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A Redditor's insightful message for discouraged students

414 points by jimmyjim 15y ago

jimmyjim 15y ago
Perhaps I should rather have linked directly to the post: http://www.reddit.com/r/confession/comments/nxdzz/im_not_as_smart_as_i_thought_i_was/c3d91jl http://www.reddit.com/r/confession/comments/nxdzz/im_not_as_... Anyway, I want to emphasize that while his response was specifically to some guy in MIT feeling down, his words are applicable for any of us.
- rsanchez1 15y ago
  Indeed, I really liked this post. Everyone hears how hard MIT is, but then everyone sees how 97% pass, so you think these must be some geniuses that get in who transcend "normal" folk like us. They're just normal people who might not have been the smartest at school, but know when they're not motivated and how to look for help and get motivated. It's a good message for any student.
  - rhino42 15y ago
    This. My brother goes to MIT and he is precisely life-sized. He just works very hard. Let me also comment that the difference on starting salary at MIT is not so different from that of top five schools. Coming from one of those schools and knowing the students there, I believe that your degree of success is more strongly linked to your work effort and the experiences you seek, compared to the school you went to.
- samuelj5 15y ago
  Go to Stanford. MIT is for lame idiots.
- samuelj5 15y ago
  I have 3 friends who went to MIT, and they are all retarded. I'm not kidding at all. Every person I have ever met from Stanford is incredibly good looking, smart, and generally awesome.
samuelj5 15y ago
No offense but MIT is an overrated school full of losers. I know plenty of them. If you want a real education, go to Stanford, bitches.
- sliverstorm 15y ago
  For which program? Or is Stanford just the best school in absolutely everything?
  - ary 15y ago
    Don't take the bait.
    - sdoering 15y ago
      Well said
deleted 15y ago
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adnam 15y ago
Gosh, so true! I am the 3% :)
JerusaEnt 15y ago
I agree with him when he says that it is mostly how hard you work, dedication, and ambition. But wouldn't we just be fooling ourselves when we say it's not genetic? Maybe I'm wrong but, there are such things as kids that knowledge comes easier to, and kids that they simply can't understand something. Also, for example, a kid with ADHD is woefully behind on the "being able to sit and work" ability. I think it's nice that we say "everyone is equal and let's hold hands" But I personally don't understand that.
- sown 15y ago
  I agree with you that biology has a definite effect. However, every time I express an opinion here on HN, I get down voted into oblivion.
  - odiroot 15y ago
    Same old nature vs nurture discussion. It's like with the text editors flames.
    - deleted 15y ago
      [deleted]
  - zollo 15y ago
    Not sure why that would happen. I studied Neuroscience as an undergraduate and the topic never really surfaced, largely because enough research has been done to confirm what most of us had already suspected: It's mostly nature, with a bit of nurture to round out the edges. Still, rounding those edges is a big deal, so posts like the one we're discussing here are worth a read (though, to be frank, this one was a little dull. You need good study habits and a bit of humility to be successful? I'd hope all college students know this, not just the ones at MIT). There's a nice book on the subject by Steven Pinker, though a lot of it is filler.
- fvryan 15y ago
  regardless of where you sit on that discussion, he was addressing a specific student who was one grade away from valedictorian and discouraged about not getting into MIT. That being said I think the advice is solid for anyone; there's only one way to find your true limit.
lhnz 15y ago
I wanted to cry, somebody replied: "if you could share us some of those skills." If it was possible we would and we could all just sit back and crib each other's notes on life. But this has to come from within you. You cannot share willpower, dedication and ambition. There's nothing else to it: it's not as if the knowledge isn't on the internet or in books for cheap... You can mould yourself a more conscientious personality through your own ambition and the willpower you had to start with.
- forwardslash 15y ago
  So, would any book on studying do, or any search for "skills to do well at school"? I, as a struggling student, too would like to know what R. said to him and what he in turn said to those he tutored.
  - lhnz 15y ago
    There is no one book to learn from. On the topic you wish to learn about, find the best book you can or the best lecturer/mentor you can. (You're in a very good position to do this. Since you are on Hacker News you are well connected to the kind of people that can point you in the right direction!) Inri is talking about the conscientious personality trait [1]. This is highly correlated to success in school and in the workplace. You may consider yourself a struggling student but often a struggle is needed for success. If you're doing this already then have faith that you are on the right path as eventually it will be borne out. My point is that you can learn a conscientious personality, and you can become smarter and stronger willed. Every human is born with some willpower. Every human is born with some intellectual ability. Intellectual effort and willpower are both cumulative. They are like muscles, simple exercise of them grows them. I have never met a man or woman who has fulfilled their potential. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscientiousness http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscientiousness
- jdc 15y ago
  But it did not come from within Inri; it seems rather clear that the author would have flunked out without R.'s coaching.
chucknthem 15y ago
Slightly off topic, but I'm sick of post titles that start with "A Redditor's ...". A title like that is just going to encourage comments and culture from reddit which is usually inappropriate here. "Redditors" are mostly normal people, "An insightful message for discouraged students" would have been a perfectly good title to this.
- jQueryIsAwesome 15y ago
  Some kind of (silly) e-patriotism... go hackernewtors!
- rmc 15y ago
  Agreed. There is some bias against reddit here, which is fine, HN & reddit have different goals. But this sort of "A Redditor's …" makes me feel like pro-redditors are trying to say "Look! Look! We're not all bad". The goal seems to be reconsiliation, but in reality it is just divisive.
- Klinky 15y ago
  I agree. I feel some people on reddit don't realize that reddit has a gazillion users & that everyone who's on reddit isn't part of some borg utopia collective. This is actually a problem with a lot of user generated content sites where the site gets more credit than the users who create the content that powers the site.
- levesque 15y ago
  Also, don't post a link to a post containing the link.
  - rhino42 15y ago
    In this case, I disagree. Posting to that location lets us easily see the comments made on that posting (instead of just the replies to the comment being linked to)
    - Edootjuh 15y ago
nyellin 15y ago
I have another message for struggling students: Go outside and get some fresh air; exercise; smile. It's only a grade. I have experienced first-hand the shock of discovering just how hard university is, but pushing yourself harder and harder until you break is not the answer. You need to be smarter about how you work, you need to develop proper study habits, and you need to get over your fear of asking for help. But at the end of the day, grades are just grades. Once you finish university and get your first job, none of this will matter anymore. University is far harder than programming jobs, so don't judge yourself too harshly for struggling. Many things are more important in life. Remember to enjoy the most intense learning experience you will ever experience, and don't forget to look after your own health.
samikc 15y ago
This post is an eye opener, true and engaging. You can co-relate to the maths example with anything hard. You have give it time. I had a math book in school where it said, "If you love mathematics it will love you back." Actually if you look at it, for competency in any topic you have to work with it. You will eventually get it, if you are ready to work hard. It may take some time but what the hell if you really want to understand something you got a give everything to it.
theneb 15y ago
This line of thought very much touches on how students are badly taught, I doubt MIT are as bad as where I studied which had the scribe lecturing approach. Eric Mazur advocates the peer instruction method of lecturing (http://mazur.harvard.edu/research/detailspage.php?rowid=8 http://mazur.harvard.edu/research/detailspage.php?rowid=8) Students should always be at the lecture with the content in advance to discuss in some form such as peer instruction. My University didn't even release a reading list of Mathematical or Computer Science material prior to the course beginning.
sunchild 15y ago
For me, this read like a manifesto for making your hamster wheel spin as fast as the other hamsters. The OP's core message (i.e., that intelligence is not in-born, but is earned by self-discipline and hard work) seemed very myopic to me, and bound up in the self-congratulatory world of academia. It starts from a position that rests on conclusions about the value of formal education that are no longer dogma for me. At first, I felt depressed after reading it and all the fawning responses to it. Then, I remembered this parable about how knowledge comes from people, not places: > "At a gathering of divines, the Mullah was seated right at the end of the room, farthest from the place of honor. He began to tell jokes, and soon people were crowded around him, laughing and listening. Nobody was taking any notice of the greybeard who was giving a learned discourse. When he could no longer hear himself speak, the president of the assembly roared out: ‘You must be silent! Nobody may talk unless he sits where the Chief sits." "I don’t know how you see it," said the Mullah, "but it seems to me that where I sit is where the Chief sits." After recalling this parable, I realized that I had initially misunderstood the OP's insight. His message was really the same as the Mullah's in many ways.
- thedaveoflife 15y ago
  I think this post has important implications for business just as academia. It's about not falling back on the "I'm not smart enough to do that" excuse.
- dasil003 15y ago
  I'm not following your train of thought here. It seems like you have serious issues with academia, which is fine. But what does the assertion that intelligence and ability is honed by hard work and practice vs innate talent have to do with academic dogma? This is equally applicable to all human endeavor.
  - sunchild 15y ago
    The debate about intelligence being a trait of nature vs. nurture is an academic debate, and not the takeaway here. What I took away from OP's story is that his friend "R" was a more useful source of lasting wisdom than his MIT instructors. Why? Because "R" had cultivated an air of confidence, charisma, and credibility. How "R" achieved this wisdom himself is a red herring. P.S. This also isn't about my gripes with academia. I have no problem with people squandering their time and money and lives on any variety of "rat race", including the various diversions that people consider to be an education. As I said, you have to "taste" for yourself to truly understand. I have no agenda to change anyone's mind with words. I was just sharing my own revelation about the OP's message. Allow me to further muddy the waters with another Nasrudin parable: An opinionated and small-minded cleric was lecturing the people in the teahouse where Nasrudin spent so much of his time. As the hours went by, Nasrudin realized how this man’s thoughts were running in patterns, how he was a victim of vanity and pride, how minor points of unrealistic intellectualism for its own sake were magnified by him and applied to every situation. Subject after subject was discussed, and every time the intellectual cited books and precedents, false analogies and extraordinary presumptions without intuitive reality. At length he produced a book which he had written, and Nasrudin stretched his hand forth to see it, because he was the only literate man present. Holding it in front of his eyes, Nasrudin turned page after page, while the assembly looked on. After several minutes the itinerant cleric began to fidget. Then he could not contain himself any longer. ‘You are holding my book upside down!’ he screamed. ‘I know,’ said Nasrudin, ‘Since it is one of the archetypes which seems to have produced you, it seems to be the only sensible thing to do, if one is to learn from it.’ (With credit to Idries Shah, Octagon Press)
verroq 15y ago
>Reddit is down. Perfect, maybe they'll actually get studying done.
tpatke 15y ago
I wonder how this relates to the "entrepreneurial selection process". According to PG [1]: - hard work is necessary but insufficient - entrepreneurs either have a very high probability of success or "epsilon". - it is easy to know (or find out) what group you are in. PG makes a strong argument...but then, so does this guy from MIT. Maybe they are talking about different things? Is intelligence more important for a startup founder then it is for a kid at MIT? [1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3392049 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3392049
- mikedmiked 15y ago
  The exact "work you need to do" is pretty much given to you when you do a degree. If you work hard on it and complete it all then it is hard not to succeed. When doing a start-up or in the "real world" you can easily fill up time with work which is not actually directing you towards your ultimate goal(s).
  - jmilloy 15y ago
    When you're in school, it often doesn't seem like the work is given to you. I remember knowing this, and I remember when it switched over for me in different subjects or different contexts. I'm not sure that start up world or "real world" is any different, there are just new (more difficult) contexts which can start out seeming mysterious but can become routine (often in retrospect).
- gexla 15y ago
  Learning to code and actually coding are much like dealing with difficult courses. You work hard and you have to know how to find the knowledge you need. Being an entrepreneur is entirely different. You need to work hard, but there are a lot of things which aren't so linear. It's kind of like picking up chicks. Hard work and being smart doesn't help you there. ;)
- peteretep 15y ago
  I don't feel like there's any gap there. The Redditor is talking about a specific trap that some people who've been told from a young age that they're smart fall in to, at different ages. The trap involves - mostly - having not been challenged previously, and not knowing how to work through things that don't come easily. When I was a kid, I spent 6 years at a school in Barbados, and some time at a school in Thailand, where I was unambiguously the smartest kid in the class, with the top grades, always. Then at 10 I went to the UK's largest prep school. I was behind in Latin, French, and a bunch of other subjects - especially those which required any rote learning (which I hadn't come across up to that point). The transition to a school with /much/ better teaching saw me become a distinctly mediocre student almost straight away - faced with challenges, and faced with not being able to simply smart my way to the top of the class, I started rejecting work wholesale - something that stayed with me throughout the rest of my formal education, and led to me getting some truly shitty A-Level grades, to the disgust of teachers who saw much greater potential there. Hard work and talent are both important, and so is the ability to encounter and handle challenge. If you grew up in an environment where you were coasting at the top, the first time you encounter serious challenge you might well fall apart. I've recently started an MSc at what Americans would call an Ivy-League university (having talked my way without an undegrad degree), and the first module I'm working with is "Software Engineering Mathematics". Working through the chapters of the book I have consistently had real trouble getting to grips with the material. I want it to just fit in straight away - and I just want to understand it - and it doesn't, and that's a constant challenge. Being a little older, and a little more mature, I'm throwing everything I have against it now, and seeing real dividends for perseverance. But every day is a struggle of fighting against the part of me that doesn't know how to deal with challenge, and I put that down to the sudden transition from coasting to the top to sudden massive challenge, and having not dealt well with it at the time - which it sounds like the very very original poster was also struggling with.
martincmartin 15y ago
There's research behind this too. The book NurtureShock has a chapter on telling kids "you're smart" vs. "you worked hard." There was even some HN discussion on it. Basically, when you attribute your kids accomplishments to their being smart, they kind of freeze up when they get a problem they can't handle. But when you attribute it to hard work, they work harder to figure it out. There are a series of fascinating experiments that bare this out. For people into parenting books, I highly recommend NurtureShock. It's about the only parenting book I've found based on actual scientific research, as opposed to being somebody's opinion.
- DavidChouinard 15y ago
  Do you have a link/paper ont his? Legitimately curious.
  - fribblerz 15y ago
    here's the HN thread : http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3284169 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3284169
  - martincmartin 15y ago
    Apparently, the chapter of the book also appeared in New York magazine, although I can't find the reference so I don't know which issue. You can always read some excerpts on Google Books or Amazon, it's chapter 1 of NurtureShock.
    - jonnycowboy 15y ago
      You can find the article here: http://nymag.com/news/features/27840/ http://nymag.com/news/features/27840/
  - realitygrill 15y ago
    Goto source is Carol Dweck; read Mindset for the general ideas and pick up Self-Theories for a in-depth look.
  - 15y ago
BadassFractal 15y ago
What are some takeaways that us people in the industry can have from this? Should we be working harder? Should we be working smarter?
- amorphid 15y ago
  Work as hard as you can, learn your own strengths and limitations, learn to enjoy your successes without getting lazy, and struggle to understand something just enough so you can ask questions about does and doesn't work.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
rglover 15y ago
That advice was great, not only for younger students, but for those who have completed university (read: older) as well. Hands down, my favorite part of the piece was: "smart" is really just a way of saying "has invested so much time and sweat that you make it look effortless." All of the people that I truly admire (who subsequently I consider to be "smart") fall directly under this guise. They took the time and effort to learn how to be who they are. It's a simple idea, sure, but when it's really taken to heart it can change your entire outlook on things.
leilavc 15y ago
For anybody looking for solid tips on how to apply this attitude to their academics, I've found Cal Newport's blog* an invaluable resource. It's been linked to here before, mainly for its recent posts on 'deliberate practice' versus 'flow', but he also describes many strategies and tactics that high-scoring students at Ivy League-level universities use. They've helped me invaluably, and I find it a real pity that more students don't know about this writing. [*] http://calnewport.com/blog/ http://calnewport.com/blog/
- forwardslash 15y ago
  Thanks for the link! Definitely adding this to my daily reading.
- b_emery 15y ago
  I'm also a huge fan of that blog. This post is a favorite: http://calnewport.com/blog/2008/11/25/case-study-how-i-got-the-highest-grade-in-my-discrete-math-class/ http://calnewport.com/blog/2008/11/25/case-study-how-i-got-t... It redefined for me what it means to understand math.
  - ctchocula 15y ago
    Thanks for sharing! I enjoyed reading how clearly and precisely he showed a way to master a difficult subject. The white printer paper reminded me of that "end artificial scarcity" article. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3396669 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3396669
rcamera 15y ago
That post is very good, but it could delve more on how to motivate oneself. I am therefor cross-posting my own post here, trying to add some more value to this thread. First, a disclaimer, this will probably sound too abstract and not a guide on motivating yourself to study, well, it's true, this is a comment on how to motivate yourself through your entire life, and studying is usually a big part of it. I've met very motivated people in my life, many of which are creating amazing things and companies. The first characteristic you can see in all these people is that they all have a well defined end goal. That's the first thing everyone should look for when motivating themselves, finding an end goal. This is essentially a long term goal, not short term ones. It must be a single goal, not a set of goals, else you will loose focus. I can hear you thinking already, "but I want to do so much", but that's the beauty of this end goal, it can be broad enough to cover all your dreams. This is the hardest question to answer ("what's my purpose in this life?"), took me 15 years (from the day I started to think about this, when I was a kid) to decide on what I wanted to do with my life, but the more life experience you have, the easier it is to decide upon it. When deciding on this, make sure you don't confuse the end with the means to reach it, so don't choose a specific goal such as become a doctor, or become the president of your country. Do you want to be a doctor, or do you want to actually save lives? Do you want to be the president, or do you want to build a better country/world? A tip that can help you with not confusing the end with the means is: state your end goal in 3 words or less. I can state mine in 2. The second characteristic motivated people have is confidence. They are usually pretty confident they can reach their end goal. This is one of the reasons people have very different goals. Many would say that making the world better is a good goal, but how many would say they got the confidence to do it? If you don't have the confidence, build it. A little example from my own experience: when a kid I was scared of skating down a big half-pipe from a park we used to go to. At that time, my goal was quite simple, have fun and skate better than my friends, but I didn't really have the confidence to accept the challenge of skating down that huge half-pipe. I built up my confidence by going down smaller ones (even broke an arm when doing that, but it didn't stop me, I learned from my mistake and started using gloves) until one day I was confident enough to try going down the large one, and so I did. That's how you build confidence. Lastly, after choosing your goals and building the confidence to do it, you need to decide on what way to take. For any goal, there are a wide choice of ways you can take to move towards them. Some ways are easier than others, some are more interesting, some are very challenging. This is what will define your short and mid term goals. Think of them as stepping stones so you can reach the end goal. Let's go back to one of our examples, you want to save lives. You can be a doctor and save lives, you can be a scientist, finding cures to diseases in a lab and save lives, you can be a fireman and save lives or even be an investor in nanotechnology labs and save lives. Which way is more appealing to you? Let's continue, you decided that by being a doctor you will save lives. First of all, what kind of doctor do you want to be? A cardiologist? A neurosurgeon? An E.R. doctor? Well, do you need to make that decision now? Not really, you can choose it while you are at college, so let's move on. Oh, right, you must enter college and graduate before becoming a doctor. Uhm, do you want to enter the best college you can? Damn, we need to study for the SAT then (I ain't American, not really sure how college admissions really work). Anyway, this is how you decide on the way. You state your end goal and work backwards from the longest term goal to the shortest one. That's how you decide on what means you will use to reach your end goal. Anyway, after deciding on all that, that's how you will be motivated to study for that algebra exam, or to pay attention at that physics class from that boring teacher at 6pm on a Friday. A couple important notes, I highly suggest you to never share your end goal with your peers. This usually undermines your confidence, and therefor, your motivation. Secondly, your goal, once defined shouldn't change. If it changes, it just mean you haven't found yours yet. What can change, and should change (due to changes in environment) are the means you choose to take. The means can always change, but they should always be moving you towards the end. An example, your country enters in war. This is highly disruptive to everyone's lives and this will very likely affect on the means you will choose to reach your goal, but shouldn't change your end goal.
tlear 15y ago
Great post, this happened to me in high school I got into a specialized school after being just above mediocre at a normal school. This was math/physics school in Ukraine that was basically one of 2-3 top schools in the country (whatever that means). First semester my usual mark in my math was 0/12. They only kept me because I was one of the best in programming and physics courses. Took me 5 month till I could solve one of 2 problems that they used for tests (3 hours 2 problems). In a way it was maybe too early, in university everything was too easy (I did not go to a top school because I had trouble getting a high enough TOEFL score and wanted to start as early as I could). It took failure in graduate school, then few years of wasted 9-5 code monkey work to get me to see the light again.
mynameishere 15y ago
The more I learned the more I realized that the bulk of his intelligence and his performance just came from study and practice Bullshit. When a 3rd grader masters differential calculus it is almost entirely hard-core innate intelligence combined with an innate ability to concentrate. No normal 3rd grade has the ability to study at that level. People who succeed often want to think it was entirely their hard work, and that lucky genes had no real influence. Think about it. If you take someone of average intelligence, he could spend his entire life, sweating and studying like crazy every day, and not get through MIT. Even Bill Gates went from Theory to Applied math at Harvard when he realized how difficult it was. If you think he isn't a determined, hard-working person, well... The truth is, he just didn't have the freakish IQ required for the work.
- kingatomic 15y ago
  I strongly doubt that the writer meant it to be taken literally that R.R. had mastered DiffEQs in 3rd grade.
  - mynameishere 15y ago
    There are kids at that level at that age: No exaggeration. They are incredibly rare on earth, but when you get to MIT, they become much less rare.
thewisedude 15y ago
Genius: one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration : Thomas Edison
vijayr 15y ago
nice post. Can anyone share the tools/hacks that he is talking about? what worked for you, and what didn't?
- nas 15y ago
  We are three levels removed from the original post. This all seems very meta. ;-) Anyhow, I don't have much for tips. I was like the OP, too confident from my own good and was almost crushed by a college engineering program. I think my main problem is I often accomplish things by with intense fits of work. It's easy to underestimate the effectiveness of the slow-and-steady approach. I'm still working on improving with that. Regarding college, my advice is go to class, do the reading, do the assignments. If you can find a group to study and do homework with, that helps. I'd also recommend reading "Getting Things Done". The power of identifying the next task for a project is truly amazing and the "get it out of your head" ready does reduce stress.
Tichy 15y ago
What are good ways to learn how to study, though?
matwood 15y ago
Quite literally this is why I love climbing mountains alone, particularly 14ers. Every time I climb one I go through a range of emotions over the 5-7 hours it takes to reach the summit and back. When I start there is excitement as I see the peak in the distance. Then as I tire comes doubt and the fight with myself about turning around because no one would know, except me of course. The key is to never stop pushing forward. There often comes a point, especially on a new challenging mountain, where all I want to do is turn around. Instead I just focus on the next step in front of me. Step, breath, step, breath,... Then when I finally reach the top, the view is of course beautiful, but the real reward is looking back at the trail I followed and thinking that's impossible yet here I am.

414 points by jimmyjim 15y ago

Perhaps I should rather have linked directly to the post: http://www.reddit.com/r/confession/comments/nxdzz/im_not_as_smart_as_i_thought_i_was/c3d91jl http://www.reddit.com/r/confession/comments/nxdzz/im_not_as_... Anyway, I want to emphasize that while his response was specifically to some guy in MIT feeling down, his words are applicable for any of us.

rsanchez1 15y ago
Indeed, I really liked this post. Everyone hears how hard MIT is, but then everyone sees how 97% pass, so you think these must be some geniuses that get in who transcend "normal" folk like us. They're just normal people who might not have been the smartest at school, but know when they're not motivated and how to look for help and get motivated. It's a good message for any student.
- rhino42 15y ago
  This. My brother goes to MIT and he is precisely life-sized. He just works very hard. Let me also comment that the difference on starting salary at MIT is not so different from that of top five schools. Coming from one of those schools and knowing the students there, I believe that your degree of success is more strongly linked to your work effort and the experiences you seek, compared to the school you went to.
samuelj5 15y ago
Go to Stanford. MIT is for lame idiots.
samuelj5 15y ago
I have 3 friends who went to MIT, and they are all retarded. I'm not kidding at all. Every person I have ever met from Stanford is incredibly good looking, smart, and generally awesome.

samuelj5 15y ago

No offense but MIT is an overrated school full of losers. I know plenty of them. If you want a real education, go to Stanford, bitches.

sliverstorm 15y ago
For which program? Or is Stanford just the best school in absolutely everything?
- ary 15y ago
  Don't take the bait.
  - sdoering 15y ago
    Well said

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

adnam 15y ago

Gosh, so true! I am the 3% :)

JerusaEnt 15y ago

I agree with him when he says that it is mostly how hard you work, dedication, and ambition. But wouldn't we just be fooling ourselves when we say it's not genetic? Maybe I'm wrong but, there are such things as kids that knowledge comes easier to, and kids that they simply can't understand something. Also, for example, a kid with ADHD is woefully behind on the "being able to sit and work" ability. I think it's nice that we say "everyone is equal and let's hold hands" But I personally don't understand that.

sown 15y ago
I agree with you that biology has a definite effect. However, every time I express an opinion here on HN, I get down voted into oblivion.
- odiroot 15y ago
  Same old nature vs nurture discussion. It's like with the text editors flames.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
- zollo 15y ago
  Not sure why that would happen. I studied Neuroscience as an undergraduate and the topic never really surfaced, largely because enough research has been done to confirm what most of us had already suspected: It's mostly nature, with a bit of nurture to round out the edges. Still, rounding those edges is a big deal, so posts like the one we're discussing here are worth a read (though, to be frank, this one was a little dull. You need good study habits and a bit of humility to be successful? I'd hope all college students know this, not just the ones at MIT). There's a nice book on the subject by Steven Pinker, though a lot of it is filler.
fvryan 15y ago
regardless of where you sit on that discussion, he was addressing a specific student who was one grade away from valedictorian and discouraged about not getting into MIT. That being said I think the advice is solid for anyone; there's only one way to find your true limit.

lhnz 15y ago

I wanted to cry, somebody replied: "if you could share us some of those skills." If it was possible we would and we could all just sit back and crib each other's notes on life. But this has to come from within you. You cannot share willpower, dedication and ambition. There's nothing else to it: it's not as if the knowledge isn't on the internet or in books for cheap... You can mould yourself a more conscientious personality through your own ambition and the willpower you had to start with.

forwardslash 15y ago
So, would any book on studying do, or any search for "skills to do well at school"? I, as a struggling student, too would like to know what R. said to him and what he in turn said to those he tutored.
- lhnz 15y ago
  There is no one book to learn from. On the topic you wish to learn about, find the best book you can or the best lecturer/mentor you can. (You're in a very good position to do this. Since you are on Hacker News you are well connected to the kind of people that can point you in the right direction!) Inri is talking about the conscientious personality trait [1]. This is highly correlated to success in school and in the workplace. You may consider yourself a struggling student but often a struggle is needed for success. If you're doing this already then have faith that you are on the right path as eventually it will be borne out. My point is that you can learn a conscientious personality, and you can become smarter and stronger willed. Every human is born with some willpower. Every human is born with some intellectual ability. Intellectual effort and willpower are both cumulative. They are like muscles, simple exercise of them grows them. I have never met a man or woman who has fulfilled their potential. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscientiousness http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscientiousness
jdc 15y ago
But it did not come from within Inri; it seems rather clear that the author would have flunked out without R.'s coaching.

chucknthem 15y ago

Slightly off topic, but I'm sick of post titles that start with "A Redditor's ...". A title like that is just going to encourage comments and culture from reddit which is usually inappropriate here. "Redditors" are mostly normal people, "An insightful message for discouraged students" would have been a perfectly good title to this.

jQueryIsAwesome 15y ago
Some kind of (silly) e-patriotism... go hackernewtors!
rmc 15y ago
Agreed. There is some bias against reddit here, which is fine, HN & reddit have different goals. But this sort of "A Redditor's …" makes me feel like pro-redditors are trying to say "Look! Look! We're not all bad". The goal seems to be reconsiliation, but in reality it is just divisive.
Klinky 15y ago
I agree. I feel some people on reddit don't realize that reddit has a gazillion users & that everyone who's on reddit isn't part of some borg utopia collective. This is actually a problem with a lot of user generated content sites where the site gets more credit than the users who create the content that powers the site.
levesque 15y ago
Also, don't post a link to a post containing the link.
- rhino42 15y ago
  In this case, I disagree. Posting to that location lets us easily see the comments made on that posting (instead of just the replies to the comment being linked to)
  - Edootjuh 15y ago

nyellin 15y ago

I have another message for struggling students: Go outside and get some fresh air; exercise; smile. It's only a grade. I have experienced first-hand the shock of discovering just how hard university is, but pushing yourself harder and harder until you break is not the answer. You need to be smarter about how you work, you need to develop proper study habits, and you need to get over your fear of asking for help. But at the end of the day, grades are just grades. Once you finish university and get your first job, none of this will matter anymore. University is far harder than programming jobs, so don't judge yourself too harshly for struggling. Many things are more important in life. Remember to enjoy the most intense learning experience you will ever experience, and don't forget to look after your own health.

samikc 15y ago

This post is an eye opener, true and engaging. You can co-relate to the maths example with anything hard. You have give it time. I had a math book in school where it said, "If you love mathematics it will love you back." Actually if you look at it, for competency in any topic you have to work with it. You will eventually get it, if you are ready to work hard. It may take some time but what the hell if you really want to understand something you got a give everything to it.

theneb 15y ago

This line of thought very much touches on how students are badly taught, I doubt MIT are as bad as where I studied which had the scribe lecturing approach. Eric Mazur advocates the peer instruction method of lecturing (http://mazur.harvard.edu/research/detailspage.php?rowid=8 http://mazur.harvard.edu/research/detailspage.php?rowid=8) Students should always be at the lecture with the content in advance to discuss in some form such as peer instruction. My University didn't even release a reading list of Mathematical or Computer Science material prior to the course beginning.

sunchild 15y ago

For me, this read like a manifesto for making your hamster wheel spin as fast as the other hamsters. The OP's core message (i.e., that intelligence is not in-born, but is earned by self-discipline and hard work) seemed very myopic to me, and bound up in the self-congratulatory world of academia. It starts from a position that rests on conclusions about the value of formal education that are no longer dogma for me. At first, I felt depressed after reading it and all the fawning responses to it. Then, I remembered this parable about how knowledge comes from people, not places: > "At a gathering of divines, the Mullah was seated right at the end of the room, farthest from the place of honor. He began to tell jokes, and soon people were crowded around him, laughing and listening. Nobody was taking any notice of the greybeard who was giving a learned discourse. When he could no longer hear himself speak, the president of the assembly roared out: ‘You must be silent! Nobody may talk unless he sits where the Chief sits." "I don’t know how you see it," said the Mullah, "but it seems to me that where I sit is where the Chief sits." After recalling this parable, I realized that I had initially misunderstood the OP's insight. His message was really the same as the Mullah's in many ways.

thedaveoflife 15y ago
I think this post has important implications for business just as academia. It's about not falling back on the "I'm not smart enough to do that" excuse.
dasil003 15y ago
I'm not following your train of thought here. It seems like you have serious issues with academia, which is fine. But what does the assertion that intelligence and ability is honed by hard work and practice vs innate talent have to do with academic dogma? This is equally applicable to all human endeavor.
- sunchild 15y ago
  The debate about intelligence being a trait of nature vs. nurture is an academic debate, and not the takeaway here. What I took away from OP's story is that his friend "R" was a more useful source of lasting wisdom than his MIT instructors. Why? Because "R" had cultivated an air of confidence, charisma, and credibility. How "R" achieved this wisdom himself is a red herring. P.S. This also isn't about my gripes with academia. I have no problem with people squandering their time and money and lives on any variety of "rat race", including the various diversions that people consider to be an education. As I said, you have to "taste" for yourself to truly understand. I have no agenda to change anyone's mind with words. I was just sharing my own revelation about the OP's message. Allow me to further muddy the waters with another Nasrudin parable: An opinionated and small-minded cleric was lecturing the people in the teahouse where Nasrudin spent so much of his time. As the hours went by, Nasrudin realized how this man’s thoughts were running in patterns, how he was a victim of vanity and pride, how minor points of unrealistic intellectualism for its own sake were magnified by him and applied to every situation. Subject after subject was discussed, and every time the intellectual cited books and precedents, false analogies and extraordinary presumptions without intuitive reality. At length he produced a book which he had written, and Nasrudin stretched his hand forth to see it, because he was the only literate man present. Holding it in front of his eyes, Nasrudin turned page after page, while the assembly looked on. After several minutes the itinerant cleric began to fidget. Then he could not contain himself any longer. ‘You are holding my book upside down!’ he screamed. ‘I know,’ said Nasrudin, ‘Since it is one of the archetypes which seems to have produced you, it seems to be the only sensible thing to do, if one is to learn from it.’ (With credit to Idries Shah, Octagon Press)

verroq 15y ago

>Reddit is down. Perfect, maybe they'll actually get studying done.

tpatke 15y ago

I wonder how this relates to the "entrepreneurial selection process". According to PG [1]: - hard work is necessary but insufficient - entrepreneurs either have a very high probability of success or "epsilon". - it is easy to know (or find out) what group you are in. PG makes a strong argument...but then, so does this guy from MIT. Maybe they are talking about different things? Is intelligence more important for a startup founder then it is for a kid at MIT? [1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3392049 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3392049

mikedmiked 15y ago
The exact "work you need to do" is pretty much given to you when you do a degree. If you work hard on it and complete it all then it is hard not to succeed. When doing a start-up or in the "real world" you can easily fill up time with work which is not actually directing you towards your ultimate goal(s).
- jmilloy 15y ago
  When you're in school, it often doesn't seem like the work is given to you. I remember knowing this, and I remember when it switched over for me in different subjects or different contexts. I'm not sure that start up world or "real world" is any different, there are just new (more difficult) contexts which can start out seeming mysterious but can become routine (often in retrospect).
gexla 15y ago
Learning to code and actually coding are much like dealing with difficult courses. You work hard and you have to know how to find the knowledge you need. Being an entrepreneur is entirely different. You need to work hard, but there are a lot of things which aren't so linear. It's kind of like picking up chicks. Hard work and being smart doesn't help you there. ;)
peteretep 15y ago
I don't feel like there's any gap there. The Redditor is talking about a specific trap that some people who've been told from a young age that they're smart fall in to, at different ages. The trap involves - mostly - having not been challenged previously, and not knowing how to work through things that don't come easily. When I was a kid, I spent 6 years at a school in Barbados, and some time at a school in Thailand, where I was unambiguously the smartest kid in the class, with the top grades, always. Then at 10 I went to the UK's largest prep school. I was behind in Latin, French, and a bunch of other subjects - especially those which required any rote learning (which I hadn't come across up to that point). The transition to a school with /much/ better teaching saw me become a distinctly mediocre student almost straight away - faced with challenges, and faced with not being able to simply smart my way to the top of the class, I started rejecting work wholesale - something that stayed with me throughout the rest of my formal education, and led to me getting some truly shitty A-Level grades, to the disgust of teachers who saw much greater potential there. Hard work and talent are both important, and so is the ability to encounter and handle challenge. If you grew up in an environment where you were coasting at the top, the first time you encounter serious challenge you might well fall apart. I've recently started an MSc at what Americans would call an Ivy-League university (having talked my way without an undegrad degree), and the first module I'm working with is "Software Engineering Mathematics". Working through the chapters of the book I have consistently had real trouble getting to grips with the material. I want it to just fit in straight away - and I just want to understand it - and it doesn't, and that's a constant challenge. Being a little older, and a little more mature, I'm throwing everything I have against it now, and seeing real dividends for perseverance. But every day is a struggle of fighting against the part of me that doesn't know how to deal with challenge, and I put that down to the sudden transition from coasting to the top to sudden massive challenge, and having not dealt well with it at the time - which it sounds like the very very original poster was also struggling with.

martincmartin 15y ago

There's research behind this too. The book NurtureShock has a chapter on telling kids "you're smart" vs. "you worked hard." There was even some HN discussion on it. Basically, when you attribute your kids accomplishments to their being smart, they kind of freeze up when they get a problem they can't handle. But when you attribute it to hard work, they work harder to figure it out. There are a series of fascinating experiments that bare this out. For people into parenting books, I highly recommend NurtureShock. It's about the only parenting book I've found based on actual scientific research, as opposed to being somebody's opinion.

DavidChouinard 15y ago
Do you have a link/paper ont his? Legitimately curious.
- fribblerz 15y ago
  here's the HN thread : http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3284169 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3284169
- martincmartin 15y ago
  Apparently, the chapter of the book also appeared in New York magazine, although I can't find the reference so I don't know which issue. You can always read some excerpts on Google Books or Amazon, it's chapter 1 of NurtureShock.
  - jonnycowboy 15y ago
    You can find the article here: http://nymag.com/news/features/27840/ http://nymag.com/news/features/27840/
- realitygrill 15y ago
  Goto source is Carol Dweck; read Mindset for the general ideas and pick up Self-Theories for a in-depth look.
- 15y ago

BadassFractal 15y ago

What are some takeaways that us people in the industry can have from this? Should we be working harder? Should we be working smarter?

amorphid 15y ago
Work as hard as you can, learn your own strengths and limitations, learn to enjoy your successes without getting lazy, and struggle to understand something just enough so you can ask questions about does and doesn't work.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

rglover 15y ago

That advice was great, not only for younger students, but for those who have completed university (read: older) as well. Hands down, my favorite part of the piece was: "smart" is really just a way of saying "has invested so much time and sweat that you make it look effortless." All of the people that I truly admire (who subsequently I consider to be "smart") fall directly under this guise. They took the time and effort to learn how to be who they are. It's a simple idea, sure, but when it's really taken to heart it can change your entire outlook on things.

leilavc 15y ago

For anybody looking for solid tips on how to apply this attitude to their academics, I've found Cal Newport's blog* an invaluable resource. It's been linked to here before, mainly for its recent posts on 'deliberate practice' versus 'flow', but he also describes many strategies and tactics that high-scoring students at Ivy League-level universities use. They've helped me invaluably, and I find it a real pity that more students don't know about this writing. [*] http://calnewport.com/blog/ http://calnewport.com/blog/

forwardslash 15y ago
Thanks for the link! Definitely adding this to my daily reading.
b_emery 15y ago
I'm also a huge fan of that blog. This post is a favorite: http://calnewport.com/blog/2008/11/25/case-study-how-i-got-the-highest-grade-in-my-discrete-math-class/ http://calnewport.com/blog/2008/11/25/case-study-how-i-got-t... It redefined for me what it means to understand math.
- ctchocula 15y ago
  Thanks for sharing! I enjoyed reading how clearly and precisely he showed a way to master a difficult subject. The white printer paper reminded me of that "end artificial scarcity" article. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3396669 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3396669

rcamera 15y ago

That post is very good, but it could delve more on how to motivate oneself. I am therefor cross-posting my own post here, trying to add some more value to this thread. First, a disclaimer, this will probably sound too abstract and not a guide on motivating yourself to study, well, it's true, this is a comment on how to motivate yourself through your entire life, and studying is usually a big part of it. I've met very motivated people in my life, many of which are creating amazing things and companies. The first characteristic you can see in all these people is that they all have a well defined end goal. That's the first thing everyone should look for when motivating themselves, finding an end goal. This is essentially a long term goal, not short term ones. It must be a single goal, not a set of goals, else you will loose focus. I can hear you thinking already, "but I want to do so much", but that's the beauty of this end goal, it can be broad enough to cover all your dreams. This is the hardest question to answer ("what's my purpose in this life?"), took me 15 years (from the day I started to think about this, when I was a kid) to decide on what I wanted to do with my life, but the more life experience you have, the easier it is to decide upon it. When deciding on this, make sure you don't confuse the end with the means to reach it, so don't choose a specific goal such as become a doctor, or become the president of your country. Do you want to be a doctor, or do you want to actually save lives? Do you want to be the president, or do you want to build a better country/world? A tip that can help you with not confusing the end with the means is: state your end goal in 3 words or less. I can state mine in 2. The second characteristic motivated people have is confidence. They are usually pretty confident they can reach their end goal. This is one of the reasons people have very different goals. Many would say that making the world better is a good goal, but how many would say they got the confidence to do it? If you don't have the confidence, build it. A little example from my own experience: when a kid I was scared of skating down a big half-pipe from a park we used to go to. At that time, my goal was quite simple, have fun and skate better than my friends, but I didn't really have the confidence to accept the challenge of skating down that huge half-pipe. I built up my confidence by going down smaller ones (even broke an arm when doing that, but it didn't stop me, I learned from my mistake and started using gloves) until one day I was confident enough to try going down the large one, and so I did. That's how you build confidence. Lastly, after choosing your goals and building the confidence to do it, you need to decide on what way to take. For any goal, there are a wide choice of ways you can take to move towards them. Some ways are easier than others, some are more interesting, some are very challenging. This is what will define your short and mid term goals. Think of them as stepping stones so you can reach the end goal. Let's go back to one of our examples, you want to save lives. You can be a doctor and save lives, you can be a scientist, finding cures to diseases in a lab and save lives, you can be a fireman and save lives or even be an investor in nanotechnology labs and save lives. Which way is more appealing to you? Let's continue, you decided that by being a doctor you will save lives. First of all, what kind of doctor do you want to be? A cardiologist? A neurosurgeon? An E.R. doctor? Well, do you need to make that decision now? Not really, you can choose it while you are at college, so let's move on. Oh, right, you must enter college and graduate before becoming a doctor. Uhm, do you want to enter the best college you can? Damn, we need to study for the SAT then (I ain't American, not really sure how college admissions really work). Anyway, this is how you decide on the way. You state your end goal and work backwards from the longest term goal to the shortest one. That's how you decide on what means you will use to reach your end goal. Anyway, after deciding on all that, that's how you will be motivated to study for that algebra exam, or to pay attention at that physics class from that boring teacher at 6pm on a Friday. A couple important notes, I highly suggest you to never share your end goal with your peers. This usually undermines your confidence, and therefor, your motivation. Secondly, your goal, once defined shouldn't change. If it changes, it just mean you haven't found yours yet. What can change, and should change (due to changes in environment) are the means you choose to take. The means can always change, but they should always be moving you towards the end. An example, your country enters in war. This is highly disruptive to everyone's lives and this will very likely affect on the means you will choose to reach your goal, but shouldn't change your end goal.

tlear 15y ago

Great post, this happened to me in high school I got into a specialized school after being just above mediocre at a normal school. This was math/physics school in Ukraine that was basically one of 2-3 top schools in the country (whatever that means). First semester my usual mark in my math was 0/12. They only kept me because I was one of the best in programming and physics courses. Took me 5 month till I could solve one of 2 problems that they used for tests (3 hours 2 problems). In a way it was maybe too early, in university everything was too easy (I did not go to a top school because I had trouble getting a high enough TOEFL score and wanted to start as early as I could). It took failure in graduate school, then few years of wasted 9-5 code monkey work to get me to see the light again.

mynameishere 15y ago

The more I learned the more I realized that the bulk of his intelligence and his performance just came from study and practice Bullshit. When a 3rd grader masters differential calculus it is almost entirely hard-core innate intelligence combined with an innate ability to concentrate. No normal 3rd grade has the ability to study at that level. People who succeed often want to think it was entirely their hard work, and that lucky genes had no real influence. Think about it. If you take someone of average intelligence, he could spend his entire life, sweating and studying like crazy every day, and not get through MIT. Even Bill Gates went from Theory to Applied math at Harvard when he realized how difficult it was. If you think he isn't a determined, hard-working person, well... The truth is, he just didn't have the freakish IQ required for the work.

kingatomic 15y ago
I strongly doubt that the writer meant it to be taken literally that R.R. had mastered DiffEQs in 3rd grade.
- mynameishere 15y ago
  There are kids at that level at that age: No exaggeration. They are incredibly rare on earth, but when you get to MIT, they become much less rare.

thewisedude 15y ago

Genius: one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration : Thomas Edison

vijayr 15y ago

nice post. Can anyone share the tools/hacks that he is talking about? what worked for you, and what didn't?

nas 15y ago
We are three levels removed from the original post. This all seems very meta. ;-) Anyhow, I don't have much for tips. I was like the OP, too confident from my own good and was almost crushed by a college engineering program. I think my main problem is I often accomplish things by with intense fits of work. It's easy to underestimate the effectiveness of the slow-and-steady approach. I'm still working on improving with that. Regarding college, my advice is go to class, do the reading, do the assignments. If you can find a group to study and do homework with, that helps. I'd also recommend reading "Getting Things Done". The power of identifying the next task for a project is truly amazing and the "get it out of your head" ready does reduce stress.

Tichy 15y ago

What are good ways to learn how to study, though?

matwood 15y ago

Quite literally this is why I love climbing mountains alone, particularly 14ers. Every time I climb one I go through a range of emotions over the 5-7 hours it takes to reach the summit and back. When I start there is excitement as I see the peak in the distance. Then as I tire comes doubt and the fight with myself about turning around because no one would know, except me of course. The key is to never stop pushing forward. There often comes a point, especially on a new challenging mountain, where all I want to do is turn around. Instead I just focus on the next step in front of me. Step, breath, step, breath,... Then when I finally reach the top, the view is of course beautiful, but the real reward is looking back at the trail I followed and thinking that's impossible yet here I am.