I got a degree and I’m a dumbass, so you really don’t need to be smart at all lmao
How smart do you have to be to get a degree?
61–70 of 91 posts
Re: How smart do you have to be to get a degree?
#62Answering 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…
If you have a higher IQ it is going to be easier though in subjects like Math, CS, Physics etc. You still need to work. It may not be hard work though.
Re: How smart do you have to be to get a degree?
#63Answering 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…
So, it turns out that IQ only kind of correlates with success and well-being, but conscientiousness very much correlates with success and well-being. I would recommend everyone look into this for themselves and draw their own conclusions (and I won't play some google results as pokemon cards here)
Conscientousness has also been known as "grit", and is basically what you describe in yourself. I've found it is far too easy to accept dismissive, haughty people as intelligent, when they might just be over-specialized in one particular game (classwork, debate, paper-writing, etc). Recognizing this has not done great things for my imposter syndrome (am I just being dismissive??), but it has helped me feel comfortable in big rooms of experienced smart people.
Re: How smart do you have to be to get a degree?
#64These 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…
We also no longer have as clear a signal that can be used to get high-IQ people to associate with each other then move into jobs that benefit from a very high IQ. Although on the other hand the idea that military officer intelligence is dropping (as presented in the article) is pretty concerning. If there is one place we want unusually high IQ it'd be there.
It is interesting to look at history and see how episodes of progress often require little clusters of geniuses to make them work. In the worst case, it might be harder to set that up now. Although it is hard to tell. Maybe it'd be good to normalise just testing IQ directly if that isn't already a thing.
Re: How smart do you have to be to get a degree?
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
So, it turns out that IQ only kind of correlates with success and well-being, but conscientiousness very much correlates with success and well-being. I would recommend everyone look into this for themselves and draw their own conclusions (and I won't play some google results as pokemon cards here) Conscientousness has also been known as "grit", and is basically what you describe in yourself. I've found it is far too…
Exactly, just because someone "seems" confident and can grasp concepts quickly doesn't necessarily mean they can take an idea to the next level and play with it or develop it. Those people get more attention than they deserve.
Re: How smart do you have to be to get a degree?
#66> Among major European nations, who’s the most trustworthy? [...] The answer depends on who you ask. In Poland, the Germans seem to have been selected as both "Most Trustworthy" and "Least Trustworthy".
Ha! Germans seem to win everything, both good and bad!
Re: How smart do you have to be to get a degree?
#67[dead]
Re: How smart do you have to be to get a degree?
#68I have two degrees but don’t think I’m very smart. I’m actually pretty slow at understanding certain things. I have one big quality though that really helped, and still helps me get through complex things: I can get really really obsessed with a single topic and spend all my time on it.
Re: How smart do you have to be to get a degree?
#69> But we’re also spending more and more of our lives in education, and that threatens the time in the parts of our lives where we really enjoy being adults.
The time I was going to school was probably the best time of my life. Not because of school itself, but because of having a stable group of friends, lots of "events" and things to look forward to... and a lot of support for extra-curricular activities, like sports and hobbies.
After you finish school, you can feel like having a pointless life if you don't find something to concentrate on (usually your career - which is in many cases a pointless thing to focus on anyway).
Re: How smart do you have to be to get a degree?
#70Answering 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…
I also have a Ph.D. and am dumb as rocks sometimes. Example: yesterday I spent several seconds trying to badge into the subway turnstile with my employee ID card, mystified why it wasn’t working.
Ph.D. selects for research ability, which either weakly correlates (or perhaps inversely correlates—who’d want a PhD anyway??) with common sense and street smarts.