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I was suddenly surrounded by people that were orders of magnitude better at computer science than I was. I had to study for hours to understand something they s

I was suddenly surrounded by people that were orders of magnitude better at computer science than I was. I had to study for hours to understand something they seemed to understand implicitly. I think seemed is the key word here. Many people that are good at what they do give the impression that it's a breeze for them. When examining it closer, it isn't: they spend plenty of time studying. I've never really gotten to the bottom of it, but the difference seems to be that they simply talk less about the studying and more about the material itself, which gives the impression they know their stuff very well, even though they studied hard as well.

asciilifeform 17y ago
> they spend plenty of time studying A comforting half-truth.
Periodic 17y ago
I bet most people don't talk about their studying, and if you don't see the person studying, what stands out is their ability. So if the person goes home and spends twice as much time studying as you do, you still only see the part where they demonstrate their knowledge. If they studied ahead, they'll look like they know everything when really they are working twice as hard as you. Basically, we humans are really bad at judging things, particularly abstract things like "intelligence". Heck, we can't even really define it yet. Just get your results, and be happy with those.