I couldn't find a way to agree with this. The difference between mediocrity and brilliance --in ANY field-- lies in something that has nothing whatsoever to do

I couldn't find a way to agree with this. The difference between mediocrity and brilliance --in ANY field-- lies in something that has nothing whatsoever to do with a formal education. I have met so many people with impressive pedigree's that are clueless to not need further proof. I have also met a good number of people with what I would call "interrupted educations" that focused so intensely on a particular field of study that they truly became masters within that field. In engineering or cs there's also what happens before university. In my particular case, I built my first computer way before I saw my first college textbook on the subject. And, by "build my first computer" I mean that I wired the CPU and ALU from discrete components (Who knows how a diode matrix can be used as an instruction decoder?), created my own machine language and coded instructions bit-by-bit into memory. After that came wire-wrapping 6502, 8080, 8085 and 68000 computers, again, before seeing my first college textbook. And so, it only stands to reason that the focus and drive once in college and out of college was very, very different from that of someone who never had any such experiences and came to college with a blank stare waiting to be taught something they knew nothing about.