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Everyone’s a Winner

My high school had a weighted GPA system that took into account the level of different classes. For example, receiving an 'A' in a regular class would count as 4.00 while receiving the same grade in an honors class would earn you a 4.33. An AP class would raise the average even higher with a 4.67, so it was no surprise that the valedictorian of the class graduated with a GPA that was above a 4.5. I always thought the system to be fair until I entered my junior and senior years, when the arts requirement was no longer necessary and "the smart kids" stopped taking them altogether. I continued taking music and art classes until I graduated because I loved these subjects; I also...

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The Curse of the Model Minority

Last month, I came across an article titled "Do colleges redline Asian-Americans?" and I still haven't been able to get it out of my mind. Do colleges really set a higher standard for Asian Americans? If this is true, as the article implies, the same must hold true for places of employment, no? When I applied for colleges, or whenever I applied for jobs, I always happily volunteered my ethnicity on application forms. After all, my last name is nothing but Asian. But at the same time, I knew that being Asian gave me a slight disadvantage. (Going slightly off tangent, I have always envied my Filipino-American friends for their Hispanic-sounding surnames. You can't deny that they are more likely to be offered...

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Science Labs

I'll be the first to admit that I was never good at math and science. I never possessed the analytical, logical mind to excel in the subject; I much rather preferred social and language studies. I'm one of the few Asians I know who actually did better in the verbal portion of the SAT's. Not surprisingly, I usually dreaded the few times a week we were required to attend science labs. Whether it was physics or biology, chemistry or life sciences, I never had the patience to clock the amount of time it took for water to boil, let alone follow intricate instructions meticulous enough to obtain expected results. I would usually end up making one mistake, panic, then do something completely...

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