Ask HN: Did Anyone Else Here Simply Not Do Well at School?

I do not have ADHD or any other learning impairment that I am aware though I ready slowly unless under intense pressure. Statistically they tell me I am in the top 2% if I have an IQ around 148. I performed poorly in school and never developed a passion for instructional learning until I became a father, so my grades were frequently low. Now I love reading educational material and writing.

Yep! C to B student in high school, granted, taking the tougher classes. Got better grades in college (Which I got into mainly because I scored well on the SAT and applied as a music major, then switched immediately after), and graduated with a (in hindsight) bullshit degree in applied science.

~5 years after college, I learned to code, and it's been a passion since. 7 years after college, I started a path I am still on to become proficient at math and science. I am still on that path. I"m 37, and am in a coffee shop reading a paper about interpretations of electron charge distribution. At home, I am coding general relativity and chemistry sims. I had no interested in this sort of thing while I was in school, and if I'd pursued them, I almost surely would have failed out.

I have a well-rounded math*+science+engineering background and knowledge base now, but it was almost entirely from self-study.

Good luck!

*Math in terms of the sort you'd need for science or engineering. I think the abstract stuff may be beyond me forever, in the way functional programming is. I think you need a certain level or type of intelligence for that.*

I had a tortured academic path - collected all the letters in high school and university. Despite this I was able to get into a good law school, where the format was a much better fit (which I could elaborate on if you want) and I did excellent. In the real world I’ve done alright for myself.

In the working world the best jobs are not at all like school - you make your own projects, there is no defined right answer, and there is room for lots of different types of people. Very different from school, where it is highly structured, in the box thinking, with very inbred processes.

My number one tip would be to work really hard in the beginning to get yourself into a place and position where you can be creative and shine. You may not land there in your first job, so bite the bullet and break out of it as soon as you can.

I just barely had a conversation with my daughter (going into adult age) about how ridiculous our education system is and how it tries to shoehorn lots of very different people into one uniform system of learning. She commented that it's because society wants to fit everybody into neat little boxes, but it doesn't work.

My take on your story is that college grades aren't necessarily an indication of how well you will perform professionally. Get your game face on and figure out how YOU can win, and understand that it doesn't have to match somebody else's definition of success.

> Despite being a smart person, I've never been the kind of A type personality who does well at school.

It’s hard to measure smart. Especially to measure myself. How do I know if I’m smart or stupid? Beats me.

I’ve met people who think they are dumb and seem like a genius to me. And I’ve met people who wear “I’m a genius” and literally showed me a Mensa card and seemed very dumb to me.

I’ve met lots of people claim to be smart when “it’s important” but seem stupid to me.

So I don’t try to measure smartness.

Some people suck at school. That doesn’t mean you’re dumb. If you’re happy and productive then don’t worry about it.

But one want to substantiate intelligence is through credentialing systems like school. There’s tons of flaws and no way perfect. But I think it’s more accurate than just asking people if they think they are smart.