Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How smart do you have to be to get a degree?

cremieux.xyz

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 91 posts

Re: How smart do you have to be to get a degree?

#41

Post by passwordoops »

etothepii wrote: post #20
sheepz wrote: post #8

These results are to be expected, if IQ is normally distributed, but we push more people into obtaining university degrees. The value of a university degree has severely deteriorated since every white collar job essentially requires having one and it will continue getting worse. I would assume that it's worse in the US than in Europe, because in EU it seems that education is less commercialized and you can get a degr…

Doesn't this mean the value of a university degree has increased? If you now have to have a degree just to make it to the 40th percentile of the earning bracket that surely means it is more required than ever, and thus worth more.

The degree is worth what it can "buy". If a generation ago the degree got you to the 20th percentile earning bracket, but today it gets you to the 40th, then that degree is "buying" you less earning power overall.

Concrete example: a generation ago you could get your foot in the door at a bank with a high school diploma as a teller. Today? You need a 4-year degree in finance. Further, if you walked into that same bank with that same 4-year degree a generation ago, you'll probably be much further up the ladder than teller.

Re: How smart do you have to be to get a degree?

#42

Post by cyrillite »

etothepii wrote: post #20
sheepz wrote: post #8

These results are to be expected, if IQ is normally distributed, but we push more people into obtaining university degrees. The value of a university degree has severely deteriorated since every white collar job essentially requires having one and it will continue getting worse. I would assume that it's worse in the US than in Europe, because in EU it seems that education is less commercialized and you can get a degr…

Doesn't this mean the value of a university degree has increased? If you now have to have a degree just to make it to the 40th percentile of the earning bracket that surely means it is more required than ever, and thus worth more.

The value of a degree has increased as a product and decreased as a signal.

Some would argue that the signal was a better product than the underlying asset.

Re: How smart do you have to be to get a degree?

#43

Post by donatj »

dijit wrote: post #19

Answering the title only, so forgive me: > How smart do you have to be to get a degree? Not especially, what you have to be is hardworking and committed. You don't even need to show significant improvement; just an understanding of the subject material. Of course this gets less true as you go up the degrees. (Batchelors requiring a broad rote understanding, Masters requiring a more detailed understanding and PhD requ…

I think there’s also a willingness to jump through hoops required that some of the most intelligent people I have known have been too stubborn for.

Re: How smart do you have to be to get a degree?

#44

Post by sheepz »

cyrillite wrote: post #42
etothepii wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't this mean the value of a university degree has increased? If you now have to have a degree just to make it to the 40th percentile of the earning bracket that surely means it is more required than ever, and thus worth more.

The value of a degree has increased as a product and decreased as a signal. Some would argue that the signal was a better product than the underlying asset.

Exactly, I think a university degree used to be a good proxy for IQ. But like every metric it becomes becomes bastardized in the end.

Re: How smart do you have to be to get a degree?

#45

Post by smokel »

throwaway64554 wrote: post #31
dijit wrote: post #19

Answering the title only, so forgive me: > How smart do you have to be to get a degree? Not especially, what you have to be is hardworking and committed. You don't even need to show significant improvement; just an understanding of the subject material. Of course this gets less true as you go up the degrees. (Batchelors requiring a broad rote understanding, Masters requiring a more detailed understanding and PhD requ…

Throwaway: I have a PhD in CS, and I wouldn't describe myself as very intelligent. Maybe slightly above average. I am constantly amazed at how quickly others in my team can understand extremely complex mathematical problems in a few seconds. I would need at least an hour of quiet thinking, and I struggled a lot with the mathematical aspects of my PhD. But I did work my ass off for 5 years (mostly out of curiosity, th…

Curiosity and perseverance are probably different traits than intelligence. It'd be nice to know if these can be learned, or whether one is born with them.

Re: How smart do you have to be to get a degree?

#46

Post by katzgrau »

dijit wrote: post #19

Answering the title only, so forgive me: > How smart do you have to be to get a degree? Not especially, what you have to be is hardworking and committed. You don't even need to show significant improvement; just an understanding of the subject material. Of course this gets less true as you go up the degrees. (Batchelors requiring a broad rote understanding, Masters requiring a more detailed understanding and PhD requ…

I’m pretty convinced that if you just show up to class, be nice to the prof, and do all of the assignments you’ll get a mercy C or D regardless of how you performed.

I’ve never tried this (finished with a 3.9) but observed my friends.

Some would do the above and miraculously pass courses they, according to exam scores, were certain to fail.

However, my friends who had poor exam score and spotty attendance never made it through. In fact, sometimes they were so convinced they’d fail that the dropped the course or no-showed the exam — so they did in fact fail.

Hard work, maybe — simply trying is easy. But more than that, persistence.

Re: How smart do you have to be to get a degree?

#47

Post by Hendrikto »

makach wrote: post #13
makach wrote: post #7

Not very, points at me.

Ofcourse you need some basic cognitive functions in order to be able to read, write and present yourself. Remember you don't have to be best to get a degree, you only need to pass and when you don't succeed you can in most cases try again. That said, get a degree if you can. It will help you in the job market, and if you for some reasons don't pursuit a degree for any random reasons - you will still have the backgrou…

Do you know you can edit comments for up to 2 (?) hours?

Re: How smart do you have to be to get a degree?

#48

Post by smeej »

throwaway64554 wrote: post #31
dijit wrote: post #19

Answering the title only, so forgive me: > How smart do you have to be to get a degree? Not especially, what you have to be is hardworking and committed. You don't even need to show significant improvement; just an understanding of the subject material. Of course this gets less true as you go up the degrees. (Batchelors requiring a broad rote understanding, Masters requiring a more detailed understanding and PhD requ…

Throwaway: I have a PhD in CS, and I wouldn't describe myself as very intelligent. Maybe slightly above average. I am constantly amazed at how quickly others in my team can understand extremely complex mathematical problems in a few seconds. I would need at least an hour of quiet thinking, and I struggled a lot with the mathematical aspects of my PhD. But I did work my ass off for 5 years (mostly out of curiosity, th…

Your insight into what's going on in a head like mine is spot on, and I have wished for a long time that my parents would (ever) have made an effort to put me in rooms where I wasn't the "smartest" person there. When I was young, I was often the least experienced, but throughout school even, it was obvious to me and usually to them that I was smarter than my teachers.

It sounds like a humble brag but it's not. It's more like a cautionary tale. Smart children need the experience of having to work to understand things, of knowing there are things other people know or that humanity in general could know, but not instantaneously.

Intelligence could be a powerful tool, but there are precious few people teaching children (or, heck, adults for that matter! I would pay serious money for a remedial "how to work hard for things and make incremental progress" classes as an adult!) who have it how to use it.

Re: How smart do you have to be to get a degree?

#50

Post by LudwigNagasena »

bell-cot wrote: post #29
txutxu wrote: post #5

Is IQ everything that counts? Does the family's social class count or not? Does the socioeconomic situation of the state, country, neighborhood count or not? Does fashions, wars, crises, recessions, mass layoffs, drugs permitted by states, industrial changes, friends, political changes, city councils, police and judges, corruption, monetary funds, teachers, management of study centers, laws, banks and what not... cou…

> Is IQ everything that counts? H*ll, no...but it's an easily obtained, one-dimensional number. Which pushes lots of people's buttons. So it's near-perfect if you want people to pay attention to your pretty graphs and glib conclusions. I suspect a better number (for "good prospect for college?" questions) would be some measure of how willing & able a student is to sit and study (vs. be physically active, do real-worl…

You don’t have to suspect! There is probably a bazillion of papers that study how conscientiousness (ability to “sit and study”) and other traits relate to grades, how they interact with IQ and so on. Here is one I just googled: https://www.mdpi.com/2079-3200/11/7/146
Post reply on HN