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Are you smart?


Square Wheels

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Football analogy. I liken my smartness to an interior lineman. More known for strength than speed. Just how strong is up for debate. It helps in many areas, but I’m not the wide receiver who is lightning fast. 
I do think our intelligence can fade as we get older. 
 

I did have to take a competitive class in learning the Federal Acquisition Regulations two years ago. It did restore some confidence that I still can do quite well in a classroom setting if I put my mind to it. 

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4 minutes ago, Further said:

The best troubleshooter at work barely passed the written test, another guy aced the written test but couldn’t find a blown fuse on the practical test 

And then there's the guy who forgot to safely wire the drain plug before putting on the catch pan. 

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I used to think I was really, really, smart.

Whenever I'd attend a class, I immediately assumed I was the smartest student in the room.  I was almost always right.

When I got to undergrad college, I thought the same but learned I had to work my butt off to prove it.

I set the UMBC record on the Graduate Record Exams (the SAT's for grad school) with 780 (out of 800) in Math and 720 in Chemistry.

Then, I got a graduate scholarship and teaching assistantship in chemistry at IIT.

I met my colleagues. I bragged to one that I had a paper published in a major chemistry journal in my undergrad Senior year.

She had gotten published in her Sophomore year.

I quickly learned I was no longer the big frog in the little pond.

How fast some of my classmates got things amazed me.  In a couple cases, I realized how incomprehensible it must be to mentally slow people how other people understand things so quickly: I was the mentally slow person!

All of us scholarship grad T.A.'s in chemistry were extremely confident about our abilities.  One day one guy said "I could take Russian 4, without taking Russian 1, 2, or 3, and I'd pass the class."

The rest of us said, "Yeah? So what? Any one of us could do that!"

But that didn't apply to 600 level Thermodynamics, Quantum Mechanics, etc.

I was going to need a lot of all-night study sessions to achieve the 3.0 gpa to keep my scholarship and T.A.

So I used to think I was smart.  Now I know what smart is.  I'm above average if I apply myself.

 

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On 3/5/2021 at 5:40 PM, Kirby said:

Smart in some ways, and woefully ignorant in others.

+1

By most measures applied in school - aptitude tests or the like - I did quite well. But I find that the more I know, the more I realize the enormity of what I don't know.  I sort of like that feeling - that at 50, I can still go so much deeper into a subject and learn more. "Know it alls" and "black or white" people drive me batty. Likewise the azzclowns who call other people "dumb" or "stupid". Nothing screams "I'm the foolish one or lazy thinker" more than calling someone "stupid" in a broad sense.

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