Friday, February 22, 2008

Thesis Deja Vu

Whoa!

This is like the Twilight Zone. It has just come to my attention that Michelle Obama's senior thesis at Princeton has many similarities to my own. It involved surveys! She opened the thesis with this:

"My experiences at Princeton have made me far more aware of my 'blackness' than ever before. I have found that at Princeton, no matter how liberal and open-minded some of my white professors and classmates try to be toward me, I sometimes feel like a visitor on campus; as if I really don't belong. Regardless of the circumstances underwhich I interact with whites at Princeton, it often seems as if, to them, I will always be black first and a student second."

Wow. This was written in 1985. Fast forward 19 years to my thesis. I could have had a virtually identical intro, like this:

"My experiences at William and Mary have made me far more aware of my 'conservatism' than ever before. I have found that at William and Mary, no matter how conservative and open-minded some of my liberal professors and classmates try to be toward me, I sometimes feel like a visitor on campus; as if I really don't belong. Regardless of the circumstances underwhich I interact with liberals at William and Mary, it often seems as if, to them, I will always be conservative first and a student second."

Mrs. Obama complains that Princeton's "Afro-American studies" program "[was] one of the smallest and most understaffed departments in the university."

Well at least she had an Afro-American studies program. I don't know any universities that have a Conservative Studies program. In many instances, I am the Conservative Studies program. Of One.

To read more about Mrs. Obama's thesis, go to:
http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=42FC5818-3048-5C12-005E33B3C0F4E64B

I have to round on 8 patients tomorrow. Grrrr. Later, rockstars.

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