
Homeless student is Intel Science Talent Search semifinalist - ukdm
http://www.geek.com/articles/news/homeless-student-is-intel-science-talent-search-semifinalist-20120113/
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snippyhollow
"Her story is sure to be a compelling one and a great example of what the
right mindset can achieve regardless of your situation."

Am I the only one who is not comfortable with this outlier / (perhaps
romanticized) story being used to justify that homeless people _can_ do
something about their situation (so if they don't they really are trash and
deserve their condition!)? Of course they can, but the potential barrier is
just way too high (compared to correct living conditions citizens) for the
journalist to consider we are being human enough.

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scarmig
That really rubbed me the wrong way as well: it sucks that now something as
unloaded as doing your best and hard work has become a politicized Horatio
Alger statement about how the right mindset can achieve anything regardless of
where you come from.

My first reaction was to want to say that the reporter should ask her opinion
on if anyone can achieve great things regardless of their station in life, but
that goes too far in the other direction. Instead the article should just
state the facts about how she has achieved what she did without trying to
discern any political or moral points from it.

Apart from the meta stuff, she sounds awesome. I usually grumble at these
things because privilege plays such a big role--and who knows, maybe she has
her own form of privileges that aren't represented by homelessness--but she
managed to beat the odds. Good for her.

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smalter
Not sure why people are pooh poohing this story or making it out to be
something it's not -- it's just a great, inspirational story.

Especially vs. the Thiel 20 under 20 thread yesterday where there was a lot of
discussion (and admitted jealously) about the fellowship winner's likely
advantages -- and the simple fact that most people who participate in this
stuff know about it and are able to get neat research gigs run mostly by
professionals because their parents are well-to-do and academics (I know, as a
kid whose dad is a math prof).

I'm inspired. I'm reminded of the team of high school students
(underrepresented, low-income) who beat MIT in a robotics competition.

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CaveTech
Is it really a semi finals when it's 300 / 1600 applicants?

Her situation is sad and unfortunate, but her circumstances shouldn't be used
to advertise in her favour. Her work should stand on its own.

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polymatter
Furthermore, "While she was working on her project, the family had a roof over
its head. But financial reversals following a car accident last year led them
this month to a Bay Shore shelter" (from
[http://www.newsday.com/opinion/samantha-garvey-s-amazing-
gri...](http://www.newsday.com/opinion/samantha-garvey-s-amazing-
grit-1.3448636))

And even were this not true, I'd have questions about how she got the
resources, equipment and expertise to pull this off. Its an interesting story
but a lot missing for me to have any take-away from it. And feels too much
like the typical throwaway feel-good story.

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wisty
It's scary how close to the edge so many families are.

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troll24601
Approximately 1/4 of Americans have no way to come up with $2,000 in 30 days.
An additional 19% would need to pawn/sell possessions and/or take payday loans
to raise $2,000 in 30 days.

[http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Files/Programs/ES/BPEA/2011...](http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Files/Programs/ES/BPEA/2011_spring_bpea_papers/2011_spring_bpea_conference_lusardi.pdf)

(edited to use a freely available copy of the paper)

~~~
kstenerud
I know I couldn't come up with $2000 in 30 days (I might come close if I sold
everything I own). Does that make me poor? It certainly doesn't stop me from
chasing my dream.

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atldev
I'm surprised by these comments. I came in to see if there was any mention of
a fund to support/sponsor her. I did the science fair circuit back when it was
the International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) and it gets expensive to
compete at that level. I also earned a good chunk of change from prizes and
royalties from a commercial for Philips Petroleum (I was in environmental
sciences). But you have to get there first.

Not sure why this type of story has to unravel into class warfare noise. I get
enough of that elsewhere. The signal to noise ratio should be better here.

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runjake
I saw a decent length video segment. The thing I left with is that this wasn't
a handout, this young woman works hard and has a great deal of drive. Great,
supportive mother, too. Very inspirational. She seems ripe for somebody to
snap her up and invest in her education.

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mattdeboard
Whatever geek.com is paying for their mobile site is way too much.
Unresponsive to the point of being unusable for me on my iPhone 3GS.

