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Homeless Student Is Intel Talent Search Semifinalist
An anonymous reader writes "Samantha Garvey, a senior at Brentwood High School, has managed to become one of the remaining 300 semifinalists in the Intel Science Talent Search this year. Her research focused on mussels and on her discovery that they change the thickness of their shells if a predator such as crabs are introduced. Why is Garvey's achievement so impressive? Because she and her entire family are homeless, and rely on a local homeless shelter. Such a situation would stop many students from being able to focus on studying, let alone a research project, but Garvey has instead used her situation as motivation."
This is the first time in my life that a homeless person made me feel like a loser.
You guys over there need more homeless people.
Je me souviens.
Well done of her to rise up and be counted. Amazingly, despite everything thrown at her by people who would go so far as to condemn her for the social and financial position of her family, she's using it as self-motivation. Has to be cruel to be homeless and one of the National School Lunch Program kids in a world where many children go out of their way (starving effectively) to hide the shame of their family's misfortune.
Any candidates for public office feel like giving her parents some employment or shall we go the usual route, use her as an example the American Dream isn't dead, yet, and then abandon them for the next popular thing on the campaign trail?
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
The summary says her research is based on her family living arrangements. Is she planning on growing a shell or something?
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
So are all homeless people geniuses or have they just stumbled across one homeless person who happens to have a brilliant mind and extrapolated that finding to all homeless people?
America (I'm addressing you as a whole).
How is it that you allow young people, let alone whole families, to be homeless, to live in "shelters".
WTF is wrong with you people?!
You are supposedly the most powerful nation on earth, the wealthiest, the nation that is spoken to exude opportunity and success from every pore.
And you have whole families, school children, living in homeless shelters.
I don't care how they came to be in the situation, it doesn't matter how that happened, what matters is resolving it, providing the social, housing, and financial support to ensure that every body can call somewhere home.
For every one remarkable individual like this who manages to overcome the adversity, I hate to think how many are dragged down by the circumstance.
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She seriously does have the cutest smile. The grin she was wearing in the photo with the article about this at KSL was the highlight of my day. Smart and photogenic is a good combo. She will go far.
In a world of the blind, the one-eyed man is king--and the two-eyed man is a heretic.
She's a semifinalist. I hope Intel's judgement of her research isn't affect by the press coverage. It would suck for someone else's superior research to get shafted because he wasn't lucky enough to be appealing as a human-interest story.
On a similar vien, this is why you see more hardworking asian students (or first generation students who are forced to work hard by their parents)!? Once you are privy to poverty (even if you are not poor yourself) and have seen a better life out there.. you'll give your life to hang on to it.
The linked article kind of doesn't mention that her family was in the shelter for all of a week earlier this month. Still a nice accomplishment, but none of the work she did was done while she was in the shelter.
She's a semifinalist. I hope Intel's judgement of her research isn't affect by the press coverage. It would suck for someone else's superior research to get shafted because he wasn't lucky enough to be appealing as a human-interest story.
Check out her pictures. I know when I was in a high school science fair, being attractive won out over superior research. I'm guessing it's still the same. Oh and my research project sucked. It was seeing other classmates with better projects lose to her smile that taught me a valuable lesson. Good PR is usually trumps good science.
... and an abysmal failure by our society.
Check your premises.
I think the obvious choice would be for Intel to toss her an education, no matter how things play out. They almost certainly have a philanthropic element to their accounting, so funding a beautiful homeless poster child's education can only yield positive PR. I mean, it's gotta be better than turning her away, only to have the press find her as a smack-whore doing some Intel exec, two years from now. Homeless women have very few options.
My first thought as well. Women's best path if they look at least as good as her is to learn the ways of being sweet to and pleasuring male clients, and exploiting their best years (starting at her age) as escorts. Marry a sucker around 30, maybe sooner if she's hooked a good prospect, all the while saving for her future. Have a kid, divorce the guy, collect alimony.
This "talent contest" is cute, and a nice way to get PR for Intel. It, of course, works for those who win the contest, but it suffers from a major problem of scope in terms of being something to aspire to.
That problem is the superstar mentality. It's seen in sports, and it's being brought into all other areas as well. The slightest hint of musical talent? Maybe your son will be the next Curtis Jackson! Your son tops the scoreboards of a public server in Quake? If Jonathan Wendel can brand himself into a success, why can't your little Jimmy?
The problem, though obvious and following directly from material in the first day of Econ 101, must still be explicitly spelled out and repeated again and again: expected value. Either you take the +EV move and build a comfortable life, or you roll the dice. Ever the worse for instilling the rationality of the choice, too, if that 1 in 10,000 chance actually pays off, because, behold, there the camera is: focused on the winner, and not the 9999 Walmart employees.
Samantha deserves to get the credit for not letting distractions others have created around her from stopping her desire to forge ahead.
That is the American spirit alive and well in the U.S. It is the spirit that entrepreneurs must have to try and try again, as not all efforts succeed.
Being homeless is so easy to have happen if one or two key earning parents get laid off and can't downsize quickly enough in a major downturn. It is not possible for everyone to come out whole. It is just the enforced position you sometimes get thrown into when economic events flip you upside down.
You are supposedly the most powerful nation on earth, the wealthiest, the nation that is spoken to exude opportunity and success from every pore.
And many of my fellow Americans also insist that we're a Christian Nation too.
We're are a people of denial and hypocrisy. There are going to be many many people who point to this girl and use it as justification for their opinion that the homeless are there because they just don't work hard enough and aren't worthy.
This girl pulled herself by her bootstraps, after all; therefore all the poor just need to do with this little girl did.
I seriously doubt that crabs change the thickness of their shells in the presence of predators. Rather, I bet the predators change the kind of shell that is dominant in the population of crabs.
It is likely the case that the predators are more easily able to eat the crabs with thinner shells, thereby increasing the percentage of crabs with thicker shells in the remaining population, and those remaining crabs with thicker shells produce offspring that also have the same kind of shells (or perhaps even thicker shells in a few cases).
Evolution, folks. Variation. Selection.
"American spirit?" It's every person's desire to change their station in life regardless of nationality. You're branding it with a blindly patriotic mindset.
As several others have pointed out, the family is back in a home today. Hopefully they can stay in this one. In and out of shelters seems to be a trend for the family. http://www.newsday.com/long-island/suffolk/intel-semifinalist-samantha-garvey-gets-bay-shore-home-1.3449717?obref=obinsite
Thanks for reinforcing the stereotype that Americans don't think about facts before they start screaming "We're #1!"
In this case, we are 33rd out of 36.
"But, I digress. Until we make the housing business more like the PC business (cheaper and better every year and yet the companies still prosper) we will continue to have this problem."
When you put it that way, the problem's simple. We need only shrink people in half every 18 months. Obviously it's only government intervention, like Fannie & Freddie, which is stopping our housing productivity from being as high as the deregulated semiconductor industry.
Remember that providing a safety net for people doesn't mean that they get to have everything they did prior to needing it, or anything like that. Shelters -are- a safety net. They are a place you can go when you have no place else. That doesn't mean they are wonderful, but they are a place to stay for no charge.
While that's horribly sexist and a generally cynical and unpleasant way of looking at the world, I have to admit you have a point. Yes, what you have described is a legitimate career path to becoming a rich and influential woman. I'd imagine that most of us (trolls aside) would prefer to live in a world where all women find a fulfilling and challenging career in, say, science or the arts rather than thinly veiled prostitution, but the fact that the career path you describe even exists is a pretty damning view of western society.
Please consider this account deleted, I just can't be bothered with the spam anymore.
Let's hear your great idea on how to fix homelessness. The GP made a very valid point: It is everywhere, including countries that are far more socialist than the US. It seems that humans haven't figured out a way to fix it. So maybe we shouldn't whine so much about needing to fix it because maybe we can't. That doesn't mean we should ignore it, that doesn't mean we shouldn't have safety nets (like, say, shelters) but this crap of "Oh how come America hasn't fixed homelessness?" is stupid.
If you've got some magic fix for it, then let's hear it. If not then quit with the "America should be able to fix it!"
It is one of those things that you can work on, we should work on, and we do work on. It isn't something you can solve. So bitching that it hasn't been is stupid.
Of course, one also has to deal with the violence, theft, abuse, disease, and filth that often goes along with them.
When there's space available.
Check your premises.
Actually it's not that surprising. It would be more surprising if this person was middle class.
Why?
The Middle class are complacent. They've got just enough to keep them happy. Not enough to make them really want to rule the world, and not so little that they really had to work hard for it.
Despite being poor, they do have the advantage of learning to work hard and appreciate everything. I know it's not a horribly PC thing to say, but it is the reality.
You take your average poor kid and your average middle class kid and you'll probably find that the poor kid will work a little harder. Try a little more
Now they may have less opportunity and less resources, but when they get them, they're much less likely to waste them.
On the flip side you'd expect rich people to be really lazy, but that's not the case. Upper class/rich people have power and status dreams which drive them that middle class people don't have. Middle class people would like those things, but they often see them as fantasies, not really attainable.
Rich people got it, and they don't want to lose it.
wow, Samantha Garvey lives about 30 minutes from my house
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/20/absolute-poverty/
In terms of absolute poverty, we're one of the highest in the West, and all of the other nations on the list provide universal health care.
In either case, it's safe to stay that Americans have some of the worst income inequality out of any country, and among similar Western nations, are in the bottom 10% when it comes to relative poverty rates, absolute poverty rates, child poverty rates, health care, and education. If you'd like to be proud of that, you're welcome to, but I'm certainly not.
Patriotism is doing meaningful things to improve the lives of your fellow citizens, not pretending a problem doesn't exist to make yourself feel better about your country.
as we allow more families to become homeless then will learn that they have to go that extra mile to achieve.
It's important to not provide help of any sort to anybody at anytime or they'll just turn into degenerate slackers.
America ! Fuck yeah !
Absolute statements are never true
Huh?
http://www.acetonestudio.com
Not sure whether I should mod you down troll or redundant...
Just about curiosity... Where I can find statics and documents about NYS budget and social service situation?
You are probably the kind of person that bemoans any kind of societal assistance for people claiming that people's destiny are in their own hands and then turns around and speculates that anyone who lifts themselves up can only did so because of special consideration. Way to be part of the problem on both ends.
Really?
The homeless rate amoungst school kids is about 2.2%:
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2011/1213/Homeless-children-at-record-high-in-US.-Can-the-trend-be-reversed
There were 300 semifinalists. This means that all other things considered equal, there should be 7 homeless semifinalists.
Of course, given the situations that homeless kids are in, I wouldn't at all expect that other things should be considered equal, and that it would be extremely surprising to find the same distribution for such achievers between homeless and non-homeless kids.
With that said, though, one semifinalist is not at all surprising.
Especially with what's being done to the middle and working classes in this nation.
Check your premises.
I'd imagine that most of us (trolls aside) would prefer to live in a world where all women find a fulfilling and challenging career in, say, science or the arts rather than thinly veiled prostitution, but the fact that the career path you describe even exists is a pretty damning view of western society.
Er, no, it's a natural part of humanity. There has never been a society without prostitution. There will never be a society without prostitution. If you're appalled by the facts of life,it generally means there's something wrong with you, rather than the species. Women have been guided into their role/behavior through millions of years of natural selection (as have men, for that matter) - the moralistic musings of a handful of half-civilized primates isn't going to change that.
Maybe your son will be the next Curtis Jackson!
Who?
Required reading for internet skeptics
Because it's a stupid question. It's necessary to pull yourselves up by your bootstraps unless you get lucky, work hard, or had a relative who did the same.
See, this life isn't easy. Shit doesn't get handed to you. You're seriously pretending there's a "question" as to why someone should have to work hard to advance in life?
Thank got our forefathers down through history didn't ask this asinine fucking question, or they would have been all "Meh, we're fine. Let's just all take care of eachother, don't work too hard out there developing new and better ways to do things!".
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I find it pretty disgusting that a student and her family have to rely on homeless shelters for survival in a first world country. They should have social services available that allow families with children to have a consistent place to live.
You seem to have brought some baggage in with you. In what way is a mentally ill person to blame for their mental illness? Perhaps if we would treat the illness, they would in return become productive citizens. Perhaps if there was a better safety net with opportunities to get going again they wouldn't be jaded. They may be damaged beyond repair, but they almost certainly had help getting that way.
I never suggested that you could, should or that you even have anything to give to anyone. I merely suggested that you consider not looking down on them. Is that such an awful lot?
Just about curiosity... Where I can find statics and documents about NYS budget and social service situation?
I don't know about the rest of social services, but NYS housing budget figures can be found here.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
This post reflects a severe misunderstanding of what happens when alcohol addiction takes hold.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
She's a semifinalist. I hope Intel's judgement of her research isn't affect by the press coverage. It would suck for someone else's superior research to get shafted because he wasn't lucky enough to be appealing as a human-interest story.
Not coincidentally, that line gets spoken by people whose research really, truly does suck. Even if it doesn't, semifinalists don't exactly drop off the planet. The kid can grow his heart a few sizes that day.
"What's the use in being grown up if you can't be childish sometimes?" --Fourth Doctor, "Robot"
You could have made the same arguments for slavery a couple hundred years ago.
She probably writes better English than that too.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
name a CAPITALIST country that does not have homeless people. that ill does not exist in socialist countries.
Read radical news here
just stop making up fucking excuses will you. when will be the time in which you will finally realize that this is a problem that is created by your system's artificial scarcity amidst all that wealth, and not something related to any excuse.
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i skimmed the comments, and over 50% of the comments are americans finding excuses or rationalizing homelessness.
tells a lot about why that country is in that knee deep shit as it is.
there is a hole in the roof of the house, half of household is getting wet, but the other half is making excuses and rationalizations about how hole will be magically self-fixed, or how there are holes in other roofs too, or how getting wet incentivizes people to 'work', or how the people getting wet in a fucking house with a hole in its roof are 'lazy'. its your fucking house.
let me tell you : this is stupid. escapist. lazy. self-centered. and will eventually bite YOU in your ass, which deserves it soo much.
Read radical news here
Your Mom must want someone to mentor.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
well up until very recently, the homeless were the lazy, entitlement seeking, dirty, smelly, socialist, parasitic trash.
That's what this is about, teaching us that "but for the grace of God, there would I be". Nobody learns that if only the lazy are unemployed.
well the math isn't necessarily bad, only the assumption that if all those people had degrees that the government would be making more money.
You only need 50 people or so to run a company that can design and release a super-hi-tech cellphone. Educating more to do the same isn't going to increase your tax revenue. If anything it could decrease your revenue because the new graduates will be hired in place of the existing 50 workers, at a lower cost to employ.
Having some familiarity with Intel and it's workalikes as an employer, I think I can say the selection process, while more competitive than your local best buy, probably is not as exclusive as a professional sports team. One could dedicate herself to studying math and science, rather than falling into prostitution, and have a very strong chance of being employed by Intel, or a tech company. Certainly offshoring and the devaluing of STEM trained individuals has had a negative impact on the industry, but many of us have managed to voluntarily leave our jobs, and get new jobs in this industry even during the deepest depths of recession.
I won't deny that prostitution is a perhaps more noble career choice than working the welfare system over for handouts, but I think you swung well past considered realism and are deep into pessimism.
You're already my Friend; I would Friend you again for that post. It is critically important to view the world as it is, not as one wishes it to be.
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
You could have made the same arguments for slavery a couple hundred years ago.
We still have slavery, so you can leave out the "couple hundred years ago" part.
Criminalizing slavery allows people the freedom to chose who they wanted to work for, and what kind of work they wanted to do; criminalizing prostitution takes away that same right. I think your comparison is completely spurious. Slavery is the imposition of the will of a person or a group of people on another person or group. We didn't evolve to have subsets of the species which want to be slaves. If we had, I wouldn't object to slavery, either. I certainly wouldn't pass moral judgment on those who chose to work as slaves, nor would I express disgust with a society which gives them that option.
and you present a very convincing argument. the number of cuss words in your 'argument' has increased its persuasiveness further ! keep that up !
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I might add especially the 1%ers who inherited their wealth.
The 1% who inherited their wealth are probably quickly spending their way into the bottom of the 99%, improving the lot of everyone along their way down.
If, on the other hand, they inherited a blind trust, then they aren't doing that, but then again, there isn't a lot of dynasty building going on these days. Both Bill Gates and Warren Buffet aren't leaving the lion's share of their wealth to their children. They've already transferred large amounts over to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Andrew Carnegie didn't either: instead he spent the last 20 years of his life on philanthropic work, and endowed the Carnegie Corporation in order to continue that work. His only child, Margaret, inherited a tiny portion as a trust fund, and was on the board of the foundation.
You may remember Carnegie's establishment of free lending libraries in every county of the U.S., the endowment of Carnegie Mellon University, and about 1/4 of all the educational shows you've ever seen on PBS, among other works.
Just because someone accumulates a lot of wealth doesn't mean that the government would, or could, spend it more wisely, and it doesn't mean that if that wealth were divided among the masses that they would do so either.
The Carnegie free libraries have probably done more to advance knowledge, literacy, and education than anything the U.S. Government has ever done (aside from them not confiscating that money, enabling the libraries to be established without interference).
Some big works require uncommon foresight and vision, but that is usually not enough, unless they are accompanied by unusual resources, as well.
-- Terry
Take your pick:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_Jackson_(American_football)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_Jackson_(cricketer)
I would like to apologize to Samantha.
The unfortunate circumstances of your family's current difficulties combined with your remarkable talent, hard work, and scientific mien means that the spotlight of the Internet and the mass media are going to put all of your hard work and effort in the shadow of your problems.
I apologize for the hundreds of people who will humiliate you in a well-meaning manner by heaping unasked for bags of canned goods or unwanted care packages, for the jealous asshole classmates who will use your family's problems to try and push you down and hurt you, for the thousands on thousands of pitying looks and inquiries about your family in the middle of every single serious presentation you give for the rest of your academic career.
We did that to you. We did it because we wanted a Cinderella story and you happened to be a bright enough diamond in the rough for us to exploit for a headline. I truly wish you could have been honored in a respectful manner that did not single you and your family out for being in difficult financial times. I am so very sorry that we make your beginnings more important than the new world you are trying to build. I'm sorry that we will drag your tragedy into the spotlight, crowding your triumph.
If it is any consolation, you will probably be a finalist if you don't win the whole thing. I wish that we had not made things so difficult for you for the next year or so while we forget about you. Maybe some other come-from-behind story will come along and let you step out of that terrible spotlight.
In the meantime, enjoy the scholarship you will undoubtedly get and remember that the awful glare of the public eye won't last forever - if you can learn to ignore the humiliation and the condescension you may be able to turn this momentum into something productive for your life and career. And at the very least, in a few years we will leave you alone and let you get back to your life and what you choose to make of it.
"Not all who wander are lost" -- JRR Tolkien