What's the deal with standardized testing?

After an excruciatingly long practice MCAT exam, I thought that it would be a nice topic for my blog entry for today. I believe that standardized testing is definitely not a correct way to judge aptitude. There are some people that are very good students and do very well in their classes. However, these same people can be horrible test takers. It's not the fact these students don't know the material, it's just that they get so nervous about the test that they can't think coherently. I think standardized testing should be done away with. Instead of asking people a bunch of multiple choice questions, tests should be like questionairres where you are free to write any response. If you are applying to med school for example, you would take a "questionairre" related to the topics of medicine. Then based on your responses, they'll call for you for an interview. Of course GPA would still be a major factor but standardized testing will be no more. It is just inhumane to make a person sit it a crowded room for 4.5 hours with constant bombardment of questions.

Maybe my suggestions are too farfetched but I still think there is a way to avoid standardized testing. The only way to find out is too research more into this and find solutions.

Game Addiction

Recently I joined Second Life. Second Life is a free 3D virtual world where users can socialize, connect and create using voice and text chat. It's kind of interesting but it got me to thinking about other virtual reality games, such as Warcraft. These games can sometimes get out of hand. What I mean by this is that the game starts taking precedence over real life. You begin to socialize more with virtual friends rather than people in real life. How do I know this? Unfortunately I was also addicted to WoW. I played it non-stop for 3 years. Whenever I would have free time, I would spend it playing WoW. Finally, after numerous critisims by family members, I was able to kick the habit and I am very glad that I did. I'm pretty sure that if I didn't stop I would end up like the guys mentioned in this news report. I'm just afraid that if this keeps up, virtual world socialization is going to dominate.

My Family

As I was gathering pictures for my Intro to Visual Interpretation project, I came across a really fascinating one. It's just a very good picture to show how Turkey has changed in just a couple of decade's time. The women in this picture are mostly covered but now some are walking practically naked.

Soon after the fight for independence, Ataturk brought many cultural changes to Turkey. One of the evident changes was the clothing option for women. They no longer had to cover their face and head. Here is a picture of my great grandmothers from that time. While they still cover their heads their faces are open. They are slowly assimilating to the western culture brought into Turkey. The background has a picture of the house they were living in. It is clear that they were not the richest people in town. However, my great grandmothers do not seem bothered by their current situation. They are smiling, hopeful, that the new Republic of Turkey will bring them new opportunities.

First Post

Seeing as how this is my first post I should write a little bit about myself. My name is Tolga. I'm 20 years old and currently attending Stony Brook University pursuing a Chemistry degree. My ultimate goal is to become a doctor. In my spare time I play as much basketball as I can, listen to music, and sleep as much as possible. That's pretty much me in a nutshell.

I was never really a fan of blogging so why suddenly start this blog? Because today I met one of the most interesting professors in all of Stony Brook. He recommended that we create a blog and write about our thoughts on the material covered in class. I think it's one of the most unorthodox things that a professor has required but we'll see how it goes.