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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.
Drop out and start an Internet company. I hear that's the way to go these days.
Life in Orange County
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
Is this guy serious?
:(
It sounds to me like this guy is insecure about his intellegence and is falling back on Slashdot to boost his confidence. He describes himself as "uniquely bright," but admits he hasn't done anything spectacular to merit this title. Lots of people use Linux; that doesn't make them smart. The same thing goes with not doing well in high school. It doesn't mean they were too smart for their education, it just means they were different. Heartbreak
I realize that a lot of geniuses didn't do well in high school, but then, they weren't labeled such until after they did something to prove themselves. I could label myself as a champion bodybuilder because I go to the gym everyday, but the truth is I'm only benching 225. The same principle applies: you can't call yourself something unless you can back it up.
You're going to college and you have the rest of your life ahead of you. Find something you're good at, and stick with it. Just don't fall into the mentality that if you fail at something, it's because you're too "bright."
The World is Yours.
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.
You want to learn something useful: it's better to be kind than clever.
One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors - Plato
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.
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
This is possibly the worst possible motivation for getting a graduate degree (I should add I'm an academic myself so I have an idea of what I am talking about). The ONLY reason to get a PhD these days is for love of the subject. I couldn't bear the idea of not being involved in research in my field and my colleagues all felt the same. You will never make up the money you lose doing it, and in the end its not like people fall at my feet in worship everytime I use my title. Its a long, hard slog usually, intelligence is not the main factor in getting through anyway: its a work ethic and a bit of grit.
You can get just as much intellectual stimulation in industry if you land the right post. And get paid handsomely for doing it. The graduate degree is only for those who truly want it, we quite often see those who think of it as an intellectual penis-extending exercise fall by the wayside. And rightly so to be honest.
Plays violent online games as: Nerfherder76
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 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
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 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