3 ms·

At my school, we have a bit of a "culture of genius" problem. Many, if not most, of my classmates grew up being one of the smartest people they knew. This lead

At my school, we have a bit of a "culture of genius" problem. Many, if not most, of my classmates grew up being one of the smartest people they knew. This lead to the widespread (and maybe not untrue) belief that we can do things that other people simply cannot. This leads to a lot of students setting themselves up to fail (epic procrastination, expecting to do well on finals after never going to a class or studying) and most students eventually fail hard at least once, but there are enough success stories to keep the "culture of genius" alive. This article addresses what happens when the students fail. As the article states, many of us seem to blame failure on not being smart enough rather than just not working hard enough. Personally, I hope I've made away from the genius fallacy. Interning at a startup (as well as competing in athletics growing up) have made it pretty clear that success is more a function of effort and persistence than innate ability. As bane offered some advice at the end of his post, I guess my mantra could be "Being smart makes things possible, actually working hard makes things happen".

110101001010100 15y ago
I know someone who earned an undergraduate degree in Biochemistry without attending a single lecture. He finished in the top 1/3 of the graduating class for that department. But I know that during the time that we were in class suffering through boring lectures that often made no sense, he was dissecting each and every handout, combing through mutliple textbooks he got from the library and downloading and reading every journal reference in the class notes. The crazy thing is, I think he learned more than any of us who had perfect attendance at lectures. I know he wasn't the "smartest" guy in our classes but he often knew more about certain areas than even the MS and PhD candidates who were assisting us in labs. He was just getting much more out of the things we did because he had some background going in. The guy was just super curious and did his homework like nobody's business. Sheer effort. It was impressive.
bane 15y ago
Right. IQ is only a measure of capacity to learn, not what you've spent time filling your brain with.

110101001010100 15y ago

I know someone who earned an undergraduate degree in Biochemistry without attending a single lecture. He finished in the top 1/3 of the graduating class for that department. But I know that during the time that we were in class suffering through boring lectures that often made no sense, he was dissecting each and every handout, combing through mutliple textbooks he got from the library and downloading and reading every journal reference in the class notes. The crazy thing is, I think he learned more than any of us who had perfect attendance at lectures. I know he wasn't the "smartest" guy in our classes but he often knew more about certain areas than even the MS and PhD candidates who were assisting us in labs. He was just getting much more out of the things we did because he had some background going in. The guy was just super curious and did his homework like nobody's business. Sheer effort. It was impressive.

bane 15y ago

Right. IQ is only a measure of capacity to learn, not what you've spent time filling your brain with.