Where Do the Failed 0.1% Go? (2015) [pdf]

Speaking of which, here's another /r/iamverysmart funny story about spare cycles: I had a very smart, quirky friend from rural California. I took her to a party once and she wasn't interested in the people there who weren't terribly intellectual, but I was having a decent time practicing my social skills. She sat in the corner and just starred at the wall catatonically. I asked her if she was alright. She assured me she was and told me she had gotten really good at dealing with boredom growing up in a small town with nothing to do and no other nerds around.

because high IQ magnifies a lot of issues in ways that people not personally concerned or untrained may not be able to grasp.

Someone I know was tested at an IQ of 145. She placed #1 in her city (the capital city of the country) for high school entrance exams among tens of thousands of students. She is now a VP in her mid-30s of a Fortune 100 company and on track to be CFO. However, her goal is to be a CFO in the next 5 years, and I have no doubt she will accomplish that.

Throwaway for obvious reasons.

I do not mean this comment as a brag. Far from it.

I am one of these people - I tested with an incredibly high IQ (nearly 200 at the time, though I know that fades). I graduated with a 4.2 GPA, and a 3.9 average (because on semester I chose to 'punish' my mother who was taking credit for my high grades, and got a D just to prove it)

I have a very hard time with life in general. People bore me to tears. You have to repeat and dumb down everything for them all the time. Most jobs are mind numbingly dull.

Unlike the people in this article, I had support. My grandfather was similar to me, and taught me some basic coping mechanisms. They have largely worked, and I've learned how to survive with a nearly perfect memory (oh god the horror, I wouldn't inflict it on anyone) and what I like to call an incredibly high idle.

I make enough to get by, and the company I work for seems pleased with me. Been there 16 years so far, always resistent to anything beyond a simple lead type position. Thank god my management usually recognizes that I am VERY bad at dealing with people, and lets me get back to solving problems in my very quiet and dark office.

The coping that works for me is split attention. If I'm simultaneously listening to two or more musical pieces, working on different problems on different computers and screens, and fiddling with something (like a pen or something), I can get through a day.

If for some reason I'm restricted down to a single source of input (like just a laptop), I basically go completely mad. My mental energy level is far too high, and the frustration of waiting for the computer to keep up causes me to get angry beyond reason.

My life is a fucking hell, and I also spend a lot of time contemplating suicide. The imaginative and interesting methods help occupy some cycles.

I had a high school computer science instructor who did a really good job of this. I had already learned C (on DOS) by age 11 or 12, and thus the Visual Basic course in high school was pretty easy for me to do. I took the class pretty much to boost my average and have computer science credits on my transcript.

Anyway, I get my first assignment back, 10/10. Awesome, just like I expected. Get my second assignment back, 9/10. What? Oh, he didn't feel like I had commented my code very well. Ok. I'll do better next time. Next assignment, 8/10. I had used "x" as a variable name, and another pickier detail. Next assignment, 7/10. Even pickier details; things like UI spacing. The worst was that my peers, who struggled a lot more and their code was often pretty bad, they were doing better than I was in the class!

But I kept at it and kept improving, getting better and better at nailing down every possible detail. Managed to get marks back around the 8/10 to 9/10 range, but never 10/10. Nearing the end of the course, I started looking back at my grades and came to a brutal realization: "I'm significantly better at this than most of the people in the course, but my marks don't reflect that!"

I went and talked to him and raised my concerns. He gets this big grin on his face and says "Oh, I've been recording those as 100%s the whole time. I just wanted to keep challenging you, within the scope of what the curriculum gives me. I really wish I could have given you better projects, but that gets pretty complicated pretty quickly. You're doing fine, and I think you've improved a lot since the start of the course."

Ended up getting the "Best grade in Computer Science" award that year. Thanks Jeff!