Depressing realisation:
Dec. 16th, 2002 09:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
camwynMy mother and I have both been working on term papers for the past few weeks, Mom more so than I. Mom is studying towards a PhD in Religious Studies (I think - it may have a different specific name) at Fordham University, home of the Jesuits; I'm working towards an MS in Management Information Systems at Kean University, home of . . . um, well, someone named Cipher Deavours. I've got two pages left to go on my term paper, maybe three, and then I start fiddling with the formatting. I realised something this morning as I was looking over the paper:
If I read my mom's paper, I could probably understand it if I were given long enough and allowed to ask a few questions of her. True, a lot of the concepts would be stuff I'd never yet learned, but low-level theological and philosophical concepts are enough like high-level ones that I would have a good chance of understanding what she'd said based on extrapolation. I've read complicated theological stuff before, mostly as part of an effort to compare temporal perceptions in literate societies versus temporal perceptions in nonliterate, shamanic societies, so given enough time I could probably understand it without resorting to the books.
If my mom read my paper, which is a comparison of XML standards used in bioinformatics research, I have a nasty feeling her eyes would glaze over. The biological and chemical aspects she'd most likely understand, as she had to take courses in stuff of that nature to get into her original psych degree program, but XML as a language and its capabilities, well... outside her realm of experience entirely.
I don't think anybody in my family could read my term paper and understand it.
If I read my mom's paper, I could probably understand it if I were given long enough and allowed to ask a few questions of her. True, a lot of the concepts would be stuff I'd never yet learned, but low-level theological and philosophical concepts are enough like high-level ones that I would have a good chance of understanding what she'd said based on extrapolation. I've read complicated theological stuff before, mostly as part of an effort to compare temporal perceptions in literate societies versus temporal perceptions in nonliterate, shamanic societies, so given enough time I could probably understand it without resorting to the books.
If my mom read my paper, which is a comparison of XML standards used in bioinformatics research, I have a nasty feeling her eyes would glaze over. The biological and chemical aspects she'd most likely understand, as she had to take courses in stuff of that nature to get into her original psych degree program, but XML as a language and its capabilities, well... outside her realm of experience entirely.
I don't think anybody in my family could read my term paper and understand it.
