Nowadays it's chic to be a geek, but it wasn't always. When I was in high school a couple of years back, people often labeled me as the overachieving Asian student whose best subject was math and/or science. That couldn't have been far from the truth. My best subjects are English and Art, and I got good grades when I got off my lazy bum and did the work. I always felt that I was never a complete nerd, always stuck in the middle, you know?

So does the stereotype of a nerd describe you in high school? Did you wear glasses, stayed indoors most of the time, bought your lunch, read books, was a Trekie/Star Wars fanatic, roleplayed, played Quake and other games, etc?

Are/were there any jocks out there? I think I've only known one guy who was into computers and was on the varsity football team.

I dont wear glasses, I have always been on my computer doing programming or something, never studied the school subjects, as a result I got bad marks, skip schools very often because I was up all night programming... always reading computer books instead of school / uni books... never played games, love startrek, so what am I? geek / lazy ass ?

Out of miracle, I managed to finish my EE degree with decent marks

Look at my username, thats all I have to say. Does this mean I'm a geek? lol :D

Being asian makes matters even worse. You're called a geek whether you like it or not coz we're not white and have different culture.

If you're not white, you're not accepted. Thats the way it is, that's the way it will always be. School children are immature, thats just life.

What makes it all worthwhile though is 10 years after you leave school, you can look back at the kids who were complete tossers and laugh at their insignificant life of government handouts when you try to run them over in your brand new porsche :D

ah... Asians... Does that include chinese? :D

Locutus, heh funny post (sadly true I'm sure). You must be living in America (guessing without tracing your IP), as too many of us mistakenly think that America is white, when in fact we hold large populations of various cultures and races, sometimes larger amounts of a race than the capital city of the country itself. Amazing really.

As a 3rd grade teacher, most kids play together as if the color of their skin wasn't an issue (which it isn't). Sad that something happens after this time...

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So does the stereotype of a nerd describe you in high school? Did you wear glasses, stayed indoors most of the time, bought your lunch, read books, was a Trekie/Star Wars fanatic, roleplayed, played Quake and other games, etc?
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not really, i didn't have glasses and spent equal times inside and out. i packed and bought lunch same as most folks. hated reading books, sure was into startrek and starwars but never a a real crazy fanatic (didn't want to dress up or that kind of crap just liked watching them), hated roleplaying, sure played quake and the rest...

I suck at math and decent at general science stuff (excluding chemistry). I'm just really good at computers.

i was really more of a nerd in middleschool. friends and I were totally into the NES and kids labeled us nintendo nerds. but i moved in highschool so was able to reinvent myself so people were easier on me :)

Originally posted by Lain

Are/were there any jocks out there? I think I've only known one guy who was into computers and was on the varsity football team.

In high school I played 3 years of 3 varsity sports -- Basketball, Volleyball, and Softball.

I was also in bands (as in guitars and drums), and different other singing groups (school related). I was in musicals and plays. I wrote for the school newspaper, I was a photographer for the school's yearbook as well as the newspaper.

But I also ran the school's net and web server. As well as designed the school's website and did all the programming for it.

I was very busy... And I even had time for boyfriends in high school...

Tonya

Originally posted by Lain
So does the stereotype of a nerd describe you in high school? Did you wear glasses, stayed indoors most of the time, bought your lunch, read books, was a Trekie/Star Wars fanatic, roleplayed, played Quake and other games, etc?

Well, the time I spent in high school was rather limited (I started at university when I was 13), but to answer the rest of the questions: yes, yes, no -- I didn't eat lunch, no -- I hated nearly all TV, no, no -- Doom made me nauseous, and I was spending most of my time doing math.

Does performing the Sibelius violin concerto with a professional orchestra at age 16 make me more, or less, of a geek?

Hey rockergrrl, I was on yearbook too, as an editor. I think that automatically qualifies you for dork status :P I used to wear glasses, but now I wear contacts, and it's so much better for me. I was an X-Phile and Xena Warrior Princess fan and such. Old skool Nintendo rocks.

Although I enjoyed high school, the one thing that bothered me was that although the school was rich in diversity, everyone practiced voluntary segregation. All the whites hung with whites, blacks with blacks. I knew this white dude who hung out with only Asian people, and he was dubbed the "Caucasian Asian".

cperciva, I think all that stuff you did makes you a prodigy :eek:

Originally posted by Lain
Hey rockergrrl, I was on yearbook too, as an editor. I think that automatically qualifies you for dork status :P

Actually, being on yearbook didn't classify you as being a dork in my school. I didn't go to a public high school -- I went to a private one. We really didn't have anyone classified as dorks, or geeks, or anything like that. Because just about everyone did something at our school.

My school had less than 350 students total, so everyone had an equal opportunity to do stuff -- some more than others.

No we weren't the kind of school where even the crappy athletes got a chance to play. We had some great atheletes there. Our football team were always in the run for the state playoffs for our region and class size (C). And we didn't play just private school, we played public schools as well. There was only 2 other private high school's in the city where I lived - and we rarely played them because they were class D schools.

One reason why I was in yearbook -- is because I had a great camera and an eye for photography....

Tonya

Nerd, Geek I wasn't really any of these, at least nobody called me on it. I was considered a brain but I was also a quarterback on my highschool football team, so people didn't seem to care that I spent my free time sitting on a computer. My junior and senior year I was president of year book, and the spanish club. To be honest where I went to school the smarter you where and the better you did in school greatly influenced your popularity for the better. The smart kids were respected and dumb kids were made fun of, and thats just way things were.

Originally posted by hostgold
To be honest where I went to school the smarter you where and the better you did in school greatly influenced your popularity for the better. The smart kids were respected and dumb kids were made fun of, and thats just way things were.

Yeah that's the way it was over at my school..

In my graduating class, there was 70 students... and the top 10 of my glass all had GPA's of no less than 3.9. And around 60 out of the 70 students, all had a 3.0 GPA and better.. and the other 10 had no less than a 2.8 and better...

And that was the case for most of my school...

Originally posted by rockergrrl
In my graduating class, there was 70 students... and the top 10 of my glass all had GPA's of no less than 3.9. And around 60 out of the 70 students, all had a 3.0 GPA and better.. and the other 10 had no less than a 2.8 and better...


Err, you do know that private schools routinely inflate student grades to make themselves look better, don't you? That's why tests like the SAT exist (and why such tests are generally not used in Canada where marks are based on province-wide exams).

Originally posted by cperciva


Err, you do know that private schools routinely inflate student grades to make themselves look better, don't you? That's why tests like the SAT exist (and why such tests are generally not used in Canada where marks are based on province-wide exams).


Actually... that's not the case at my school.. trust me. We had a very tough curriculum -- with very little electives. The majority of the electives were offered during your senior year - and those were few and far between.

I took my SAT -- I got a 1350, my ACT I got a 27. You do the math.... :)

SAT wasn't required, but I took it anyway, the ACT was required in order to graduate at my school.

Actually, I'm from the UK. We aren't as multi-cultural as the US (London is probably the only multi-cultural city in the UK and I don't stay there) so if you're not white (as in british), you're made fun of. Be it american, european, african, asian, chinese, whatever, you're made fun off.

The UK is far behind the US in terms of accepting other cultures. One example of this is in the US, 90% of the chinese community that were born in the US don't speak chinese. Reason for this? Because they are basically white, but with yellow skin, if that makes sense (We call them banana's in chinese) :D The US has accepted them over the past couple hundred years.

In the UK, chinese have only been here since after WWII. About 50% of the british born chinese DO speak chinese, and tend to mingle mostly with their own culture. Of the rest, they don't because they can't speak our language, so have no choice but to mingle with white ppl (sorry, i don't mean this in a derogatory term).

Originally posted by rockergrrl



Actually... that's not the case at my school.. trust me. We had a very tough curriculum -- with very little electives. The majority of the electives were offered during your senior year - and those were few and far between.

I took my SAT -- I got a 1350, my ACT I got a 27. You do the math.... :)

SAT wasn't required, but I took it anyway, the ACT was required in order to graduate at my school.

In my school and area thier is not sat but the act is also required I took the act a tree times and on my second try I also got a 27 then the third time was a charm with a 33 I beleive it might have been luck :D

At my school I knew many very popular asians, blacks, whites, and hispanics, though the majority of my school was white. I hardly ever saw stereotyping.... Maybe I was just at a lucky school.

Originally posted by Rewdog
At my school I knew many very popular asians, blacks, whites, and hispanics, though the majority of my school was white. I hardly ever saw stereotyping.... Maybe I was just at a lucky school.

Same here, I think it is more about the "gay" people now though..

Anyway, I wouldn't consider myself a geek..I'm actually quite popular :)