research: it ain't gonna kill you

[brightcupenny]

Dear writers of TV shows and movies and books and fic and everything

Comments

[kaylle]

Thank you, thank you, thank you! This makes me insane!

(The other one I vaguely remember was that some character in Armageddon had a double major in Geology and something. We have a Geology department?!)

[vampiretheatre]

Actually we do. I majored in geology. Well, technically I focused in geoscience for a degree in Earth, Atmosphere, and Planetary Science, but for all intents and purposes I'm a geology major...not that I actually use it. :-D

[kaylle]

Lol. See, I'd still have said that was an EAPS degree (at least, I wouldn't run around telling people I was a double major in physics and geology), but maybe that's because I wasn't in that department?

[vampiretheatre]

Well I tell the MIT kids I'm course 12, but I tell everyone else I majored in geology. If I say earth, atmosphere blah blah blah or even geoscience they get confused and ask what it is. Geology they understand. And besides, I did study rocks, or at least pretended to.

[rez_lo]

(However, if that *is* what you're trying to convey, then come over here, I would like to bake you some cookies as a token of my gratitude.)

THIS.

[brightcupenny]

Seriously, I could really do with a few more characters who are Really Quite Smart, but not Super Special Geniuses.

[cran_apple]

You mean it's possible to be Really Quite Smart, but not a Super Special Genius? That you can contribute something important even if you aren't "top of the class" at MIT? Wow. Fiction has taught me wrong. *looks for self-esteem*

[qui_gon_d]

Unfortunately, the effort to educate writers on these two items is probably a bit like trying to bail out the ocean...I have little faith that they're ever going to get it right. Does make you wonder what *else* they didn't research....

[brightcupenny]

Well, what's a livejournal for if not to scream pointlessly into the void? ;-)

[qui_gon_d]

This is true, this is true.... :-)

[rford]

When I applied to law school the dean of undergraduate education (or something) had to fill out a form that included quartile of class rank. Apparently there is some unpublished ranking; I was in the second quartile.

[brightcupenny]

I mean, I figure there must be-- they've got all our GPAs (not to mention our actual grades from the P/NR days). But nothing they actually tell us.

[anonymous]

So what you're saying is that, for simplicity all around, super-genius science types in TV shows, books, and movies should be alumni of Case, which grades on a 4-point scale and awards degrees cum, summa cum, and magna cum laude. ;-)

[tristmasjedi]

That was me, sorry.

[brightcupenny]

Then absolutely yes, I agree! ;-)