Reply to Duke Senior’s Commencement Speech Appears to Plagiarize 2014 Address by Harvard Student

Forum Index » College and University Discussion

Reply to "Duke Senior’s Commencement Speech Appears to Plagiarize 2014 Address by Harvard Student"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Not to excuse what she did, but most people here have no clue about her. She is a Pakistani Hindu. Do any of you know what that means? It's pretty much like growing up Jewish under in early Nazi Germany Young Hindu girls are abducted frequently in Pakistan and forced into marriage after conversion with no way to escape because once they convert, leaving Islam carries the death penalty in Pakistan. If you resist you could get killed. Like this case.... Btw, this Duke girl is from the same province, Sindh...

https://www.timesnownews.com/world/18-year-old-hindu-girl-shot-dead-in-pakistan-following-failed-abduction-attempt-article-90364537

The blasphemy laws are insane in Pakistan. You say something even a little uppity and you can get lynched to death like this one

https://www.geo.tv/latest/387095-sialkot-lynching-horrific-and-inhumane

So you have to be really really really nice. Speak extra sweet, never act uppity, never say that you are being ill treated, lest you piss off some crazy dude.

The constant stress of growing up in such a country, scars you forever. She is definitely "NOT ENTITLED". The only reason she got to attend Duke is because she got a full ride, because her family is too poor to send her to school in the US but she must have been really good academically in Pakistan.

I don't know why she did what she did, but she is not some privileged Asian striver

As someone from that part of the world, let me set a few things straight.  There are definitely cases of young Hindu girls being abducted and forced to convert in Sindh. However, that happens in a very rural part of the province where there are no schools or electricity or any other modern convenience to begin with.  And those families are dirt poor without any connections or other resources.

This girl is from Karachi which is the largest city in Pakistan.  She would not be in any danger of being abducted for marriage.  While she did go to a "prep" school, please remember that the conversion rate from rupees to USD makes it impossible for even the upper middle class in Pakistan to send their kids to college without need based aid.  If you were to convert the cost of her private school in Karachi to USD, it would probably be no more than $200 a month.  Her parents were not paying fees comparable to private schools in D.C. that run anywhere from $20,000 - $50,000 a year.

I don't excuse her plagiarism please don't conjecture on her past either as coming from abject poverty and escaping life as a child bride or as a rich scammer who pretended not to be well off.  She comes from a regular middle to upper middle class South Asian family whose parents are most likely professionals themselves.  They would be doing well enough to live a comfortable life in Pakistan but their income cannot and DOES NOT translate to sufficient resources to come anywhere close to paying full-freight at a U.S. private college. The story is similar to most kids from India who come to the U.S. to study.

And the reason I know this is that I was a similar Pakistani student who received a large scholarship to attend a college in Boston. My parents are both professionals and I never claimed to be a first generation student.  I was upfront about their education and their resources.  They earn in rupees and the most that they could pay after converting their income to dollars was $10,000 a year. I am forever grateful to my college for giving me a substantial mix of merit and need based loans (supplemented with work study) that allowed me to graduate a few years ago. I like to think I brought a certain diversity and international experience to their Northeastern student body which they valued.

[/quote][/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics