Self-Discipline Outdoes IQ in Predicting Academic Performance in Adolescents
21–30 of 47 posts
Re: Self-Discipline Outdoes IQ in Predicting Academic Performance in Adolescents
#22I wouldn't be surprised if this held true for particular subjects that are generally thought of as "hard" as well. My favorite is mathematics. I used to have a really tough time with maths and used to hate it. Then, the smartest friend I have (who coincidentally did his PhD in financial mathematics with Freddy Delbaen back then -- for those who don't know this area, that means he was really good) once made an offhand…
How much time did you spent on it? I mean, daily, or weekly? I'm starting to work on the same direction, but I work a lot during the day as a developer, so I'm rather exhaust when I'm over with it, and usually don't have more than 1 hour a day or little more to spend on learning maths. I guess it's too little?
I'm serious though, I'm learning with textbooks, etc.. and I'm a dropout so I have some of the basics already.
Re: Self-Discipline Outdoes IQ in Predicting Academic Performance in Adolescents
#23I wouldn't be surprised if this held true for particular subjects that are generally thought of as "hard" as well. My favorite is mathematics. I used to have a really tough time with maths and used to hate it. Then, the smartest friend I have (who coincidentally did his PhD in financial mathematics with Freddy Delbaen back then -- for those who don't know this area, that means he was really good) once made an offhand…
I wouldn't be surprised if this held true for particular subjects that are generally thought of as "hard" as well. My favorite is mathematics.
A new favorite quotation of mine about mathematics learning:
"Mathematics must be written into the mind, not read into it. 'No head for mathematics' nearly always means 'Will not use a pencil.'" Arthur Latham Baker, Elements of Solid Geometry (1894), page ix.
Hat tip to the Bay Area Math Circle for the quotation reference.
Re: Self-Discipline Outdoes IQ in Predicting Academic Performance in Adolescents
#24I wouldn't be surprised if this held true for particular subjects that are generally thought of as "hard" as well. My favorite is mathematics. I used to have a really tough time with maths and used to hate it. Then, the smartest friend I have (who coincidentally did his PhD in financial mathematics with Freddy Delbaen back then -- for those who don't know this area, that means he was really good) once made an offhand…
I have the same experience, my major is filled with statistics and math and coming out of high school I didn't have the right prerequisites. Nonetheless, a decent amount of interest and some hard work and I got up to speed in no time. Calculus was a breeze after that. It goes for a lot of things really, when you're interested in the subject and willing to work for it, it becomes so much easier. I now just have a "How hard can it be?" attitude towards stuff.
Re: Self-Discipline Outdoes IQ in Predicting Academic Performance in Adolescents
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
I just finished a course on integral calculus...one of my classmates said he put in 20-30 hrs/week and he ended up dropping the class - he just couldn't understand the problems and he was a terrible test taker. I put in a lot of work in the first month or so then the rest of the course sort of just sailed by. I guess my only point is, YMMV...
Integral calculus is easy - it's all about calculation. Where math got hard for me was when the focus shifted from calculation to proof (abstract algebra, number theory, real analysis). I thought I could coast by with the same sort of intuitive understanding I had with calculus, but I was wrong and I didn't have the self discipline that was required to do well.
For me it was quite the opposite. I didn't begin to show any particular interest in mathematics until proof based courses came into the picture. I would certainly not have earned a degree in mathematics were it not for my interests being piqued by a capricious used bookstore purchase of E. Kampke's Set Theory when just out of high school. It was the axiomatic proof based method that appealed to me. Calculation, on the other hand, seemed to my naive 17-year-old self to be terribly banal.
To put things in perspective, and to possibly invalidate the general application of my insight on the matter, Calculus was in fact the only course I passed my final semester of high school. I received a D shortly before I dropped out altogether. The D score was earned only after being the only student to ace the final, a task which was itself only possible after I proved the first fundamental theorem to myself (thanks to an especially verbose description of it in one of the exam questions) during the course of the test.
To this day I find that the actual solving of equations to be tedious and can only be interested in problems tenable to axiomatic and algorithmic approaches. Thats where all the fun is imho. Who cares about actually determining a number (or equation)? [the answer: all the smartest people do.]
Re: Self-Discipline Outdoes IQ in Predicting Academic Performance in Adolescents
#26I wouldn't be surprised if this held true for particular subjects that are generally thought of as "hard" as well. My favorite is mathematics. I used to have a really tough time with maths and used to hate it. Then, the smartest friend I have (who coincidentally did his PhD in financial mathematics with Freddy Delbaen back then -- for those who don't know this area, that means he was really good) once made an offhand…
How much time did you spent on it? I mean, daily, or weekly? I'm starting to work on the same direction, but I work a lot during the day as a developer, so I'm rather exhaust when I'm over with it, and usually don't have more than 1 hour a day or little more to spend on learning maths. I guess it's too little? I'm serious though, I'm learning with textbooks, etc.. and I'm a dropout so I have some of the basics alread…
What I tried to do when I was working full-time was: Get up early in the morning, review some definitions, then read perhaps only one theorem, try to prove it yourself, then read the proof in the book, then try to find a problem in the exercises that would use that theorem or refers to it, and take those problems with me to work. At work, I could then think about it while doing less demanding tasks or just during breaks. Then, after work, I was exhausted so I only read a little bit and looked at new definitions or so. Lots of time, I also just goofed off (yeah, it took discipline and energy to get something done when working full days). On weekends, I could naturally do more. Still, this was my slowest time, for obvious reasons, and I could never have gotten through the material if I had been working full-time all the time.
In my first year of a doctoral program, I could study from after lunch until next morning and I concentrated on getting the fundamentals right. The greatest book, the one where things began to click, was Rudin's "principles of mathematical analysis". Before I came to this book, I had wasted a lot of time finding my style of learning or, if you will, discovering my preferences. But if you already have the basics and are not going to waste as much time as I was trying to figure out what is what, you might pull it off much quicker.
Good luck! To me it was a cool time and I finally got rid of my math inferiority complex ;)
Re: Self-Discipline Outdoes IQ in Predicting Academic Performance in Adolescents
#27This does not surprise me at all. Anyone with average intelligence can get good grades in high school - it's just a matter of how much time you're willing to devote to getting them. The trade-off comes in deciding whether you'd rather get good grades or spend time learning other things on your own. It comes down to how much you trust the educational system you're in to fully make use of your time and intelligence. I…
>spend time learning other things on your own Hear Hear! And all learning is done on one's own, really. IQ is, not to put too fine a point on it, bunk. Grades are also bunk. They can never measure depth of knowledge, which is the thing that matters, intellectually speaking. Depth depends on connections formed with other areas of knowledge, which are unique to each student.
There is intrinsic to the academic system a pervasive issue of trust.
Grades can indicate the depth of knowledge, but with the disclaimer that both the arbitrating grader is trusted (in a very special sense), and that the method used to decide grades be both defensible and explicable to others.
To provide a concrete example. A paper on the first book of Hume's Treatise of Human Nature attempts to bring a new argument to bear on the consequences to modern epistemology incurred by Hume's concept of abstract ideas. The paper is written as a final in a graduate level philosophy class, and the instructor is known to be knowledgeable, intelligent, fair, and honest. The paper receives a B+. It is arguable that the mark is generally reflective of the student's understanding and ability at the time the student wrote the paper. (this example is taken from personal experience - I wrote this paper, and I feel that the grade was reflective of my knowledge on the topic)
But without the trustworthy instructor, the grade would be meaningless. The problem, if I were to speculate, is one of numbers - too many students, too few professors. A basic premise of security is that the more parties involved in a pact, the lest reliable the pact is, and if grades are to be a faithfully representation of a students ability, the reliability of the academic pact is paramount.
Re: Self-Discipline Outdoes IQ in Predicting Academic Performance in Adolescents
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
How much time did you spent on it? I mean, daily, or weekly? I'm starting to work on the same direction, but I work a lot during the day as a developer, so I'm rather exhaust when I'm over with it, and usually don't have more than 1 hour a day or little more to spend on learning maths. I guess it's too little? I'm serious though, I'm learning with textbooks, etc.. and I'm a dropout so I have some of the basics alread…
What I tried to do when I was working full-time was: Get up early in the morning, review some definitions, then read perhaps only one theorem, try to prove it yourself, then read the proof in the book, then try to find a problem in the exercises that would use that theorem or refers to it, and take those problems with me to work. At work, I could then think about it while doing less demanding tasks or just during bre…
Thank you very much! I thought you were going to say it couldn't be done while working full time. You give me hope.
Re: Self-Discipline Outdoes IQ in Predicting Academic Performance in Adolescents
#29This does not surprise me at all. Anyone with average intelligence can get good grades in high school - it's just a matter of how much time you're willing to devote to getting them. The trade-off comes in deciding whether you'd rather get good grades or spend time learning other things on your own. It comes down to how much you trust the educational system you're in to fully make use of your time and intelligence. I…
>spend time learning other things on your own Hear Hear! And all learning is done on one's own, really. IQ is, not to put too fine a point on it, bunk. Grades are also bunk. They can never measure depth of knowledge, which is the thing that matters, intellectually speaking. Depth depends on connections formed with other areas of knowledge, which are unique to each student.
>Depth depends on connections formed with other areas of knowledge
Agreed. I believe this is the most important part of education.
Re: Self-Discipline Outdoes IQ in Predicting Academic Performance in Adolescents
#30And if you are here reading this after telling yourself you really would code your ass off today, you already lost.
If reading it causes a paradigm shift that results in a sustainable productivity improvement or reduces fear, it's a net win.
Yeah, I keep hoping that solutions to life problems are but an effortless realization gleaned from reading a page or two on the internet away, as well. :/
http://dirtsimple.org/2010/02/ending-my-insight-addiction.ht...