although there are some questions I really have no idea how to solve, generally it is fine. However, I've heard that some classmates commented that the 2012 paper was hard, and I remembered their expression when they heard that the even year papers are supposed to be "easier". So I went to take a look at the 2012 paper. After I looked through the 2012 paper I felt a sense of familiarity. Wait...isn't that also the NY 2012 paper? In which the two schools set a combined paper?

What? I thought some of my classmates have commented that NY 2012 paper is quite easy. So now I have two opinions. Then I wondered, there couldn't be such a big difference. Could my classmate who commented that the 2012 paper was hard, simply felt it is hard because the paper is a HCI paper?

My speculation could be wrong, of course, maybe it is indeed due to the gap in my classmates' abilities. However, I'm sure that the fact that it is an HCI PAPER, do play a part. HCI paper is supposed to be difficult. They supposedly have a higher standard than us. If we can't do a HCI paper, it's okay because it is HCI. NY and HCI set a combined paper just to kill us Nanyangers etc etc.

Why do we always have to place ourselves in an inferior position? These guys at the other side are not older, nor smarter than us. Why do we always assume that HCI will have a higher standard, and going to HCJC is going to be intimidating because everyone there will be better than us and we will just have to work three times as hard just to keep up with the rest?

It seems that it is an universal truth that guys are better in maths and science than girls and girls are better in languages than guys. True, to a certain extent perhaps, since neuroscience researches do prove that brains of the two genders are wired somewhat differently. However, things get very irritating when these assumptions are being applied to every single girl and every single guy. People are different, no matter what the trend is, there will be a group of minorities that go against the general trend. Who says women cannot do science and men cannot nurse children? We know these people exist, but they will be viewed by the world differently. He is a renown physicist, vs she is a renown physicist. When people hear the former, they are going to think he must be really smart, hope that he can make scientific breakthrough some day and benefit mankind. When people hear the latter, they are going to think Woah, she must be really really smart, and is she married? How is she going to get a husband? Yes, stereotypes. And these stereotypes are very very irritating, and they cause troubles as well.

Imagine a man and a woman apply to a job vacancy, for just a normal office job. Studies show that if two people with the same ability apply for the job, the man has a higher chance of getting it. Why? Because somewhere deep rooted in people's brain, women are not supposed to work. Most people don't realise it, but we all feel it sometimes. People feel that women seem to be unable to focus in her work and stay serious like a man. You can picture a man deep in thoughts, his finger gliding across the keyboard typing a long and wordy document and he was frowning so hard and so concentrated in work that when his assistance carries him a cup of coffee he didn't notice. Now, change the man to a woman. Does the picture still comes very naturally? No, right.

And this stereotype gets more obvious when the job seems to be "for a man", like engineer, mathematician, scientist, programmer, etc. Can you imagine a female programmer crouching day and night in front of her computer while being completely oblivious to the surrounding? You can't. In fact, women are unlikely to do this too, because obviously they have some good qualities such as sense of responsibility that some men lack. Oops, I'm getting into stereotypes again.