at what point in your life did you realize that you aren't smart enough?

[fatpat268]

I've never felt like I wasn't smart enough. I've often felt like I didn't work hard enough. Probably too smart for my own good.

This. I almost certainly would've had a 4.0 gpa in college if I studied hard enough every day and didn't procrastinate. Instead I studied the night before, and started papers at the last second possible. I settled for a ~3.5 gpa. Not bad, imo.

 

[Matthiasa]

Not smart enough... well not yet.
That I was way to lazy probably an E&M class I had last semester.
I'm going to have to start really studying... so evil.
Before that my laziness still got me into honor society junk.

 

[BassBomb]

I am smart enough, I just don't work hard enough to back it up

 

[Regs]

I'm living in a van down by the river.

"Growing up, you kids are going to realize you're going to amount to jack squat".

I realized what I was going to be when I was very young and if I had half the brains my uncle or sister have, I would likely be president by now.

I hate math and accounting,but yet I am business major....Of course everything in business involves phenomenal communication skills and math competency for forecasting and financial benchmarking.

 

[HydroSqueegee]

I put all my energies in hobbies. aka all the things i like to do that i cant make money doing. After high school i had no ambition to go to college. Finally went to a tech school because i like computers and it was really the only thing i liked i could turn into a career. Its worked out well so far. My new job has me realizing how much i still dont know though. Learning is a fun process.

 

[moshquerade]

We don't all have to be neurosurgeons to feel fulfilled.

 

[TXHokie]

When I first got a 46 in my midterm in an engineering class, and it was still a B due to curve.

 

[DrPizza]

I've got a plaque around here somewhere for being #1 in the university my Junior year. I know plenty of people smarter than me, and there are posters here that I suspect are smarter. But, I've never felt limited.

 

[KeithTalent]

2nd year University when I almost flunked differential calculus. Good lord I hate calculus.

KT

 

[ViviTheMage]

I want to be a cinemotographer, i've done it a few years ago, but I want to do it for movies/TV shows...

 

[Gibson486]

D:

Damn you Gibson! Thanks to your post I just now realized I'm NOT quite smart enough.

I'll just need to comfort myself with all these hotties and money that litter my house.

Well, sorry, but when you get back home, you will just be left with hotties that rank 9/10. Sorry, I went there to pick up the 10/10 hotties. They were all impressed when they saw how rare my degree was. To them, my degree and money made me hotter than a baby Shiba Inu. Pffff....Ivy league school...how many degrees did they put out last year?

 

[bignateyk]

I'm smart enough. I just realized I didn't have the motivation to get my Ph.D in EE, so I dropped out after my first semester of grad school and took a full time job...

 

[bignateyk]

I want to be a cinemotographer, i've done it a few years ago, but I want to do it for movies/TV shows...

video-taping yourself jerking off into your webcam doesn't count...

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

I don't generally work hard enough to know although I'm not going to say if I just worked harder I'd be without limitations.

 

[ViviTheMage]

video-taping yourself jerking off into your webcam doesn't count...

Damn ... better take that off my highlight reel.

 

[PaperclipGod]

Everyone who says they're smart enough but just "don't work hard enough" -- isn't that lack of drive a synonym for lack of intelligence? If you were smart enough, you'd have the mental fortitude and discipline to force yourself to just get through it, because it's worth it in the end. Instead, you've made the decision (the wrong one, by your own admission) to forgo the difficult, boring work in lieu of more immediate gratification.

I suppose this is where you get to that ambiguous line between "intelligence" and "personality" -- which one is most influential when making a choice?

 

[Sho'Nuff]

I have a BS in chemistry, a JD from a tier 1 law school, and I practice intellectual property law. When I worked for a law firm, I felt like I was a pretty smart cookie. I was well respected in my firm, did good work, made a good living, but worked WAY to damn much.

So I left, and became the in house patent counsel for a small startup company. I realized very quickly that while I am a pretty decent lawyer, I don't know jack squat about business. I also realized that I don't know anywhere near enough about engineering. Oddly, I learned both these things when sitting in a meeting with Dean Kamen, my boss, and a very successful investment banker. Three, ENORMOUS brains. And then me. It was quite humbling to say the least.

 

[PaperclipGod]

I have a BS in chemistry, a JD from a tier 1 law school, and I practice intellectual property law. When I worked for a law firm, I felt like I was a pretty smart cookie. I was well respected in my firm, did good work, made a good living, but worked WAY to damn much.

So I left, and became the in house patent counsel for a small startup company. I realized very quickly that while I am a pretty decent lawyer, I don't know jack squat about business. I also realized that I don't know anywhere near enough about engineering. Oddly, I learned both these things when sitting in a meeting with Dean Kamen, my boss, and a very successful investment banker. Three, ENORMOUS brains. And then me. It was quite humbling to say the least.

TwinPeak?

 

[AstroManLuca]

When I failed both Calc 2 and Food Science and got a D in O-Chem, all in one semester.

I changed to a much easier (for me) major, Technical Communication, and haven't looked back since. Graduated with a major GPA over 3.5 (cumulative was 2.9 due to failing all those classes).

I enjoy science but I'm not cut out for it. I'd rather keep it as a hobby than try to make a career out of it, thus making it not fun anymore.

 

[Daedalus685]

Never felt like I wasn't smart enough.. though when I got ill and was confronted with the choice of quitting school to do it again with better marks or finish now with low ones I realised I no longer gave two shits about my accademic career and a PHd was not for me. I have a BSc, feel I know how to do things better than half of the PHds I work with and don't bloody care what my paper says I am capable of doing.

Though when I met my fiance who is now in a graduate program after getting two degrees at the same time with distinction I realised how bad I was at school and how disconected intelligence is from high grades in most of the sciences. Grades are 80% motivation (or fear as it were) 10% ability to use the system, and 10% smarts.

 

[Terabyte]

Eh, to me, college doesn't test how smart you are. A lot of the classes I've taken are all about memorization. After taking these classes, I've learned that I either 1) suck at memorization or 2) don't care enough to memorize all this useless shit. I mean what's the point of memorizing glycolysis, kreb's cycle, and other shit like that? I'm pretty sure people reference books and other materials when needed on the job.

I went into college with a undeclared life science major. Then after a few quarters, I chose Biological sciences for a major. I took the required classes and did pretty shitty -- shitty enough to need to switch majors. I sat down with my adviser and she told me I can switch to nutrition or food science. I chose food science because it sounded more interesting and easier than nutrition. I'm doing much better than I have ever done as a biological sciences major, but as a result of switching majors, I have to stay a fifth year.

 

[gimmewhitecastles]

To achieve a lot of your goals, not only is intelligence important, but also your level of competitiveness. I know a lot of people whom are incredibly smart but do just enough to coast through life.

 

[Saint Nick]

Being smart enough should have nothing to do with anything, however, I do understand what you are saying.

During high school, I thought a lot of my friends were smart. They were getting the grades on all of their calc homework and seemingly understood everything and I felt like I was behind somehow. But, then I realized it was all because they were on a sports team or they cheated off of the select two people that were actually smart in high school.

During college, all of those guys who I thought were smart ended up majoring in elementary education. One of those two people who were actually smart graduated with a degree in economics, finance, and mathematics, a triple major.

That one person ended up going to a tier 1 school (U of Iowa) with a 34 on their high school ACT, a 4.0 GPA in college with a triple major, and then the top 10% on the LSAT for the US. Now that kid is smart.

But everyone else? You, me, the guy in the cubicle next to me? They aren't necessarily smarter than me, but they've been here longer.

So, I guess the point I'm trying to make is that no one is really smarter than others, they simply have a great drive and determination to make it to a certain point in their life. I think if you look far ahead and see a point you want to be, it gives you an idea of how to get there and what to do. Keeping your eye on the prize is never easy, but those who do and succeed, I would say are the most driven and determined individuals—the smartest individuals.

 

[dainthomas]

When I first posted on ATOT, and realized how intelligent and successful everyone else on here is.

 

[Daedalus685]

Eh, to me, college doesn't test how smart you are. A lot of the classes I've taken are all about memorization. After taking these classes, I've learned that I either 1) suck at memorization or 2) don't care enough to memorize all this useless shit. I mean what's the point of memorizing glycolysis, kreb's cycle, and other shit like that? I'm pretty sure people reference books and other materials when needed on the job.

I went into college with a undeclared life science major. Then after a few quarters, I chose Biological sciences for a major. I took the required classes and did pretty shitty -- shitty enough to need to switch majors. I sat down with my adviser and she told me I can switch to nutrition or food science. I chose food science because it sounded more interesting and easier than nutrition. I'm doing much better than I have ever done as a biological sciences major, but as a result of switching majors, I have to stay a fifth year.

Indeed, you learn how to learn. Grades are rather insignificant in the grand scheme of things as an ability to show how far ahead of another you might be.

No, I never memorized the periodic table like some of my coworkers. But ask any of them to look up information they have not committed to memory is a two or three day event... There is something to be said for learning methods and beign able to apply them outside of the cloned examples from class. Something grades do not reflect in our system.

I remember stellar astrophysics.. it was taught by the most amazing new PHd, his first class ever. The first assignment was to evaluate the orbits of a binary star system and determine values based on redshift and what not. He gave us a link to the data and a vague list of what we were to determine solely from the linked database; he assumed we all knew how to use maple, excel, and so on (he ended up giving a basic tutorial on maple though when this was not the case for many). The folks I was used to seeing get 90% in every class crashed and burned without exact direction and a step by step example... to the point that many dropped the class after the assignment moving out of astrophysics entirely.

Those, including myself, who more or less coasted in the memory classes (I wish i was not so good at figuring out exactly what I need to do to get the mark I aimed at.. If I sucked at it maybe panic would have forced me to study harder to avoid not passing.. lol)) generally rocked it. It was the most entertaining assignment I've ever had, and each one in that class was like that up to the research paper at the end and the entirely open book exam that broke most people. It started with a blurb on the lines of "Every method you need to know was taught in class, every number and equation is in the text, every question gives the raw data required. If you get them all correct you ahve a spot on my graduate team regardless of other less meaningful accademic performance." If only all learning were as such...