On growing up "nerdy" and nerdiness at Harvey Mudd College

I started thinking about the extent of my self-identification as a “nerd” after reading David Anderegg’s book, Nerds: Who They Are and Why We Need More of Them. A later post (or posts) will include a summary and analysis of his arguments. For now, as a starting point, I’ll stick with a brief, rough definition he offers. To paraphrase:

Nerds are characterized vaguely by a combination of school success, interest in precision, unself-consciousness, closeness to adults, and interest in fantasy. They are often pejoratively associated with asexuality, poor personal hygiene, sycophantic obedience to authority, ugliness, social awkwardness, and lack of athletic ability.

Growing up, I think I never really thought of myself as a nerd. Yes, I would “geek” out by focusing on areas of interest – one year it was presidential history, another year for mountains and volcanoes of the world, another for US states. I read a great deal, and spent a lot of time playing video games. But these were as much the product of being an only child of a single working parent as anything else. I was small for my age, and remained so for my entire academic life. (I’m born in May, which probably has something to do with it.)



I have come to understand that I placed a great deal of faith and trust in school, to the point where teacher approval and academic success were the sole focus of my sense of well-being. So yes, I was obedient, and yes, I always did my homework. I earned good grades. I wasn’t really good at sports, though I did end up doing cross country for a year in high school.

But for whatever reason, I don’t believe I was teased or bullied. There are a number of reasons I suspect for this. For one, I went to school with a large number of immigrants. About half were Asian, and half were Hispanic. In general, this was a group that wasn’t highly assimilated – lots wore FOB-by clothes, and most were too poor to wear anything flashy. This would change a bit by high school, but by then my peer group was the same group of overwhelmingly Asian-American women for whom academic success was axiomatically good.

I believe my high school experience was thus, much easier than a lot of “nerds”. Hell, there was a conspiracy of popular girls (who happened to also be academically bright) to draft me onto Homecoming court. It worked, and while I was really, really ignorant and naïve about high school social politics, I was a beneficiary of the open-minded attitudes of my peers. I believe it was this that helped me be genial and kind to others, which served to reinforce positive attitudes toward me.

Oddly enough, it was in college that I first really noticed anti-intellectualism. It seems paradoxical – Harvey Mudd College is an elite private institution focused on science and engineering. That was the draw for a lot of nerds – at last, here was a place where they (we?) could be among our own.

But was it, really?

Even among nerds, there are gradations. Some typified the stereotypical identity, and the associations that come with the label. I wasn’t one of those. I’d never LARPd until Harvey Mudd, and did so only once. I’d never played an online multiplayer game, and while I enjoyed Starcraft LAN games freshman year, the games I played later were single player. I liked fantasy and sci-fi, but enjoyed history even more.

At Harvey Mudd, there was differentiation by dorm – we didn’t and don’t have frats, so dorm affiliation is one of the primary self-identifiers and self-sorting mechanisms in college. West was the drug/party dorm. North was the jock dorm. East was the hardcore nerd dorm. South was the isolationist dorm. The outer dorms lacked differentiated personalities, with the exception of certain pockets of Linde, known for their drug use and love of music.

On the one hand, this reflected the diversity that can be present at a technical school.

On the other hand, if I am honest, I think I witnessed more anti-nerd behavior and attitudes there than in high school.

The first semester was not graded using letters – all classes as part of the standard incoming freshman curriculum were graded pass/fail (technically, high pass/pass/fail). One of the things I heard consistently the first semester: “Relax! It’s pass/fail!”

If one got enough “high pass” grades, one was sent a letter of accommodation from the Dean of Students. However, this was pejoratively known among students as a “get a life” letter. The text of the letter supports this interpretation – it praised the academic accomplishments of the student, but also encouraged them to use their time to explore the full range of extracurricular activities that the college, and college consortium, offered.

In case you’re wondering, I received a “get a life” letter, mostly because I was scared shitless with intimidation and inferiority around so many elite brainiacs. I thought, coming from a mediocre public school, I needed to bust my ass just to keep up.

Confronted in this environment at the full range of nerdiness, I think many of us tried to deny it. We were aware of the stereotypes associated with each of the Claremont colleges, and those of us who had dealings with the other colleges might have tried to downplay them. And so, through a combination of internal restrictions and external feedback, I became more self-conscious than I had been in high school, not less.

I think that it’s true that a lot of us had to adjust, in one way or another, to not being the smartest, most knowledgeable, or “nerdiest” of the bunch. In terms of GPA, I ranked roughly in the middle of my cohort of physicists, though in terms of research ability and experience, it’s safe to say I was pretty low. God knows I tried, but quite frankly, I didn’t know what the hell I was doing. Mostly, I adjusted by doing a lot of off-campus volunteering and a bit of creative writing. So, at some level, all of that time spent at the food pantry and with the homeless was not borne of altruism, but of a compensatory mechanism to create a respectable niche for myself.

Some people drank a lot. Some played sports, or were in orchestra. Some people played a lot of video games. Some had a hell of a lot of sex.

Some left school.

And some, maybe many, of us, mocked the nerdiest of us. “Eastie” had a pejorative connotation. It brought to mind “smelly”, “weird”, “socially awkward”, “unattractive”… all the things that characterize nerds. Maybe a lot of us had been on the receiving end of it. And some of us took advantage of the changed social landscape, and lit into our brethren with a hatred that can come from only the recently converted, the people who have something to prove to themselves and the world.

I’m as guilty as anyone for doing this. As guilty as I am for making fun of a special needs kid in the Shuey lunchroom in third grade to score some popularity points. Thank God someone called me on it then.

Maybe it was jealousy at those who were simply better trained, more detail-oriented, and more capable. Maybe we had ambivalent and vacillating feelings about our own identity. Maybe we were trying to shed what we felt and endured in high school, in our hometowns.

Maybe we were sanctimonious assholes.

A final note on asexualization: it’s odd, but now that I think about it, it was one negative thing associated with nerd identity that did happen to me. I remember in eighth grade I was, to my surprise, hugged by a beautiful classmate with great breasts. She explained that it was a dare. I didn’t realize it at the time, but that was probably a bad sign for my sexual prospects.

I didn’t date in high school. I got asked to the Backwards dance (Sadie Hawkins’ for the older crowd) a couple times, and went once, though I spent most of the time serving churros. (My date was the class president and was responsible for throwing the dance.) My first kiss didn't happen until senior year of college. I lost my virginity senior year to a particularly persistent and aggressive (not to mention damn sexy) woman. When rumors spread about that, a close female friend said it was weird to think of someone having sex with me, comparing it to “sleeping with the Easter Bunny”. Even among nerds, my goody-two-shoes reputation made me asexual. I’ve never had a girlfriend.

What’s funny is that I’m frequently consulted about relationships. Apparently I’m a pretty decent observer of human behavior and relationships, and have useful advice to women who have plenty of experience. Maybe it’s more of the asexualization that comes from being a “girlfriend”. It doesn’t bother me – if anything, it validates that I’ve got some fucking clue about what makes for a good (or bad) relationship, even if I have little personal experience.

In the past, I have told high school boys I know that I wish I had chased more women and studied less. Maybe that’s the wrong message – I should be telling them to do both. Otherwise, I’m reinforcing the stereotype of nerd involuntary celibacy.

Too much info for some of you, but I think my experiences indicate that there are gradations in the application of the label of nerd. I escaped the most severe discrimination thanks to particularly compassionate and culturally distinct classmates in grade K-12. However, there were effects, including my own participation in discriminatory behavior and actions.