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> As someone who was the “smart kid” growing up, going to the university without good work ethic was pretty eye opening, no longer being able to coast on intuit

> As someone who was the “smart kid” growing up, going to the university without good work ethic was pretty eye opening, no longer being able to coast on intuitively getting subjects, but rather either having to put in a bunch of effort while feeling both humbled and dumb at times, or just having to sink academically. Modern gifted education is very aware of this and is working on fixing that. How effectively, I dunno, probably not very, but at least it’s a hot topic in the field this century. Damn near every person I’ve know who was “gifted” has a similar story, myself included. There’s a lot of lost potential because we badly mis-handle those kids for years and years on end.

dsign 2y ago
I thought that I was gifted, but in retrospect, maybe I wasn't. I couldn't play any games well; not the physical ones, not computer games, not card or board games. The other kids would get them fast, while I was always dumbfounded and it took me a long time to grasp the rules. Once, it became popular to play Warcraft in my circle of friends and, try hard as I may, I was the rag they mopped the floor with :-) . But math, physics and computer sciences were another story, because growing up I didn't have anything more interesting to do than reading and solving exercises from old soviet textbooks. So, I think I wasn't gifted, or just gifted by serendipity.
- Jensson 2y ago
  Symbolic manipulation and intuitive understanding doesn't seem to be very correlated to me. I've met people who are very good at manipulating symbols, but they aren't very good at understanding less formal things like strategy games well, they tend to invent way too rigid rules for themselves and lose since they are bad at adapting. So maybe you are very smart with symbols, but less so with intuitive understanding? There is nothing wrong with that, makes it easier to decide what to work on, focus on your strengths and let others cover for your weaknesses.
  - lamontcg 2y ago
    My memory is kinda shit. So when I was in the gifted program, they got real concerned about how I didn't know my times tables and was super slow at a few of them. This was the 1970s, and before I knew binary, so 7s and 8s caused me issues. So I'd figure out 8x8 by going from 6x6=36 (real easy to memorize) and then adding +6+6 to mentally fill out the 8x6 block and then adding +8+8 to fill it out to a 8x8 block (I'm visual/geometrical). I was the first kid in school to pass the AHSME to get invited to take the AIME though. Being before the internet, and being stuck on an island in Alaska, didn't get me enough exposure to higher math through my own self-direction to get anywhere on the AIME. If you don't live anywhere near a University library and/or don't know you can use it, that'll set you behind (at least back then, these days there's YouTube and sci-hub and friends). I still think I would have hit a wall anyway with Math, even with perfect exposure, because I'm visual and higher Math seems to require being very good with symbols and memory as well. I suspect lots of people still underestimate me because my memory is ass, and we associate memory with intelligence so much (e.g. Jeopardy).
    - Viliam1234 2y ago
      I used to believe that I was good at math because my memory was shit. So I had to actually understand everything, because I couldn't rely on memorizing it. But some random facts were easy to memorize, for example that the chessboard has 64 fields. I had problems with 6×9 and 7×8 though, always confused about which one was 54 and which one was 56.
      - eastbound 2y ago
        Oh! So that’s why my teachers made us memorize row by row: For me 54 and 56 are in an entirely different category (resp the 6 and 8 categories), didn’t even realize they landed in the same dozen when learning my tables! And I don’t have a good memory either.
      - tharkun__ 2y ago
        I can't tell you what 6x9 is. But I can tell you what 9x6 is. I always turn that one around. My mind immediately jumps to a visual 60 coz 10x6 is super easy of course and subtracting 6 from it is easily 54. Similarly 8x7 I can't tell you but 7x8=56 in my brain feels like a little "rhyme" I just need to repeat and I have the answer. That's also how I remember (somewhat) arbitrary passwords. If it "flows" well almost like a rhyme and can be typed fluently I'll remember. Actual arbitrary ones don't work as well.
- novok 2y ago
  You might have certain targeted deficiencies that make processing those things well difficult. Like I have a hard time finding things in visual space, so I'm not good at jigsaw puzzles. I have slower reaction times & processing speeds also which makes me not as good at video games as I should be combined with the visual space deficiencies. When a shit ton of stuff is happening on screen I lose my place, while others might be able to manage it. But I also show an ability to think and learn deeply and score very well on symbolic and verbal intelligence, I also connect the dots very well and show a lot of skip thinking behavior. I call my brain a high torque, low RPM engine. Also you might not like anything that is 'competitive', so your brain shuts down in avoidance / disinterest. Or you might think deeply about everything, so it always takes you a while at first, but once you grasp it you grasp it at a deep level unlike others.
  - dleink 2y ago
    Hmm, this rings some bells for some people I know. Did you learn about those deficiencies and proficiencies in a systematic way or through experience? Any resources you'd suggest for thinking more deeply about these things?
    - novok 2y ago
      A neuropsychological assesment figured it out for me, helped me connect some dots also.
  - grugagag 2y ago
    Things improve with practice though, at least they did for me. I largely sucked at action video games as a kid, I also didn’t have interest probably because I wasn’t good. I took to learning musical instruments and now in my 40s I accidentally found Im pretty good at videogames, much much better than when I was young. Coincidentally I got better at sports as well.
    - odo1242 2y ago
      This reminds me of how a lot of top video game speedrunners (e.g. Portal) are professional musicians because they are very good with accurate timings lol
- NegativeK 2y ago
  Gifted/high IQ/whatever is not a blanket pass to excel. We'll suck at a lot of things, we're subject to plenty of the same mental illnesses and struggles, etc. Gifted education is intended to address the needs of the students beyond what can be provided in a standard classroom. That's not just more worksheets or harder textbooks; it should also cover students who are able to coast through the advanced classes and make sure they know that they, like every other human, won't have everything easy. A lot of school programs have missed the mark and a lot will, but education is a process of improvement. Many of the teachers today are doing better for the kids because of the lessons learned from our teachers. Special education (including gifted education) isn't legally mandated in schools to make the students prove they're eligible for the label. If you got value out of the program, it was meant for you.
  - nothercastle 2y ago
    Why do you think that after “no child left behind” the situation is better for talented kids? IMO the situation is much much worse. Many gifted programs are being eliminated and all classes are being slowed down to accommodate the bottom 33%. Even slightly above average kids are going to feel like 2 standard deviation genius doing basic school work because compared to the curriculum they are.
    - matheusmoreira 2y ago
      > Even slightly above average kids are going to feel like 2 standard deviation genius doing basic school work because compared to the curriculum they are. They'll be treated like geniuses too. I used to get treated like one because of my incredible ability to plug numbers into formulas and write down the answers that came out in a piece of paper. I simply did not understand how people could possibly have any problem with it. I found it so dull I ended up in a computers course where I learned to automate that kind of human computer nonsense away forever. They treated me like a genius for working out some basic math, and the truth is I suck at math. I actually like math, but I suck at it. I used to get away with never needing to do homework as a kid. As a result I never developed the discipline necessary to hone math skills. Now I want to learn something interesting like queueing theory but I barely understand the papers and articles because I'm missing numerous prerequisites.
- anthk 2y ago
  Roguelikes like Nethack/Slashem/Dungeon Crawl Stone Stoup and strategy/RPG games such as Liberal Crime Squad or Battle for Wesnoth would be easier for you.
Viliam1234 2y ago
As a gifted kid, when you get to university, you are supposed to learn work ethics practically overnight. Until then, between your 6 and 18 years, the school kept telling you that you should slow down and wait until the average kids also get it. That's like failing at a sprinting competition, when your entire training consisted of walking really really slowly.
- ChrisMarshallNY 2y ago
  My wife has a nephew that is insanely smart. Like, aced the SATs at 15 smart. His mother insisted that he have a fairly normal-paced education, and it seems to have paid off. He’s a really decent chap, who teaches at a university, is married, and has a kid. His college career was at top schools, though. They pretty much threw scholarships at him. I like the article. Very humble and encouraging.
- noduerme 2y ago
  There are gifted schools that don't force kids to slow down to the lowest common denominator. I went to one. In theory, they also enforce a work ethic. My problem was the reverse: I started working after school when I was 15, and when I got to university I found my peers had absolutely slovenly work ethics and no experience, and I was being taught things that were laughable in a real work environment, by professors who hadn't had a real job in decades (if ever). And I was supposed to be paying $30k a year for the privilege. I realized at 19 that I was better off at any pay rate in the private sector ;)
  - yial 2y ago
    I had a similar experience perhaps in some ways. I graduated high school and initially started university at 14. (I was tall, which is probably good in this case, as it let me pass for a very young looking maaaaybe 18, in the setting). My “work history” Has been 8 ish, doing yard work around town with 2 other kids (nothing crazy, weeding, push mowing, leaves, clearing brush, etc), and then working at a stables for a bit when 12. I ended up getting an hourly part time position at campus, at 16 ish I took a break for 2 years, worked in grocery, and then in pharmacy. 18, I ended up back at school. Embarrassingly it took me 3 more years to finish my undergrad. But I worked full time or nearly full time the entire time. (Floater pharmacy tech, part time backup event photographer, and then as a store manager at a hobby store). I found it very hard to make friends with people my own age, but found it incredibly easy to make friends with returning students - either they had worked a career and came back to school, or had done some time in the military etc., I also made some great friends who had moved to the U.S., usually as late teens, from developing countries. Knowledge, perspectives, etc I learned from these people … and from some people I ended up being very lucky to work with, honestly proved in hindsight to be much more impactful and valuable to my life and career then I could have ever imagined. I will say, tongue in cheek, but also some truth: You could probably apply the anna karenina principle to all of the people I can think of who were impactful in some way… either through the lens of trauma/ struggle / or dysfunctional family. (This would also apply to myself!)
sien 2y ago
It's funny, I was good at basketball as a kid. I played 'representative' and went to country championships. Doing that made it clear to you that you might be good in your city but there were still kids who were way, way better than you were likely to be. In contrast, smart kids often don't hit a 'bigger pool' until they get to university. In some ways many places are better at handling kids who are good at a sport than they are kids who are good at school.
- Terr_ 2y ago
  > In some ways many places are better at handling kids who are good at a sport than they are kids who are good at school. An abrupt cynical thought: Could it be related to how sports are closer to being a revenue-source?
  - ElevenLathe 2y ago
    What high school makes money from their sports programs? Even in basketball or football-obsessed towns, I doubt the ticket sales and concessions revenue from home games would even cover the coaches' salaries, transportation to away games, and uniforms. Most schools near me have players sell candy or coupon books to pay for their teams' expenses.
    - firesteelrain 2y ago
      Schools in some parts of Texas, Florida and Ohio https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-stadium-arms-race-snap-story.html https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-stadium-arms-race-snap-...
      - kjkjadksj 2y ago
        Those are rare and usually heavily alumni donor subsidized.
      - ElevenLathe 2y ago
        The cost of these mega stadiums seems even less likely to be covered by revenue from the teams.
BeFlatXIII 2y ago
There's "gifted" and there's gifted. The truly gifted often think they _have_ learned how to work hard because their classmates in the "gifted" classes got praised for their hard work. There's a top echelon of kid who is both common enough that every school district has 1–10 in each cohort but notably more advanced than what district standard gifted education is designed to handle.
dheera 2y ago
Same here. I used to be one of the math/science wiz in grade school. I also got hammered on the work ethic part, multiple times. Unfortunately studying/working 12+ hours a day in the name of "work ethic" impacts my body beyond what I can handle, and mental health as well. That's not the way I operated growing up, and my body isn't going to handle it all of a sudden now. Here I am, 3 cardiac arrests later, trying to figure out how to fit into a society where everyone seems to be hellbent on working every waking hour and eating UberEats while I'm trying to stay alive with immense amounts of self-care in my off-work hours (cooking healthy, hiking, actually disconnecting from the internet, etc.).
- throwaway2037 2y ago
  > Unfortunately studying/working 12+ hours a day I am confused. Why didn't you reduce your hours to find mental happiness?
  - paganel 2y ago
    Not the OP, but there’s another poster in this whole thread who says that he studied “16 hours per day” and that his former college mates, much gifted than him but who hadn’t studied as much, now live “mediocre” lives. Which is to say that this is the competition that lots of people who study in a professional environment (i.e. not for fun) have to grapple with, I feel sorry for them because I don’t see an easy solution for all this madness (because it is definitely madness to study 12-16 hours per day).
  - dheera 2y ago
    In high school I could sleep well AND ace everything. I didn't have to study that much to ace honors and AP courses. Partially because I aced everything, I got into one of the universities considered "top". Although I was excited about the research part, I quickly found out that many courses were hard af. I had to study 12+ hours a day to get good grades there. I did get good grades after the initial shock, but it was hard, I slept very little, and I fucked up my health doing it, without realizing it at first. Tech companies I have worked at, including the one I just left, routinely don't give you the option to work 8 hours. It's either you work 12+ hours to meet performance expectations or they ask you to leave. My body, unfortunately, cannot tolerate that and "needing to work normal hours" isn't generally one of the available disability accommodations.
brianf0 2y ago
I was an inner city “gifted kid” - although I’m proud of what I have accomplished so far, I feel like my potential was stifled, as you said mis-handled. I’m very interested in helping inner city gifted kids today unlock their full potential. How could I start?
noduerme 2y ago
Hey, screw modern education. Particularly if you went to a "gifted school". I was stupid for going to college for a year. At least I dropped out and saved myself a lifetime of debt. Think of the time you waste with that garbage versus how much you can "grok over a weekend" and the math is definitely in favor of the latter. The major flaw in the educational system in the US is that it's run for profit and it wrongly informs people they need to stay in it, rather than gaining real world experience. Coding, in particular, but also design and web are trades. Like bartending, plumbing, or fixing cars. They're really only learned on the job, and every school that promises to place you in them is a racket. (I also wasted $500 on two weeks of "bartending school" when I was 21, just to see a roster of horrifically shitty bars that were supposedly hiring. All lessons in who's scamming you should be that cheap. What does higher ed cost these days?)
- FranzFerdiNaN 2y ago
  Yes those people who went to school for dentistry or medicine or law or engineering are all idiots who just should have spend a weekend reading a Wikipedia page.
  - darkwater 2y ago
    Dentists and doctors in general is complicated because it's impossible to train "on your own", but law school...come on, you just need a good brain, patience and reading a lot.
- firesteelrain 2y ago
  You have some valid points like college won’t necessarily teach you what your job needs you to do. There have been some partnerships with companies where they have asked colleges to step in a build out degreed training programs. People with degrees regardless of degree do tend to make more money in the long run.
  - noduerme 2y ago
    >> People with degrees regardless of degree do tend to make more money in the long run. In aggregate. But that's wildly skewed by people who end up with higher degrees. If you look at bachelors, for every 2 people with a degree who make $20/hr bartending or selling used cars, there may be one person with no degree earning $150/hr coding or plumbing or fixing machines.
matheusmoreira 2y ago
I'm not sure being "gifted" has anything to do with it. High school is easy, and they keep dumbing it down over time. Little to zero effort is required to pass. This can fool people with a minimal amount of intelligence into thinking they're Very Smart. Especially since everybody keeps telling you that you're the smartest kid around and treating you like a nerd. I was able to get near max grades with little study in the subjects I cared about, and passable grades with zero effort in the ones I didn't. It can seriously warp one's perception of reality. When I got into medical school I straight up failed a class for the first time in my life right in my first semester. I got my ass kicked so hard it's not even funny. I had to put in actual effort into learning stuff for the very first time in my life. I had to spend all of my waking hours in the laboratories to learn this stuff. I met people who had zero issues studying 5-10 times as much as I did. In the middle of it all I got diagnosed with ADHD by the neurologist I was shadowing. This is when I finally understood the point of school. One of the most bitter complaints from students is the fact most people don't use the knowledge they learn. That's not really the point of school. The point is to just show that you can learn. The point is teaching you how to study and apply yourself so that you don't get your ass kicked later in life when the really difficult stuff starts. Perseverance and mental resillience. I'm not really a "gifted" person but people treated me like one and in retrospect it was quite detrimental to me. If anything they probably need to identify the "smart" kids and kick their asses harder because the existing classes aren't getting the job done. But if teachers do that people accuse them of tracking...
- hnfong 2y ago
  I wonder how many of these "work ethic" stories are just undiagnosed ADHD stories in disguise... I mean, this is the second time I see ADHD mentioned in this thread, and the story of somebody who just can't keep focus study for long hours kind of fits textbook symptoms. To be clear, I'm not saying everyone commenting here with similar stories have ADHD, but uh... if it rings a bell, maybe think about it. (FWIW, I suspect I'm also an undiagnosed case...)
  - matheusmoreira 2y ago
    Oh lots. Not all but lots. It's not like I have a study to point to but I still have no doubt about that. You'll see lots of ADHD types here and in similar forums. For some reason, ADHD people seem to be really attracted to technology. They have "attention deficit" and yet don't have any trouble at all concentrating for 10 hours straight on things they care about and I often find that technology in general is in that list. Remember that "bipolar lisp programmer" article? It's more like ADHD lisp programmer. Actual bipolar patients I've seen weren't like that. When I talk to an ADHD patient, I end up getting this distinct feeling they're talking about me instead. I run them through the diagnostic criteria and they match. I still refer them to a trusted psychiatrist regardless so that a proper differential diagnosis can be made, which does include bipolar disorder. Psychiatry is hard and I'm not about to underestimate the difficulty of it, especially since I could kill the patient if I'm wrong. So far getting this feeling seems to be virtually pathognomonic though.
varjag 2y ago
It's strange, smart kids in my uni absolutely aced it. Hate to be that guy but did you ever consider that you weren't much above average? It could be the weaksauce school curriculum issue.
- IOT_Apprentice 2y ago
  Aced what? I’m missing context it seems.
- ballooney 2y ago
  The guys who did well at my uni (a very good one) in my experience really were consistent in putting the work in. It's not that they had to really struggle with the material and homework problems, but they consistently did a good shift every day, and seemed to quite enjoy doing past exam questions when exam season approached, and all the rest. There was of course the odd mathmo savant who could see the matrix, but they were the exception. This was a good university that you've heard of, it had the best of the best aswell as well as the people like me. There were correspondingly people who I thought were brilliant and had serious flare, and have gone on to have excellent careers, but they didn't really Do The Work and their exams results reflected that. Thankfully, it doesn't really matter in the long run provided you survive it all psychologically.
nsagent 2y ago
This rings so true to me. In fifth grade after being given an IQ test, I took Algebra I early, only to retake it when I moved to junior high the next year. Then I had to retake trig because I did no homework, but aced the tests. Luckily the teacher recognized my ability and allowed me to take pre-calc while I retook trig. By the time I was in undergrad I had no motivation to study. I'd skip classes and cram the night before for any class that was memorization based. I didn't even buy the books, just went to the library and checked the book out for a couple hours. Fast forward a bit and I ended up dropping some classes because I was paying so little attention, I didn't even know when the tests were supposed to be. Came in one day and the prof said, "You missed the test last week, I presume you want to retake it?" That said, I've done well enough having gone back later in life to get a PhD, but I do wonder sometimes if I would have accomplished more if I was forced to push the boundaries of my ability, thus leading me to develop a work ethic earlier on.

dsign 2y ago

I thought that I was gifted, but in retrospect, maybe I wasn't. I couldn't play any games well; not the physical ones, not computer games, not card or board games. The other kids would get them fast, while I was always dumbfounded and it took me a long time to grasp the rules. Once, it became popular to play Warcraft in my circle of friends and, try hard as I may, I was the rag they mopped the floor with :-) . But math, physics and computer sciences were another story, because growing up I didn't have anything more interesting to do than reading and solving exercises from old soviet textbooks. So, I think I wasn't gifted, or just gifted by serendipity.

Jensson 2y ago
Symbolic manipulation and intuitive understanding doesn't seem to be very correlated to me. I've met people who are very good at manipulating symbols, but they aren't very good at understanding less formal things like strategy games well, they tend to invent way too rigid rules for themselves and lose since they are bad at adapting. So maybe you are very smart with symbols, but less so with intuitive understanding? There is nothing wrong with that, makes it easier to decide what to work on, focus on your strengths and let others cover for your weaknesses.
- lamontcg 2y ago
  My memory is kinda shit. So when I was in the gifted program, they got real concerned about how I didn't know my times tables and was super slow at a few of them. This was the 1970s, and before I knew binary, so 7s and 8s caused me issues. So I'd figure out 8x8 by going from 6x6=36 (real easy to memorize) and then adding +6+6 to mentally fill out the 8x6 block and then adding +8+8 to fill it out to a 8x8 block (I'm visual/geometrical). I was the first kid in school to pass the AHSME to get invited to take the AIME though. Being before the internet, and being stuck on an island in Alaska, didn't get me enough exposure to higher math through my own self-direction to get anywhere on the AIME. If you don't live anywhere near a University library and/or don't know you can use it, that'll set you behind (at least back then, these days there's YouTube and sci-hub and friends). I still think I would have hit a wall anyway with Math, even with perfect exposure, because I'm visual and higher Math seems to require being very good with symbols and memory as well. I suspect lots of people still underestimate me because my memory is ass, and we associate memory with intelligence so much (e.g. Jeopardy).
  - Viliam1234 2y ago
    I used to believe that I was good at math because my memory was shit. So I had to actually understand everything, because I couldn't rely on memorizing it. But some random facts were easy to memorize, for example that the chessboard has 64 fields. I had problems with 6×9 and 7×8 though, always confused about which one was 54 and which one was 56.
    - eastbound 2y ago
      Oh! So that’s why my teachers made us memorize row by row: For me 54 and 56 are in an entirely different category (resp the 6 and 8 categories), didn’t even realize they landed in the same dozen when learning my tables! And I don’t have a good memory either.
    - tharkun__ 2y ago
      I can't tell you what 6x9 is. But I can tell you what 9x6 is. I always turn that one around. My mind immediately jumps to a visual 60 coz 10x6 is super easy of course and subtracting 6 from it is easily 54. Similarly 8x7 I can't tell you but 7x8=56 in my brain feels like a little "rhyme" I just need to repeat and I have the answer. That's also how I remember (somewhat) arbitrary passwords. If it "flows" well almost like a rhyme and can be typed fluently I'll remember. Actual arbitrary ones don't work as well.
novok 2y ago
You might have certain targeted deficiencies that make processing those things well difficult. Like I have a hard time finding things in visual space, so I'm not good at jigsaw puzzles. I have slower reaction times & processing speeds also which makes me not as good at video games as I should be combined with the visual space deficiencies. When a shit ton of stuff is happening on screen I lose my place, while others might be able to manage it. But I also show an ability to think and learn deeply and score very well on symbolic and verbal intelligence, I also connect the dots very well and show a lot of skip thinking behavior. I call my brain a high torque, low RPM engine. Also you might not like anything that is 'competitive', so your brain shuts down in avoidance / disinterest. Or you might think deeply about everything, so it always takes you a while at first, but once you grasp it you grasp it at a deep level unlike others.
- dleink 2y ago
  Hmm, this rings some bells for some people I know. Did you learn about those deficiencies and proficiencies in a systematic way or through experience? Any resources you'd suggest for thinking more deeply about these things?
  - novok 2y ago
    A neuropsychological assesment figured it out for me, helped me connect some dots also.
- grugagag 2y ago
  Things improve with practice though, at least they did for me. I largely sucked at action video games as a kid, I also didn’t have interest probably because I wasn’t good. I took to learning musical instruments and now in my 40s I accidentally found Im pretty good at videogames, much much better than when I was young. Coincidentally I got better at sports as well.
  - odo1242 2y ago
    This reminds me of how a lot of top video game speedrunners (e.g. Portal) are professional musicians because they are very good with accurate timings lol
NegativeK 2y ago
Gifted/high IQ/whatever is not a blanket pass to excel. We'll suck at a lot of things, we're subject to plenty of the same mental illnesses and struggles, etc. Gifted education is intended to address the needs of the students beyond what can be provided in a standard classroom. That's not just more worksheets or harder textbooks; it should also cover students who are able to coast through the advanced classes and make sure they know that they, like every other human, won't have everything easy. A lot of school programs have missed the mark and a lot will, but education is a process of improvement. Many of the teachers today are doing better for the kids because of the lessons learned from our teachers. Special education (including gifted education) isn't legally mandated in schools to make the students prove they're eligible for the label. If you got value out of the program, it was meant for you.
- nothercastle 2y ago
  Why do you think that after “no child left behind” the situation is better for talented kids? IMO the situation is much much worse. Many gifted programs are being eliminated and all classes are being slowed down to accommodate the bottom 33%. Even slightly above average kids are going to feel like 2 standard deviation genius doing basic school work because compared to the curriculum they are.
  - matheusmoreira 2y ago
    > Even slightly above average kids are going to feel like 2 standard deviation genius doing basic school work because compared to the curriculum they are. They'll be treated like geniuses too. I used to get treated like one because of my incredible ability to plug numbers into formulas and write down the answers that came out in a piece of paper. I simply did not understand how people could possibly have any problem with it. I found it so dull I ended up in a computers course where I learned to automate that kind of human computer nonsense away forever. They treated me like a genius for working out some basic math, and the truth is I suck at math. I actually like math, but I suck at it. I used to get away with never needing to do homework as a kid. As a result I never developed the discipline necessary to hone math skills. Now I want to learn something interesting like queueing theory but I barely understand the papers and articles because I'm missing numerous prerequisites.
anthk 2y ago
Roguelikes like Nethack/Slashem/Dungeon Crawl Stone Stoup and strategy/RPG games such as Liberal Crime Squad or Battle for Wesnoth would be easier for you.

Viliam1234 2y ago

As a gifted kid, when you get to university, you are supposed to learn work ethics practically overnight. Until then, between your 6 and 18 years, the school kept telling you that you should slow down and wait until the average kids also get it. That's like failing at a sprinting competition, when your entire training consisted of walking really really slowly.

ChrisMarshallNY 2y ago
My wife has a nephew that is insanely smart. Like, aced the SATs at 15 smart. His mother insisted that he have a fairly normal-paced education, and it seems to have paid off. He’s a really decent chap, who teaches at a university, is married, and has a kid. His college career was at top schools, though. They pretty much threw scholarships at him. I like the article. Very humble and encouraging.
noduerme 2y ago
There are gifted schools that don't force kids to slow down to the lowest common denominator. I went to one. In theory, they also enforce a work ethic. My problem was the reverse: I started working after school when I was 15, and when I got to university I found my peers had absolutely slovenly work ethics and no experience, and I was being taught things that were laughable in a real work environment, by professors who hadn't had a real job in decades (if ever). And I was supposed to be paying $30k a year for the privilege. I realized at 19 that I was better off at any pay rate in the private sector ;)
- yial 2y ago
  I had a similar experience perhaps in some ways. I graduated high school and initially started university at 14. (I was tall, which is probably good in this case, as it let me pass for a very young looking maaaaybe 18, in the setting). My “work history” Has been 8 ish, doing yard work around town with 2 other kids (nothing crazy, weeding, push mowing, leaves, clearing brush, etc), and then working at a stables for a bit when 12. I ended up getting an hourly part time position at campus, at 16 ish I took a break for 2 years, worked in grocery, and then in pharmacy. 18, I ended up back at school. Embarrassingly it took me 3 more years to finish my undergrad. But I worked full time or nearly full time the entire time. (Floater pharmacy tech, part time backup event photographer, and then as a store manager at a hobby store). I found it very hard to make friends with people my own age, but found it incredibly easy to make friends with returning students - either they had worked a career and came back to school, or had done some time in the military etc., I also made some great friends who had moved to the U.S., usually as late teens, from developing countries. Knowledge, perspectives, etc I learned from these people … and from some people I ended up being very lucky to work with, honestly proved in hindsight to be much more impactful and valuable to my life and career then I could have ever imagined. I will say, tongue in cheek, but also some truth: You could probably apply the anna karenina principle to all of the people I can think of who were impactful in some way… either through the lens of trauma/ struggle / or dysfunctional family. (This would also apply to myself!)

sien 2y ago

It's funny, I was good at basketball as a kid. I played 'representative' and went to country championships. Doing that made it clear to you that you might be good in your city but there were still kids who were way, way better than you were likely to be. In contrast, smart kids often don't hit a 'bigger pool' until they get to university. In some ways many places are better at handling kids who are good at a sport than they are kids who are good at school.

Terr_ 2y ago
> In some ways many places are better at handling kids who are good at a sport than they are kids who are good at school. An abrupt cynical thought: Could it be related to how sports are closer to being a revenue-source?
- ElevenLathe 2y ago
  What high school makes money from their sports programs? Even in basketball or football-obsessed towns, I doubt the ticket sales and concessions revenue from home games would even cover the coaches' salaries, transportation to away games, and uniforms. Most schools near me have players sell candy or coupon books to pay for their teams' expenses.
  - firesteelrain 2y ago
    Schools in some parts of Texas, Florida and Ohio https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-stadium-arms-race-snap-story.html https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-stadium-arms-race-snap-...
    - kjkjadksj 2y ago
      Those are rare and usually heavily alumni donor subsidized.
    - ElevenLathe 2y ago
      The cost of these mega stadiums seems even less likely to be covered by revenue from the teams.

BeFlatXIII 2y ago

There's "gifted" and there's gifted. The truly gifted often think they _have_ learned how to work hard because their classmates in the "gifted" classes got praised for their hard work. There's a top echelon of kid who is both common enough that every school district has 1–10 in each cohort but notably more advanced than what district standard gifted education is designed to handle.

dheera 2y ago

Same here. I used to be one of the math/science wiz in grade school. I also got hammered on the work ethic part, multiple times. Unfortunately studying/working 12+ hours a day in the name of "work ethic" impacts my body beyond what I can handle, and mental health as well. That's not the way I operated growing up, and my body isn't going to handle it all of a sudden now. Here I am, 3 cardiac arrests later, trying to figure out how to fit into a society where everyone seems to be hellbent on working every waking hour and eating UberEats while I'm trying to stay alive with immense amounts of self-care in my off-work hours (cooking healthy, hiking, actually disconnecting from the internet, etc.).

throwaway2037 2y ago
> Unfortunately studying/working 12+ hours a day I am confused. Why didn't you reduce your hours to find mental happiness?
- paganel 2y ago
  Not the OP, but there’s another poster in this whole thread who says that he studied “16 hours per day” and that his former college mates, much gifted than him but who hadn’t studied as much, now live “mediocre” lives. Which is to say that this is the competition that lots of people who study in a professional environment (i.e. not for fun) have to grapple with, I feel sorry for them because I don’t see an easy solution for all this madness (because it is definitely madness to study 12-16 hours per day).
- dheera 2y ago
  In high school I could sleep well AND ace everything. I didn't have to study that much to ace honors and AP courses. Partially because I aced everything, I got into one of the universities considered "top". Although I was excited about the research part, I quickly found out that many courses were hard af. I had to study 12+ hours a day to get good grades there. I did get good grades after the initial shock, but it was hard, I slept very little, and I fucked up my health doing it, without realizing it at first. Tech companies I have worked at, including the one I just left, routinely don't give you the option to work 8 hours. It's either you work 12+ hours to meet performance expectations or they ask you to leave. My body, unfortunately, cannot tolerate that and "needing to work normal hours" isn't generally one of the available disability accommodations.

brianf0 2y ago

I was an inner city “gifted kid” - although I’m proud of what I have accomplished so far, I feel like my potential was stifled, as you said mis-handled. I’m very interested in helping inner city gifted kids today unlock their full potential. How could I start?

noduerme 2y ago

Hey, screw modern education. Particularly if you went to a "gifted school". I was stupid for going to college for a year. At least I dropped out and saved myself a lifetime of debt. Think of the time you waste with that garbage versus how much you can "grok over a weekend" and the math is definitely in favor of the latter. The major flaw in the educational system in the US is that it's run for profit and it wrongly informs people they need to stay in it, rather than gaining real world experience. Coding, in particular, but also design and web are trades. Like bartending, plumbing, or fixing cars. They're really only learned on the job, and every school that promises to place you in them is a racket. (I also wasted $500 on two weeks of "bartending school" when I was 21, just to see a roster of horrifically shitty bars that were supposedly hiring. All lessons in who's scamming you should be that cheap. What does higher ed cost these days?)

FranzFerdiNaN 2y ago
Yes those people who went to school for dentistry or medicine or law or engineering are all idiots who just should have spend a weekend reading a Wikipedia page.
- darkwater 2y ago
  Dentists and doctors in general is complicated because it's impossible to train "on your own", but law school...come on, you just need a good brain, patience and reading a lot.
firesteelrain 2y ago
You have some valid points like college won’t necessarily teach you what your job needs you to do. There have been some partnerships with companies where they have asked colleges to step in a build out degreed training programs. People with degrees regardless of degree do tend to make more money in the long run.
- noduerme 2y ago
  >> People with degrees regardless of degree do tend to make more money in the long run. In aggregate. But that's wildly skewed by people who end up with higher degrees. If you look at bachelors, for every 2 people with a degree who make $20/hr bartending or selling used cars, there may be one person with no degree earning $150/hr coding or plumbing or fixing machines.

matheusmoreira 2y ago

I'm not sure being "gifted" has anything to do with it. High school is easy, and they keep dumbing it down over time. Little to zero effort is required to pass. This can fool people with a minimal amount of intelligence into thinking they're Very Smart. Especially since everybody keeps telling you that you're the smartest kid around and treating you like a nerd. I was able to get near max grades with little study in the subjects I cared about, and passable grades with zero effort in the ones I didn't. It can seriously warp one's perception of reality. When I got into medical school I straight up failed a class for the first time in my life right in my first semester. I got my ass kicked so hard it's not even funny. I had to put in actual effort into learning stuff for the very first time in my life. I had to spend all of my waking hours in the laboratories to learn this stuff. I met people who had zero issues studying 5-10 times as much as I did. In the middle of it all I got diagnosed with ADHD by the neurologist I was shadowing. This is when I finally understood the point of school. One of the most bitter complaints from students is the fact most people don't use the knowledge they learn. That's not really the point of school. The point is to just show that you can learn. The point is teaching you how to study and apply yourself so that you don't get your ass kicked later in life when the really difficult stuff starts. Perseverance and mental resillience. I'm not really a "gifted" person but people treated me like one and in retrospect it was quite detrimental to me. If anything they probably need to identify the "smart" kids and kick their asses harder because the existing classes aren't getting the job done. But if teachers do that people accuse them of tracking...

hnfong 2y ago
I wonder how many of these "work ethic" stories are just undiagnosed ADHD stories in disguise... I mean, this is the second time I see ADHD mentioned in this thread, and the story of somebody who just can't keep focus study for long hours kind of fits textbook symptoms. To be clear, I'm not saying everyone commenting here with similar stories have ADHD, but uh... if it rings a bell, maybe think about it. (FWIW, I suspect I'm also an undiagnosed case...)
- matheusmoreira 2y ago
  Oh lots. Not all but lots. It's not like I have a study to point to but I still have no doubt about that. You'll see lots of ADHD types here and in similar forums. For some reason, ADHD people seem to be really attracted to technology. They have "attention deficit" and yet don't have any trouble at all concentrating for 10 hours straight on things they care about and I often find that technology in general is in that list. Remember that "bipolar lisp programmer" article? It's more like ADHD lisp programmer. Actual bipolar patients I've seen weren't like that. When I talk to an ADHD patient, I end up getting this distinct feeling they're talking about me instead. I run them through the diagnostic criteria and they match. I still refer them to a trusted psychiatrist regardless so that a proper differential diagnosis can be made, which does include bipolar disorder. Psychiatry is hard and I'm not about to underestimate the difficulty of it, especially since I could kill the patient if I'm wrong. So far getting this feeling seems to be virtually pathognomonic though.

varjag 2y ago

It's strange, smart kids in my uni absolutely aced it. Hate to be that guy but did you ever consider that you weren't much above average? It could be the weaksauce school curriculum issue.

IOT_Apprentice 2y ago
Aced what? I’m missing context it seems.
ballooney 2y ago
The guys who did well at my uni (a very good one) in my experience really were consistent in putting the work in. It's not that they had to really struggle with the material and homework problems, but they consistently did a good shift every day, and seemed to quite enjoy doing past exam questions when exam season approached, and all the rest. There was of course the odd mathmo savant who could see the matrix, but they were the exception. This was a good university that you've heard of, it had the best of the best aswell as well as the people like me. There were correspondingly people who I thought were brilliant and had serious flare, and have gone on to have excellent careers, but they didn't really Do The Work and their exams results reflected that. Thankfully, it doesn't really matter in the long run provided you survive it all psychologically.

nsagent 2y ago

This rings so true to me. In fifth grade after being given an IQ test, I took Algebra I early, only to retake it when I moved to junior high the next year. Then I had to retake trig because I did no homework, but aced the tests. Luckily the teacher recognized my ability and allowed me to take pre-calc while I retook trig. By the time I was in undergrad I had no motivation to study. I'd skip classes and cram the night before for any class that was memorization based. I didn't even buy the books, just went to the library and checked the book out for a couple hours. Fast forward a bit and I ended up dropping some classes because I was paying so little attention, I didn't even know when the tests were supposed to be. Came in one day and the prof said, "You missed the test last week, I presume you want to retake it?" That said, I've done well enough having gone back later in life to get a PhD, but I do wonder sometimes if I would have accomplished more if I was forced to push the boundaries of my ability, thus leading me to develop a work ethic earlier on.