What I've Learned About Smart People.

Good for you. Even better for you is the fact that you recognize your opportunity. How sad that so many people in your situation never do until it's too late.

Now, when I say “smart people,” I don’t mean that guy who always wins trivia night. I mean, blazingly intelligent individuals who are regarded as the pre-eminent scholars in their field.

There are many vectors of smartness in both magnitude and direction. Some of the smartest people I've ever known never went to college. You don't have to be a "pre-eminent scholar" to be smart and there's nothing wrong with winning trivia night.

It’s pretty amazing to pass by Turing Award winners and leading political science scholars grabbing a sandwich.

The smarter you get the less amazing that will feel.

Before I go anywhere, let me make one thing clear: I am not one of these smart people.

Hmmm, not sure I like the sound of that. Where are you going with this?

This is perhaps the biggest lesson I’ve learned after 3 years here.

Then it's a good thing you have one more year. Hopefully you'll learn a bigger lesson. (Read on...)

There is an absolutely incredible number of smart people in the world, and I can name a whole bunch of students and professors alike who I know for a fact I will never ever ever be as smart as, no matter how hard I try.

How sad to hear you say that...

The purpose of college is not to become a greater repository of data.

The purpose of college is not to become a better accumulator of data.

The purpose of college is not to become better than anyone or anything else.

The purpose of college is to see the possibilities and put yourself in position to go after them.

You may not believe me now, but you are probably a whole lot smarter than many people, including the smart ones you cite, at something, perhaps many things. And once you put yourself on the shoulders of giants, including your own, you can geometrically catapult yourself into much higher spheres of measure, including "smartness". But even then, so what?

It's now how smart you are, you rich you are, or even you good you are, it's what you can imagine doing with all those "assets" and how you can positively affect the lives of others. If you learn nothing else in college, I sincerely hope that you come away with this mindset.

...but I have noticed one overarching theme among smart people: they ask questions.

Wow. It sounds like you learned something in college that I didn't learn until years later. And I thought I was so smart.

After all, I don’t want this person to think I’m a moron.

Smart people don't care about that.

The intonation of the question and the intensity with which the professor listened to the response definitively suggested that the professor’s question was genuine, and that the answer was of great importance.

What a great lesson. Which reminds me that two of the smartest things you can ever do is keep learning and keep teaching. Thank you.

Smart people challenge the very limit of human understanding, and push the envelope of what’s possible farther than many people would argue it’s meant to be pushed. Smart people don’t take claims at face value, and smart people don’t rest until they find an explanation they’re comfortable accepting and understanding.

Therefore, you become smarter simply by claiming that you're smarter, right? (Notice this is the opposite of "I know for a fact I will never ever ever be as smart as, no matter how hard I try.".)

Smart people challenge everything.

Hmmm, I wonder if "challenge everything" = "see the possibilities". I think I've learned something.

(You know who taught me that? A smart person.)

That's great, but please don't overlook all that you can learn from people that may not seem so smart.

Maybe someday, people will call me a smart person.

The smartest thing you can ever do is stop caring how smart others think you are.

For now, I’m going to keep asking them questions.

I take back what I said before. It sounds like you've already learned more in 3 years than many learn in a lifetime. But you probably already knew that, being as smart as you are.

Thanks for the great post and the chance for interesting discussion. I feel smarter already.

[EDIT: Any notion that I was making fun or teasing OP was most definitely unintended. This was a great post! (Sounds like I now need a tag.)]

In an academic environment, for example, there can be prerequisite knowledge for particular courses, and within a course, you are expected to form a foundation of knowledge upon which later material is based. Questions that betray lack of prerequisite or foundational knowledge rather than topical are often considered unhelpful.

More generally, there is the matter of social context, and the relevance of your question to the people who will be listening to its answer. People value their time, and dislike spending it in a Q&A they consider to be without any value, either informative, personal or entertaining. If you can be pretty sure a question is only relevant to you, it's more appropriate to ask in private than in front of a large audience.

Beyond that, I wouldn't worry about it.

These days, I mostly understand that there are always many perspectives and try to see wisdom as the art of picking between perspectives. But sometimes I get stuck in my old ways and search in vain for the "right" opinion/perspective/paradigm/whatever. This no-one-true-perspective meta-perspective means that life experience and hard-earned wisdom become much more important factors for the good life.

Questioning everything and asking questions are often different things in a classroom environment.

A key premise of the Khan Academy is that students learning in the intimacy of their own space enables slower students to learn and excel

A lot of high school teachers know little past what they are actually teaching and even that not in a lot of depth. This is for a lot of reasons, some of them not their fault, but it is a sad fact.

So, keep asking and keep annoying them. Try going and asking during their office hours, but don't be surprised if you do not get a satisfactory answer and if it does not seem satisfactory, I would question its validity.