Exploring the Environment of China 2011
My Total China Experience...Statistically Speaking
by Graig A. Marx
It is time to do some math. In the past 7 years I have visited China on all 5 of the trips offered through Duquesne. With an average of 18 days per trip, I have spent almost 13 weeks in China. I have visited 6 major cities - Shanghai, Beijing, Xi'an, Qingdao, Nanjing and Suzhou. 
The distance from Pittsburgh to Beijing is 10,753 km (6681 miles). Double that for a round trip and multiply by 5 trips...subtract a few thousand kilometers for traveling over the North Pole (shortest flight time between the two locations) and you get the same distance that would equal 2.5 times the circumference of the Earth. So, when my math is finished...carry the one...round to the correct number of significant figures...3.6% of my last seven years has been spent in China. So what?
3.6% seems like an insignificant amount. I would be ashamed to see this 3.6% dwarfed by doing the same math on my time spent in front of a TV, or behind the wheel of a car, or typing endlessly on a computer screen. Speaking scientifically, however, I would not consider my time to represent a normal mean average. I like to think my time breaks down into a weighted average. Looking at the past 7 years, this 3.6% has influenced the way I lead my life that would hold more weight - say more like 75%.
I have learned more about the world, about life, about the environment, about myself in those 18 weeks than I did in 6 years of college that ended up in a Bachelor's and Master's Degree. With that said, I definitely consider myself an outlier. I am one of the few who have had this experience. Many have spent 6 years attaining academic accolades only to end up being ignorant and greedy, insensible and narrow-minded. Few of us have had the opportunity to spend quality time with people from a different country, culture and political atmosphere. Few of us have actual experience to draw from when discussing issues that concern today's political, economical and environmental concerns. Few of us have been able to compare our lifestyle, freedoms and attitudes to those living under very different conditions.
In a scientific study, usually the outliers are ignored. They are explained away through ‘errors' that occurred during the experiment. They are brushed aside because they don't adhere to the line of best fit that works so well for all the other data points. The experience offered by Duquesne to visit China has some unique side effects that would catch the eye of any scientific researcher. It creates only outliers. These outliers however, will not be thrown away as errant trials of an experiment. This trip provides significance to these individuals in a way that is life-changing and, like a few rare outliers, will lead to new discoveries.
