Because It's Overcrowded...

Question:
The average life expectancy in India is 62 years, the average life expectancy in Sweeden is 79 years. So if a person moves from India to Sweeden is he expected to live longer?

Favourite answer:
Yes, he would live longer, considering India is really overcrowded and there is not enough fresh air for everyone, so people die faster.

Now, this would have been a perfectly laughable answer if the student was in grade school, unfortunately this answer was one of the gems I discovered while grading Intro. to Macroeconomics papers at college. That scares me to a certain extent.

I love grading papers, regular source of entertainment!

On another note, I was accepted to the London School of Economics, so I'll be in London next year studying Operations Research, Game Theory, International and Developmental Economics. I'm still waiting to hear from Oxford, but I think I'll go to LSE anyway.

As some of you know, I was accepted into a fellowship program offered by Wharton, Fletcher, Sloan, Columbia, Tuck, Yale and NYU... basically all the big business schools in the Greater New York-Massachusetts region, so I've been traveling quite frequently to attend seminars and work on presentations and case-studies. I was at Wharton last week, and I felt really stupid there. This was the first time all 120 fellows from all across the country (and one student from LSE) were together. Most of these kids were from big name schools and no one had even heard of Hamilton, except this one girl, Jee. The following is the transcript of our converstation:

Jee: So where are you from?
Maity: Hamilton College, you've probably never heard of it's in upstate New York...
Jee: No, I know where Hamilton is. I applied there and didn't get in.
Maity: Really?
Jee: ...yeah...
Maity: YES!!! (aside: finally...)
Jee: Sorry?
Maity: No, nothing. So which school do you go to now?
Jee: Bryn Mawr.

Apart from that I met kids who have been running their own businesses since they were 19. Some NGOs, some own their own clothing line. One kid had a thriving Socially Responsible Company called, damn I forget the name, running in 27 different countries, including India, selling reading glasses...bottomline, most of these kids are really, really smart. Take my case study group for instance: Three girls from Columbia, one from Harvard, one guy from Duke and our team mentor is a manager of SRI at Citibank. Needless to say they're really hardcore about all this and that just cramps my style...

On the upside, I met a bunch of people who were also accepted to LSE, so I'll know some people beforehand, hehehehe. The fellows were given accomodation at the Philadelphia Marriott, unforunately I got kicked out of the hotel for all the wrong reasons on the second day, but that's a different story. On another note, a huge, African-American hooligan (must have been at least 200 kgs!), stole my burger at the bus station at 5 in the morning. That too is another story.

An interesting thing about my fellows were that although most of these kids are highly accomplished and very very smart, they're very keen on NGOs, CSR and SRIs which makes me feel good...

College has been rough. There's always work to be done, grade this, grade that, exams, tests, lab reports, research, editing my professor's book on Financial Market Theory, tax returns, organizing events as social/cultural chair of Asian Cultural Society...the list just goes on.

Speaking of which, ACS celebrated the Lunar New Year last night, slightly belated, but it was great. We had a professional lion dance troop come and perform, there was a martial arts demonstration and of course good ol' Chinese food.

This weekend is going to be rough too, it's becoming a habit now. I still need to find a job for the summer...time is running out and then there is abstract algebra homework to finish.

I need to takesome time off and went frolicking in the Adirondacks, a local mountain range and an awesome hiking trail, just the stress buster I need... I'm way behind on my work.

Sayonara.

PS: If you haven't already seen them, I thoroughly recommend "Munich", "Good Luck and Good Night", "Why We Fight" and "Thank You For Smoking". I'm planning to catch Rang De Basanti in New Jersey when I go to Columbia next weekend.