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Uniquely Bright: Experiences and Tips?
An anonymous reader writes: "I would like to hear from fellow /.ers that consider themselves unusually but non-traditionally 'bright' and how you have dealt with it. What are you doing now? What did you do for education? How is your life now? I'm on the verge of entering college, never having liked school much yet always in love with learning. I would like some tips, suggestions, and experience in living with an extra degree of intensity, depth, and general intelligence. I love learning, yet I never have found school enjoyable. I'm incredibly intense and concentrated, yet I often become bored of specific projects in a few months. It's not anything diagnosable (I've looked into it) but more an inherent trait. Academically, I have managed to be alright, but nothing spectacular. Lots of people I meet think I should have a 4.0 easy, but I'm pretty far from it. My interests are broad, from computers (linux/os x/php/mysql/etc) to photography to cookery, I'm creative and technical. Friends and others recognize my strength in these areas. I can't stand being completely technical alone, but I love it in moderation. My attention span is practically unlimited when I am interested in a topic, and I get intensely interested in it. I want to hear from people who share some or all of these traits. I'm just coming up on entering college, so most of my life is ahead of me. I'd like to hear about everything from your education to your career to things you wish you had done differently!" Sounds like an INTP to me.
I couldn't take college and dropped out because of my arrogance, similar as yours. As a result I make 12 an hour for computer repair. It's not the boom anymore, kid.
You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake. You may have to tough it up and take a path that is not enjoyable to you, as most of the rest of us normals have done, and save the soul-nourishing for the weekends and holidays.
My blog can kick your blog's ass
You will have to focus and refine your talents to get anywhere. The ability to work really hard for a short time when you happen to feel like it won't help you any. Otherwise you will feel cheated when those without your "raw ability" whiz by you in life.
College is so you can show the employer that you can deal with a whole bunch of bullshit... stuff you didn't want to do and still did anyway.
...and then do it.
A lot of people (especially in here) are going to tell you "yeah, I'm the same...this is what you should do"
or
"Shut your whiney cakehole. Go to school, get a job, and go to work."
All bullshit.
Sample many things over the next few years, find something you like to do, and then go do it. After that, all bets are off.
If you can't find something you like to do, something that fits in you mindset at the moment...do something anyway! If it sucks...too bad. You still need to, at the very least, support yourself. Because I won't. And neither will the next guy. And your parents shouldn't have to.
My experience with this is limited, but that a lot of postgraduate education is not set up for your type; they're looking for people with more discipline, who will see projects through to the end and get published (and possibly make advancements in whatever field).
Your type of intelligence frustrates many people because it's not helpful; to produce usable software or make advancements in practically any field, you need to focus on them for a long time; I'd say that most of the "obvious" or "easy" discoveries have been made, and much of the research out there is fine-tuning what we know.
The best thing to do is to find a mentor, someone who has a similar mindset. You may find one at your institution, but you shouldn't rule out looking further. In order to do discover or create something important, you need to overcome this... Of course, lots of very effective managers and adminstrators are like this; expand your search for a mentor to maybe the field of business... And check your ego at the door. You may think you're incredibly bright, but just wait until you hit postgraduate education. I'm in medical school, and some of the people around me are exceedingly intelligent, and others are average joes like me. The higher you go, the more you realize you're not "uniquely" anything.
The real thing you need to do is get over yourself. You're not special. There's lots of people in this world that are just as smart as you. Once you get over yourself, the world is your oyster. "unusually but non-traditionally 'bright' "...jesus...Kill me. Get over yourself.
You'll have that sometimes...
A future PHB? All the ingrediants are there: arrogance, cockiness, self-delusion... Kid, you're headed for middle-management!
These are the types of unrealistic self-loving kids you get when all you do is shower little Johnny with positive reinforcement no matter how much he sucks at [fill in sport, hobby, or interest here]. Chances are, this kid attended government schools. And now he's comparing himself to those teenagers? Maybe you really are special, though statistically speaking, I doubt it.
You think you're bright, sharp, and multi-talented? Anyone can have that impression when they compare themselves to their coincidental surroundings (family, local friends, etc.) Think you're good at computers? Go to Berkeley or someplace where you will really be challenged. Like rockets? Get a PhD and join NASA. Great swimmer? Then get on the Olympic team. Otherwise, you're just another schmuck.
Don't get sucked into comparing yourself against easy targets like teenage pals. Until you work with the best in a given field (or even the pretty good) you have NO idea how much you suck.
And if you're good at cooking, go win an Iron Chef tournament. Until then, reel in the ego before you get pounded.
This one gang kept wanting me to join cause I'm pretty good with a bo staff.
My only advice would be to stop telling people you're "uniquely bright." It doesn't go over well. That kind of thinking is something you just keep to yourself...instead, demonstrate your intelligence through action. If you're interested in programming, I'd suggest picking a pet project and getting your hack on.
Yes!
Not so much that exactly, but don't think you're a fucking genius because you're the smartest kid in your highschool. It takes a lot to be succesful, intelligence alone won't do it. I'm sure most of know (or are) plenty of very smart people who are not effective in the real world because they can't communicate effectively.
College is a totally different story, particularly if you're going to a good one. You'll meet people there who are intelligent, motivated, and personable.
Also, if "non-traditionally bright" is a cop-out for not working hard enough to fulfilly your potential, well, good fucking luck. If you find your undergraduate degree easy (as I have to a large extent), you probably should have gotten into a better college. If you're in one of the best colleges for your degree, you should probably be getting another degree. If all those things are true, get a graduate degree.
--
lds
Don't be arrogant.
You'll go out and find you aren't as special as you think you are. Yes, I was the same way... and still am. I have a 3.92, graduated HS with lots of honors (higher gpa though... could have been higher if i didn't slack off my soph year), got all the comments about intelligence, genius, whatever. Now i'm a junior in college and work too.
I have a co-op job and work with some people I concider not as intelligent as I am or they just don't grasp things like I do... but I don't care. They know things that I don't, they think differently than I do, but they're engineers, they're smart too. You can be gifted in many different ways (I used to work at a bagle shop and had an awesome General Manager there. He was gifted in his own right and I highly respect him).
At work I have it setup where I get daily dilbert when I log into my computer... odly enough last week was pretty much all about the "prima donna" of the office. And now my only advice to you is to try not to be that guy.
Even in classes the same rule applies. Don't be that guy who thinks he's god's gift to the classroom/lecture hall. I've seen plenty of those, and no one likes them.
Who did we like or admire? The guy who got close to the higest grade on all the exams but kept to himself. He was bright, and not an ass hole.
Sure you might have the gifts for science, computers, art, music, or whatever you like... but what you really need to keep up in the real world is to have the social skills.
Article: "Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments"
abstract: "People tend to hold overly favorable views of their abilities in many social and intellectual domains. The authors suggest that this overestimation occurs, in part, because people who are unskilled in these domains suffer a dual burden: Not only do these people reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it. Across 4 studies, the authors found that participants scoring in the bottom quartile on tests of humor, grammar, and logic grossly overestimated their test performance and ability. Although their test scores put them in the 12th percentile, they estimated themselves to be in the 62nd. Several analyses linked this miscalibration to deficits in metacognitive skill, or the capacity to distinguish accuracy from error. Paradoxically, improving the skills of participants, and thus increasing their metacognitive competence, helped them recognize the limitations of their abilities."
I felt the same as you...maybe I'm as smart as you and maybe not.
But here's the thing that has made my life invaluable. No shit...
FIND AND CHERISH GOOD FRIENDS.
Your talents will take you wherever they take you, but friendship will fill the gaps.
Evil is the money of root.
Be prepared for your spirit to be crushed
After that happens you'll understand what you're really capable of, and you'd be surprised how little you know now. You'll start to understand what all the 'old people' on slashdot are waving their canes about too.
If you're realisticly confident in your own abilities you have a chance of having them happen. Life is a lot about working and trying hard. You will have to work for everything you ever do, and if you dont work for it, you wont be able to appreciate it. If you're confident and you understand that you need to fail to get better, you have a chance of becoming what you think you can be.
As a side note, its a pretty naive and narcissistic view to feel your all that and a bag of chips.
http://github.com/gbook/nidb
That's a little rude. Accurate, but a little rude.
Here's a more correct message:
There are people who by their upbringing (religion, social forces, parents) are predisposed in any of many ways that limits their own abilities significantly. You are not one of them. Anything you do, you will enjoy and will be good at. Note that I did not say great, I said good. Great takes work. So you have a few choices:
Do anything you want, enjoy it, and live off it.
Work very hard suffering mentally at first, and eventually have big payoffs (psychologically and likely financially).
Work very hard suffering mentally the whole way. Rewards come but you push them away because they just interfere with what's important.
Resign yourself to become just a mindless peon.
Most people are dead long before they've died. They might marry, have children, even occasionally read a book but they are acting on external stimuli alone and are, to be blunt, nothing more than walking sacks of chemicals doing everything they should do. They've lost the spark entirely.
I am just as guilty as the next person in causing my own undoing. I do take a little from the fact that I at least acknowledge it, and try to fight it. Who knows, even I may not end up useless after all.
There's lots of people in this world that are just as smart as you.
The thing that separates intelligence and genius is a lot of disciplined, tiring, rigorous work. And by tiring, I mean staying at the lab for days straight while your roommate calls the cops thinking you have been nabbed. The trap I see many "unusually bright" people fall into is that because everything came easily to them in High School, they never learned to really work at things. But really working at things is how you get somewhere in life... really working at things is how you separate the unusually bright and kind of good from the unusually bright who dedicates their life in a sheer bloody minded pursuit. Simply being brighter and better than most of the people in your High School isn't even enough to avoid crappy jobs... a friend of mine memorized my set of Encyclopedia Britannicas in the span of two weeks, yet jumps from crappy retail job to crappy retail job because he just doesn't "enjoy" doing anything. In reality, he's not dedicated enough to get beyond crappy jobs and into something that he would like doing.
We all say that intelligence is the highest achievement, but that's not entirely true. Intelligence is distinct from knowledge, which is distinct from dedication. All three are necessary for success.
If you want my advice, do a trial by fire. Do something REALLY hard and unpleasant, like outward bound, the AIDS ride across Alaska, or spend a summer of thankless backbreaking toil on an Alaskan fishing boat. Ultimately, you will be glad you did.
The ______ Agenda
I too thought (well I guess I still do) I was incredibly bright and talented. Straight As in high school without even trying really. Head on out to Carnegie Mellon and WTF...I'm not the brightest anymore. In fact, I had to bust my ass to be just above average. Since then I've worked a myriad of jobs and started a few companies.
The point is, go get humbled. Find out where your strengths and weaknesses are once you're thrown in with the cream of the crop. You may find you're in the top 5% when it comes to coding but the bottom 5% in communication and reasoning. If, after four years you still find you're a genius, go out in the world, say you got superior grades at a top notch school and do whatever the hell you want. My guess is though, you'll be eating a little humble pie for the first couple semesters at school.
"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts...for support rather than illumination." - Andrew Lang
I came to two important realizations a couple years ago.
....Most of all, take all of this with $.02....it is your life, choose for yourself.
First, people who are intensely brilliant in one or more areas are usually intensely stupid in other areas.
Second, brilliance does not count for anything if you don't have the discipline to stick to the task.
You may be bright in computers and normally insightful in many technical areas, but that frequently means that you are stupid about human nature, politics, music, religion, or some other basic area. I have a co-worker who is brilliant with a debugger, but who is constantly afraid that he will be fired because he can't communicate well with his manager.
One of my friends in college had amazing intuition. He skipped 90% of the classes one semester and consistently got A's or B's on the exams. However, when he got a job, he stopped showing up for work for two weeks, was nearly fired, and pulled the same stunt again a month later and was fired. As for myself, I would be making 10% to 15% more right now, in my 4 year old post-college career, than I currently am if I would have had the discipline to work on what I was supposed to be doing rather than what I felt like doing.
Before you get the attitude that you are so smart, ask yourself who you are comparing yourself with. I grew up in Southern Idaho, in a town of 5000 people where I would guess that less than 1/20th of the population had a bachelors degree or better. Now I live in Seattle where most of the population has a college degree and I work for a company that employs more than twice the number of people in the county that I grew up in. In Idaho, I got the same comments that you claim to get, and in Seattle I am just one of thousands.
Life is in constant flux. Tomorrow, psychology may be the hot field and software may be the next "automotive industry", don't choose a field because of the pay.
Today, a college degree is frequently a prereq for consideration for any desirable job. I wouldn't skip college, mostly because of all of the extras that you learn. Life in the dorms or in a fraternity and make friends.
Don't forget about finding someone to spend your life with, at some point computers won't mean all that much and you will want to know how to talk to someone that you are attracted to.
If you are passionate about something and make it your job, make a point to develop a hobby or else you will burn out. Computers have been my obsession for 15+ years and software has been my carrer for the last 4 and now I play with my container garden and listen to music instead of sitting on the computer when I come home.
Aside from that, figure out what you want to do and go do it. Life is to short to be doing something you hate.
I think a high percentage of the people here are pretty smart, because Slashdot really doesn't have much for people who are not. That being said, since we're debater-types, we tend to be a little mean-spirited. I apologise on behalf of my fellow Slashdot users for the insulting tone of many of these messages.
The fellow who edited your comment mentioned that you were probably an INTP. This is true; so am I. This means that you are devoted to finding logical solutions to problems, and are dreamy and absent-minded if you're not involved in something that interests you. This would seem to fit your educational profile to a "T".
About 1% of the population are INTPs. Since they're logical and like designing things, they tend to gravitate towards computing as a career, so you see a very high percentage of them here.
Perhaps the most revealing thing about the Meyers-Briggs type indicator, which is where these strange four-letter acronyms come from, is that people are very different, and many of the differences can be described by a simple formula. I've found that even with very complex people, the Meyers-Briggs attributes make it easier to deal with them and understand at least parts of how their minds work.
A good example of how people think is based on logic. When I was younger, I thought logic was the be-all and end-all, and that it was simply impossible to make sense of contradictions. Now I understand that there are people who don't care about contradition; they just care about getting work done and if this means doing things that are not strictly logical, well, that's what will be done and that's what they need. This is very important to understand when programming systems such as reports which may have seemingly contradictory attributes. A pure INTP would simply say its not possible to do them. An INTP with some seasoning and social understanding will try very hard to untangle the contradictions and find a solution that works.
Many times the best type of person for you is someone very different from you. People who use feelings to make decisions, for example, are capable of deep love and can make wonderful relationships. People who are strictly logical wind up looking cold and characterless, both to that type of person and to each other. So if you check out the Meyers-Briggs and use it to classify people, don't forget the feelers. They may bring some much-needed passion into your life.
Now, it's worth noting that types are not the be-all and end-all. They don't describe everything about a person. I have dated a couple of INFJs, and they've always been special to me. It's clear to me that I have a real affinity to that type of person. But both of them were very different and distinct people, despite having similar basic personalities. The one I'm involved with now is a wonderful creative artist who has brought much joy into my life.
I've used these four-letter acronyms so much I feel like i should explain the MBTI a little. Full knowledge of it takes whole books, but at the root, it's simple. There are four different attributes that define a personality in the MBTI:
Introvert/Extrovert (I/E). Are you energised by being with other people, or by being alone?
iNtuitive/Sending (N/S). Do you concentrate on things as they are (sensing) or as they should be (Intuition)? Do you think of things as concrete facts (Sensing) or Principles (Ntuitive)? As an iNtuitive person, I get along much better with my fellow dreamers than with those bores who are sunk in drab reality.
Thinking/Feeling (T/F). Do you make decisions based on objective fact (Thinking) or by the effects they have on others (Feeling)? Most people in the computer field are thinkers. A large percentage of women are feelers. This is why computing is such a male-dominated field, and why computer people tend not to have a good understanding of the opposite sex.
Perceiving/Judging. Do you have a clean desk (Judging) or a messy desk (Perceiving)? Do you pre
You're a smart guy Spara. That's where we're cursed.
See, what most people don't know is that smart people like us, like many on Slashdot, are cursed. Intelligence is a frigging prison.
Why? Because we think ourselves out of the white picket fence. I live in the south where most rednecks are happy working in a factory and knocking up women like it was going out of style. And they love that lifestyle and God bless em for it.
But us? We think too damn much. We think until we push ourselves outside of the Matrix(TM) , and we sit here, eating some snotty goop and thinking "Why?'
So all you dumbasses out there, you know, those that could never fabricate a circuit board, never write a line of Perl, or tell the difference between Everclear and a nice Amarone: Consider yourselves lucky. You live nice, happy, simple lives. Fulfilling lives. You feel good when you die.
Us, the "smart" ones, on the other hand, live like savage refugees. We ask too many damn questions and pay the price for trying to pick the brain of God.
Oh, and before I go too off-topic: In Soviet Russia, Natalie Portman's hot grits outsmart YOU, All your Base are belong to step 3, Bill Gates is the sux0r.
vi ~/.emacs
The first question everyone asked was, "He was so smart, so why didn't he succeed?" The answer is so obvious that few people were willing to see it. He wasn't wise enough to know that he wasn't as smart as he thought he was. The second reason is that very few people give a damn about how smart you are. You will be judged based upon what you complete, and if your attention span is limited only to what you find interesting, you are destined for failure. Your boss will ask you to do something that is not interesting to you because it needs to be done. If you make a habit of (a) saying "no" or (b) not doing it with the effort required for successful completion, you can complain to the people standing next to you at the unemployment office.
Reiterating what many others have said, stop whining and prove your worth. I'd recommend college because I know very few employers who will even consider hiring people without college degrees for anything less than factory assembly or janitorial staff. Why? College doesn't prove that you're smart because lots of stupid people graduate each year. College shows that you can dedicate yourself to a long-term goal of accumulating a functional knowledge of a discipline and succeed at an acceptable level. If you aren't willing to do that, be prepared for heartbreak, as most companies are not willing to take a chance with you, however promising you claim to be.
There are two types of people: those prepared for the zombie apocalypse and those who will be eaten.
I disagree. He is special and unique, just like everyone else.
My advice:
I'm not entirely sure what the big rush is to go to college. I recommend living in a foreign country first, preferably one with a different language and a different culture than your own. Find a university or college town or smaller city in this country and plop yourself down for a year to learn the language. Avoid places with huge tourist industries, but if there is a little tourism, that's good. It will give you an opportunity to meet other travelers and the occassional opportunity to hang out with a countryman (or woman). Also, there's a better chance other people will be able to speak your language.
Now, if you don't have much money to start with, let me suggest a third world country, or at least a developing nation. Work for 6 months, save $300/month, and you'll have enough to live in Mexico or Central America for a year, if you live very frugally. I know students that are renting decent rooms for $75 US in Guanajuato. You can eat pretty well for $100/month, less if you cook your own.
Once you pick up enough of the language, you can look for opportunities to supplement your income. Do you want to take language classes? It might be possible to teach an English class in exchange for a language class.
Travel really does broaden the horizons. Real travel, that is. A two week vacation is generally not long enough to really soak up a different culture.
At the end of the year, evaluate. What do you want to do next? More travel? College? Work? Some combination of the three?
The most important thing is not to get sucked up into the values and expectations of those that haven't really examined life. They'll tell you everything you need to know about being successful*, but they know nothing about being you. If you just focus on being you, or as the parent poster suggested, being the best you, you'll do much better than 99% of the other unique and special people.
*I advise going into plastics.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
Ok you two, you've now figured out the truth and will have to be taken out. :-)
I've pretty much concluded the same thing, life is actually pointless in that it is only a temporary thing anyway. As it sits we could be wiped out of existence tomorrow in many ways, at which point everything we've ever been is gone and was entirely meaningless.
So, do what you enjoy doing, it will all be over quicker than you'd like anyway more than likely, I don't imagine too many folks are ready for death once it comes, although I expect they don't realize that after they are gone either.
You only get one ride, enjoy it while you can because it's gonna be dark a long time afterwards. Life is basically a vacation from death some author once said.
>> I have always hated school too. It bears no resemblance to the real world ... I have a little less than 2 years left
It's wonderful that only 2 years into college, you've got the real world all figured out. In reality, you haven't reached the best part of an undergraduate education yet, and you certainly haven't gotten an education in the real world.
>> Like highschool its 90% bullshit.
That's code for:
"I think I'm really smart, but I haven't done that well academically. Therefore, school must have been bullshit."
Sure. Basic math, science, and writing skills are a complete waste of time, as are history and the social sciences. Right. You were ready for the real world right out of middle school!
Back to reality again. The general education classes will teach you a LOT about a wide range of things if you're willing to put a little effort into them.
Ah, what do I care? Feel free to go through life a complete ignoramus when it comes to subjects that don't interest your narrow, closed-off mind.
I see all the issues that you see. I feel bad when I don't buy my products carefully. I have what I have come to term "Affluent White Male Guilt." That makes me sound like a whinging middle-ager with a potbelly. I'm not.
Lately, I've been thinking about ambition and ego. And I realized that some of this guilt that I have, and I'd guess you share, about not doing enough is because we can do so much. I'm comfortable in social situations, get along well with people, intelligent with computers. Those are my traits. But the rest is luck: I'm in the luckiest 100th of a percent in the world in terms of where I was born, when I was born, how I was raised. Wealthy enough to go to school, not so wealthy to be shielded by it. I've traveled, etc.
All of this sounds like a giant ego trip, and to some extent it is, but the point is this: I think that those of us who, like me, are just that lucky, share a certain guilt. This is the guilt of being lucky, and knowing it, and knowing that you don't do enough with it.
And I believe that is the curse that you speak of. It's not intelligence, but intelligence is part of the luck.
-Rob, taking it one step further.
-Rob Ewaschuk
Erm, 'ello. I'm a bit fick aledgedlee from wot you is sayin' abowt cognitiv'bilitee. Maybe I'l full of myself but it taysts liek a cheze towsti. Yum. Innit.
:). When researching my masters I could look back and see what an immature person I had been as an undergrad and how my attitude towards people I felt were slower than me, or generally less intelligent (i.e. everyone) was a load of bullshit. I still harboured a secret knowledge that I was better than all the other people on the course.
.....
:) Grow up. It might take 20 years but the journey is worth it.
Where was I. Slashdot has far more "up themselves" teenaged geeky nerds than you will get anywhere outside a Maths and Star Trek convention. Those people will, as is natural at 16 (and on to 15 or so) believe they are the dogs bollocks and that they are better than everyone else.
However if you read the more mature, legible, sensible, well-thought-out, adult posts - which are probably from those of us who have "been there, done that" as it were, you'll realise that most of us (and I mean the human race in general) feel alienated, differently clever (ooh, so politically correct) or whatever at some point in our lives.
For example at school I felt "superior" to most people around me. As an undergrad I realised what a twat I have been at school and that some people might actually be almost as intelligent as me (obvioujsly not quite as intelligent as their exam results were better
Then it came to my PhD - I was 25, I had travelled the world, lived away from home since I was 18 and I was much more secure and mature. I could look back on even my masters and see how conceited I was at 22! I was surrounded by people of the same intelligence as me - but in differen ways - which is why we were studying different topics! I felt properly grown-up at last and was over all the stupid angst and self-righteous feelings as before.
Now I'm over 30 and I can look back and see that even at 25 I had a lot of growing left to do. I am sure that at 40 I will feel the same way
To summarise. get over it
Troc.
Troc's dubious podcast and blog: http://www.trocnet.net