Would a current or former Carnegie Mellon student be interested in talking to me, a high school senior, about the school? I intend on majoring in physics. Please private message me if you are.

I can share some of my teenage-concerns, current and former, which advice may (or may not?) be appropriate for.

• How to decide what to do with my life, if even possible. What makes me happy? What is important to me? Maybe I do not need to attend college to satisfy my interests? What happens if my model for my future is different from my parents' model of my future?
• How to cope with being stuck in high-school, with a limited degree of freedom and mobility, a lack of tolerance for worthless tasks like chores, a largely immature crowd of peers surrounding me, and no IRL friends who are also rationalists
• Existential depression: feeling overtly depressed over the realization that life is meaningless, short, etc
• Not actually understanding where I fit in intellectually due to conflicting judgments (school performance vs. personal thinking, learning, and interaction)

Most often, the advice I get is to wait for college. The concerns get dismissed because they're juvenile and temporary in nature. However, I choose to assert the importance of the present.

Are there any professors from Rutgers University (especially the New Brunswick campus) on, affiliated with, appreciative of, or aware of LessWrong? Would anyone know?

I'm aware that this inquiry is a bit out-there. But I think it is worth my asking because I am a young person seeking some sort of nearby or possibly-accessible guidance.

If you are even a student in the area, you are welcome to let me know. Thanks.

Done.

I am mostly indifferent. I can imagine a situation in which each of those circumstances would be comfortable, given the ideal spouse. My first reaction to this prompt was to consider in what ways the difference would affect my ego: Would I feel inferior to my spouse if I earned less? Or uncomfortable? Would I like to feel dominant over my spouse if I earned more? However, I realize that salary is not an indicator of intellectual capability or compatibility. This is, I believe, a more important determinant in the ideal spouse. I have my preference, which I will not disclose, as to whether or not I like to be the "less wrong" or more knowledgable partner. Since I cannot be perfectly indifferent, I choose to earn $80k/year simply because that is the relatively-better choice for me as an individual, not because it is relatively-better than my spouse's earnings.

Though I agree this post might be better suited for the Open Thread, The Science Babe, physics Ph.D. Dr. Deborah Berebichez, comes to mind.

However, I am questioning the merit of generally emphasizing minority groups in order to reduce their associated disadvantages. I wonder if this emphasis perpetuates a sense of having to differentiate between groups of people. Ideally, any gender or race based disparity would merely be a statistical coincidence rather than a consequence of racism and sexism. My hopes are that the primary reason for combating racism and sexism is rooted in a very humane understanding and compassion and NOT in further emphasizing the "obvious" difference in the groups yet at the same time calling for a certain "equality". My hopes are to diminish the conscious recognition of differences, solely based on characteristics like gender and race, in people in the first place.

There is at least one post on LW about undergraduate application essays. Instead of writing a similar post detailing my specific circumstance, I am posting on the Open Thread in search of people who would be interested in talking to me/private messaging me about undergraduate application essays. I imagine that I would benefit from reading some successful and unique essays, perhaps about the subjects we discuss on LW. Since UChicago is my "dream school", I imagine I would also benefit from reading successful application essays for their provocative prompts. It it helps, you can read more about me.

Free TEDYouth Event in NYC for High Schoolers

Taken from the TEDYouth event description page:

Held annually in New York City, TEDYouth is a day-long event for high school students that includes live speakers, hands-on activities, demonstrations and an opportunity for the youth attendees and speakers to connect. TEDYouth coincides with more than 100 self-organized TEDxYouthDay events happening worldwide over a 48-hour period.

This year’s TEDYouth conference will be held on Saturday, November 17th, 2012, at the Times Center in Manhattan, from 1pm-6pm.

More than 20 scientists, designers, technologists, explorers, artists, performers (and more!) will share short lessons on what they do best. They’ll dazzle us with mind-shifting stories, inspire us with creativity and make us want to dive even deeper into this broad array of topics.

The program will be made up of two sessions and a break with engaging activities, demonstrations and even a chance to meet the speakers. Attendance is free of charge for 400 high school students from within the New York City area.

Students must apply by the 15th of October. I personally attended last year's TEDYouth conference and enjoyed it. One of my favorite things about it is that all the attendees were able to personally talk to all the speakers afterwards, including Adam Savage from MythBusters and The Science Babe, Dr. Deborah Berebichez .

Interestingly, I identify as the single female with aspirations for a strong male rationalist! Consider me an example of someone less than "strong female rationalist" but still compatible with a male rationalist. For me to identify as a "strong female rationalist" is probably deceiving. I cannot justify it to myself because of my lack of education and familiarity with the formal definitions and concepts of rationalist discourse. I still consider myself compatible because of my open-minded nature and desperation to learn. My abilities hardly suggest such a prominent interest in rationality and as far as IQ scores are concerned, I'm at least a standard deviation away from genius.

Some actions I think would endear to an open-minded, non-genius, interested female (or male perhaps?):

• appreciating her interests and, if applicable, gently suggesting questions or considerations rather than merely refuting them because your interests are different
• listening to and encouraging her questioning and open-minded nature
• incorporating direct and sincere communication
• acknowledging her statements despite feeling disinterested in them (while retaining sincerity! Simply state your disinterestedness but remain accepting if you know that it is a question of bias or interest rather than accuracy of fact)
• constructively correcting her accuracy rather than asserting dominance of intelligence
• respecting her thoughts irrespective of her income, age, educational, experience, etc

I imagine it would make a compatible relationship if the aforementioned qualities are the ones you both desire and are both able to reciprocate. These actions suggest that compatibility is a result of how well you communicate and learn from each other instead of necessarily having similar interests or intellectual backgrounds.

In hindsight, Less Wrong probably fits the description of such an "ideal" situation:

Actually, I imagine that the most "ideal" situation would be to find one such... ...group with a collective goal and study as a part of such a "school".

LW is larger than the school which I was imagining, one with only a handful of students, and I am currently inexperienced to engage myself in most LW discussions. But, of course, eventually making sense of the core sequences is definitely one of my goals, along with someday being a productive contributor.