I Grew Up Gifted, but My Life Didn’t Turn Out the Way I Expected • Hacker News Board

Re: I Grew Up Gifted, but My Life Didn’t Turn Out the Way I Expected

#351

Post by akhilcacharya » Fri, May 31, 2019, 6:23 PM UTC

dang wrote: post #346

akhilcacharya wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always am bothered by these stories because they seem to imply the person matters more than the school. I had mediocre grades and stats (#2 in class, 1500/1600) but I didn’t get into a prestigious school and went to my state school. The fact that I couldn’t even get into a top school appears to bode pretty poorly for my future if this is the criteria!

Could you please stop posting so much on the topics of schools, elites, and elite schools on HN? It's excessive: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=by:akhilcacharya%20school&sort... https://hn.algolia.com/?query=by:akhilcacharya%20elite&sort=... I get how strongly you feel, but it goes against the spirit of the site when people keep posting so repetitively about one particular issue that they feel strongly about. HN threa…

OK, fair enough, but it lends itself to the topic, which also posted about at a pretty significant rate.

Re: I Grew Up Gifted, but My Life Didn’t Turn Out the Way I Expected

#352

Post by taurath » Fri, May 31, 2019, 6:26 PM UTC

jl2718 wrote: post #300

microtonal wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does not necessarily have to do anything with laziness. The further you get the fiercer your competition. Most people around here were probably the best in elementary school and high school, perhaps even university. But if you go further up the intelligence or economic ladder, you will compare yourself to peers who are at the same step or next step. And the competition is much fiercer. You are 'competing' with peo…

This forum in particular attracts a certain type of ‘lazy intellectual’: people that value thought and introspection above constant action. They were the type of children that easily mastered early school subjects without working, but are so fascinated by ideas that mere action bores them. I think it’s important to recognize the advantages and limitations of this mindset. I’ve considered the possibility that it is si…

Interestingly thats exactly how I thought about the cohort on very early reddit too.

Re: I Grew Up Gifted, but My Life Didn’t Turn Out the Way I Expected

#353

Post by antoinevg » Fri, May 31, 2019, 6:27 PM UTC

nugget wrote: post #306

Consultant32452 wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think education is going to radically change in the next decade or so. Online education is going to come up to par with the greatest of institutions. The missing link is the actual credential. The signal of the end of education as we knew it in the past is when a wealthy/powerful person comes out and endorses one of these things in a real way. For example, if Elon Musk comes out and says SpaceX considers a cert fro…

Generally I agree with your view, but there are real hiring problems that have to be solved first. >if Elon Musk comes out and says SpaceX considers a cert from $NetflixOfEducation as equal to an engineering degree from MIT on a resume... then it's all over. If 50 developers apply for a job and 3 of them are from MIT and 47 are from lesser known schools, using the MIT signal as a filter is efficient. If $NetflixOfEdu…

> If $NetflixOfEducation is too accessible and half of the applicants have it, then it loses its value as a hiring signal.

Only for companies who hire for signals.

For companies that hire for throughput this does not hold.

Re: I Grew Up Gifted, but My Life Didn’t Turn Out the Way I Expected

#354

Post by watwut » Fri, May 31, 2019, 6:32 PM UTC

peteey wrote: post #171

BjoernKW wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hard work in itself isn't necessarily valuable. Smart work is. It's vital to learn early on that you have to put in the work if you want to achieve anything at all. Merely being gifted or naturally good at something certainly is not enough. However, I'd say it's just as important to understand the purpose behind any kind of work and to be able to question how things are usually done. Achieving the same or better resu…

I challenge the distinction between hard work and smart work. You cannot be smart without hard work. Amassing knowledge and mental ability requires years of effort and work. It is easier for gifted/clever people, but not inherent. gifted =/= smart

When people are too much hung on hard work, they do stupid innefective things. Like, studying that much that you sleep deprive yourself, long crunch in work, sleeping under table in work as proof of commitment etc. Training so much that you get injury from it.

Re: I Grew Up Gifted, but My Life Didn’t Turn Out the Way I Expected

#355

Post by yters » Fri, May 31, 2019, 6:32 PM UTC

Bakary wrote: post #128

godzillabrennus wrote: post #91

They called me gifted as a kid. Tested at a genius level IQ (not that it matters). I barely passed high school. I started my first company while in it. I dropped out of my engineering programming. I was teaching other students about computers and was running a business on the side. I am not someone who follows the rules well. My sibling is the polar opposite, they have three Ivy League degrees. They were top 3% of th…

As someone who also follows the rules well like your sibling (but isn't gifted), the more time passes the more I understand it to be a serious character flaw.

I think it's good to be able to follow the rules effectively and efficiently, and use that to your advantage, but not make rule following an end unto itself. Just like the opposite, bucking all rules all the time, is also not so great.

"Blending in" can make it possible to achieve other goals and lead a fulfilling life in a pretty stable and maintainable manner. And being able to break free when the need calls for it is also very important. As an extreme example, if you are living in Nazi Germany it is the morally right thing to appear to "blend in" while actually bucking the rules and saving Jews.

Re: I Grew Up Gifted, but My Life Didn’t Turn Out the Way I Expected

#356

Post by pnathan » Fri, May 31, 2019, 6:39 PM UTC

I have a friend whose story was similar: she found grad school extremely hard because it was the first time she had to work at success.

I probably would have fallen into the gifted category, had I not been homeschooled. I was pushed to excel in several different areas, some of which I was less gifted at than others, causing at least a nominal work ethic to be inculculated.

Math was always relatively easy for me to conceptually understand: I thus nicely got a C in Calc 1 for understanding concepts and failing to really be able to grind out the work properly. Grades improved after that, let's just say. :)

I also think that excessive success in the childhood years and early teens often skews with people's heads and they often don't do well later on. A lot of stories about gifted kids going mediocre. Terry Tao is an interesting counterexample to that, though.

Anyway, I think the big takeaway is that Grits is a key character attribute for success.

Re: I Grew Up Gifted, but My Life Didn’t Turn Out the Way I Expected

#357

Post by tdfx » Fri, May 31, 2019, 6:49 PM UTC

jshaqaw wrote: post #36

Part of the issue here is defining what it means to “achieve”. I was a gifted child and graduated at the top of my fancy Ivy League university. Did I go on to conquer the world? No. And many days I stress and feel bad about that. But that’s mostly when I allow myself to judge myself by the external validation system of society. Society values a big bank account or fancy awards which is fine. A happy life spent with f…

I've always thought this was the ideal form of parenting. Relax expectations on the children, let them find their own path.

I've recently changed my mind and I think offloading the discovery of purpose onto children creates more pressure on them than a moderate pressure to conform to society's existing expectations. What's worse than being unhappy and being told you have no reason to be unhappy?

If they discover on their own that they don't care about society's rules and living off in the woods and growing their own food is the key to happiness, so be it. But to assume everyone will be able to develop that path to happiness is optimizing for the edge case. Most people need guard rails for life and to live within a social construct that defines success and failure for them.

Re: I Grew Up Gifted, but My Life Didn’t Turn Out the Way I Expected

#358

Post by dceddia » Fri, May 31, 2019, 7:18 PM UTC

> “It’s a shame Heather never did anything with her life.”

> I was about 30 at the time

It's a bit strange and sad that much of society holds this idea that if you haven't achieved greatness before you turn 30, you never will.

Re: I Grew Up Gifted, but My Life Didn’t Turn Out the Way I Expected

#359

Post by m0zg » Fri, May 31, 2019, 7:23 PM UTC

jshaqaw wrote: post #36

Part of the issue here is defining what it means to “achieve”. I was a gifted child and graduated at the top of my fancy Ivy League university. Did I go on to conquer the world? No. And many days I stress and feel bad about that. But that’s mostly when I allow myself to judge myself by the external validation system of society. Society values a big bank account or fancy awards which is fine. A happy life spent with f…

What if "being happy" for them means watching Youtube all day and playing computer games?

That's what I'm struggling with with my 15 year old. This is currently affecting his GPA to the point where it'd limit his college options to community college, and maybe not even that (since you do have to work even there to not fail).

I simply can't convince him that this is not a good use of his time, and he will regret it profoundly later in life.

Re: I Grew Up Gifted, but My Life Didn’t Turn Out the Way I Expected

#360

Post by bradleyjg » Fri, May 31, 2019, 7:27 PM UTC

rchaud wrote: post #215

bradleyjg wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a hypothesis that at least in the US smart people that want to continue with the same sort of “do the work you are assigned and be rewarded” become doctors. There are entrepreneurial paths in medicine but an excellent student that wants to can go from medical school to a residency, followship, and then a hospital position and earn enough to be in the 1% without ever needing to fight for it in the office politi…

A number of my friends are recent med school graduates, and from what they tell me that politics is very much a factor not just for advancement, but even things like placement in a medical specialty. "Become doctors" is just saying that they graduated medical school; even C students become doctors, but the politicking really starts once you try to join a specific practice, like cardiology, emergency medicine, pediatr…

It’s true that they need to get residencies and then fellowships but my understanding is that these processes are closer to “get admitted to medical school” then they are to “become partner at a law firm”. Could be wrong, but that’s my impression.