Assertion: academic success does not equal intelligence.

In My Humble Opinion
41

  1. Kudos to those who have resisted the obvious joke in a Zombie thread about intelligence!

  2. The comments about academic success correlating with both particular sorts of intelligences and with particular habits of mind and work ethics, to various degrees depending on the individual circumstance and person, are on the money. How well those particular intelligences correlate with what is needed to succeed in other venues varies greatly.

  3. Somewhat relevant is an old Talmudic insult: “He is a bookcase not a scholar.” Such a bookcase student may get good grades but has no ability to apply the information to novel salient problems.

Such is why grades are only part of most selection processes. They can only inform so far.

42

(Ex-professor. Field: Computer Science.)

In high school, intelligence is a negative. Teachers hate the true actual smart kids. They much prefer the brown-nosers.

For undergraduates, in Computer Science, quite strong correlation between being good in the area and getting good grades, graduating, etc. Some people can coast by, but not the majority.

Lower levels of grad school, pretty much the same. But as mentioned, once you get to working on a PhD thesis, other skills are a must.

I do want to point out that there indeed some people who are basically clueless twits and still get advanced degrees, even in something quite technical like CS. I knew someone who basically slept her way to a degree. She rotated boyfriends who would do the work for her (plus a couple profs). She just couldn’t understand basic logic or even algebra. She kept it up as a professor, too.

So, yeah, pretty good correlation at certain levels, but not great.

OTOH, I’ve met quite a few English profs and such. Egad. Speaking of people walking around with no brains.

43

Me too, but only because it was pointed out to me by someone else. I did pretty well in school, but my math skills are weak so I ended up #8 in class rank despite getting As in just about everything else. Eric and Kyle, #s 1 & 2, got As in every damn thing. One day senior year Eric tells me that he admires Kyle for doing so well because it’s not as easy for him to get good grades as it is us. Surprised considering Kyle’s grades were higher than mine, I asked him what he meant and he asked me how much time did I devote to homework and study to get almost all As. When I told him not much he nodded and said it was the same with him. But Kyle was spending three times as much time as us to get his As. I never liked Kyle for other reasons, but I had to respect his efforts to do well.

44

I was taking a class called Denotational Semantics that I really wasn’t understanding. Other students were asking questions and I thought to myself “Geez, do THEY understand this? They look like they do. I sure don’t.”

We took the mid-term (which felt like I was in a mental fog of vague questions and random incomprehensible answers) and I got a 37%. I went to the prof’s office hours because I clearly didn’t understand and didn’t even know what to do to start understanding. He looked at my test and said “Oh, you got the high score!”

45

You have described a specific kind of education - a shitty one. In my opinion, a good education teaches you critical thinking skills and the ability to acquire and interpret information on your own. I feel that you are overgeneralizing about higher ed here, because I got a lot more than regurgitation out of my university experiences.

As regards the OP, I’ve always known that being intelligent and being educated are not the same thing. I come from a mostly working class background. Everyone in my family is intelligent, but we aren’t all formally educated. I’ve known plenty of relatively uneducated people who seem to be more intelligent than I am. There are also a lot of different ways to be intelligent, and I frequently encounter people who are smart in ways that I am not and vice-versa.
That said, I don’t think you can have academic success without some kind of intelligence. I’ve never known a successful student who wasn’t at least higher than average in the intelligence department.

46

In my experience, the people who make such assertions are people who thought they were smart in school (and may, in fact, have been smart), but who couldn’t cope with the fact that, in order to demonstrate how smart they were, they were actually required to do some work.

Because they never received A’s for all of the brilliant assignments that they failed to submit, or that they threw together at the last minute, and all of the excellent contributions that they failed to make in class, they take comfort and solace in referring to those who did do the required work as “brown-nosers.”

Just to help you out: the fact that you don’t understand or care about their field of study doesn’t mean that they have no brains.

47

I flunked out of engineering courses in college. It was generally thought that I must be a moron.

I got straight A grades in psychology classes later in college after changing my major. It was generally thought that I must be a mental giant.

Intelligence is relative to the task at hand and the perspective of the viewer. I’ve know brilliant woodworkers who couldn’t write a coherent sentence, and engineers who couldn’t nail two boards together. Granted, that’s not the best analogy, as part of that is learned skill, rather than intelligence.

48

mhendo I am loving your posts in this thread.

Though I do have to say that it’s true academic success isn’t necessarily correlated to work success. I’m learning that now, in fact. After years and years of school I feel like I’m starting from scratch in the professional realm. That does not mean I think my education was pointless. On the contrary, I think it would have been a lot harder for me if I hadn’t applied myself academically. But the reality is I’m better at being a student than I am at anything else. Hopefully that won’t be the case forever.

49

Absolutely.

There are a bunch of reasons that people do well or poorly in academia, and in the world of work. Issues such as innate intelligence, educational background, family upbringing, personal preferences, work ethic, and a whole bunch of others all affect how we do in any particular environment.

Furthermore, i don’t believe that there is any deep moral or philosophical superiority attached to a strong academic performance, and nor is there any deep moral or philosophical stigma attached to a poor performance. Some people, for whatever reason, do well in school, and some don’t.

I had a student last semester who ended up with a C. This student was clearly very intelligent, and as far as i could tell would have been perfectly capable of producing A work. She did poorly, however, because she failed to follow instructions on the written assignments, didn’t heed the written feedback i gave her on her work, missed too many classes, rarely did the required reading, and rarely participated in class discussions.

And that’s fine. Everyone has different priorities. I’m perfectly happy to acknowledge that, for many students, my class isn’t the most important thing in their life, and that they will probably blow it off in favor of other things. As long as they are happy to accept a C for C work, we’re good.

Many students think that, when i give them poor grades, it’s because i don’t like them or that i take personal affront at their sub-standard work. I’ve even had some who, after reading my comments on their papers, apologize for offending me. I try to make very clear to these students that i am not angry or offended or even upset, and if my comments are critical it is only because part of my job is to evaluate student work and provide feedback on what the student has done well, what the student has done poorly, and how the student might improve.

The only ones that bug me are the ones who do C work and whine when they don’t get A grades.

50

It’s way too early to draw that conclusion - you’re just getting started. You’re better at being a student because you’ve had years of practice; when you’ve spent that much time as a professional social worker (I think?) you’ll be really good at that as well. If you decide then that you want to be a carpenter, you’ll have spend some time learning the ropes there too.

I said earlier that a lot of the skills that earn good grades are directly transferable, but that doesn’t mean they’re immediately transferable.

51

Yeehaw.

52

My Mom went to school for engineering-total math nerd. My earliest interests were reading, writing, singing, and performance art. I was the daydreaming type. My Mom just did not understand me - she is too concrete a thinker. “I don’t get it. Why are you writing about things that aren’t real? What can you do with that?” Math is superior to English, yadda yadda. etc. etc. She was supportive in the sense that she encouraged me to do these things, but she was psychologically incapable of grasping why some people are passionate about the fine arts.

Last year she presented me with a framed letter of apology for telling me that math was superior to language. She says that while she may not be able to understand it, she can respect it and acknowledge it has value and is important.

Some people never get to that point.

53

My partner (female) is a physicist/biologist and I deal with languages/pedagogy/epistemology, etc (I am male). Math/physics is beautiful and central to our understanding of fundamental principles of life (and being, and things). Some of the most beautiful poetry in the world is the math that describes photosynthesis.

Having said that, I’m not very good at math. When she has time she offers her knowledge to me. But I recognize very well the beauty and necessity of mathematics and science. That doesn’t mean, however, that there is any basis to consider those areas of study more important. The smartest scientists I’ve ever known are the ones who recognize the necessity and beauty of those studies of the “Humanities”. Both complicate one another and make one another more beautiful. I don’t listen to or trust anyone who thinks otherwise.

54

I know just what you mean. One of my favorite people ever is a marine biologist and artist/writer. He sketches scientifically accurate depictions of marine life, particularly prehistoric marine life. I have three of his pieces on my wall. He’s married to a rocket scientist.

Can’t we all just get along?

55

Also I’d like to add another point - intelligence comes in other forms as well. Some people are incredibly academically smart but lack common sense. Isn’t common sense intelligence too?

56

Wow, I don’t even remember posing this question–I take it for granted (really resisted the urge to annoy you all by putting “granite” there) today that while they’re not necessarily correlated, there’s a link to a certain type of intelligence and academic success. As several of you have pointed out, it depends on the field–verbal skills are essential in business, the humanities, and practical applications of the sciences (e.g. industry), while mathematical/problem-solving abilities are more useful in, say, engineering than they are in History.

Since I posted this thread, I’m 3 degrees richer: two BAs and an MD. And I know some very bright people who are in non-academic careers (e.g. a modern dancer, an electrician) and some pretty dim, hard-working people who have succeeded in pretty academic pursuits, like Medicine. I guess what I really ignored when I asked this question 6 years ago was that “intelligence” isn’t just one thing, measurable on a single axis.

57

I tested off the charts as a kid. I got average grades except when a subject truly inspired me and captured my imagination. I used to love to ask questions in class and truly enjoyed (and learned from) the discussions when the professor was willing to have one. I read all the books and the materials (everyone does and is required to) but it was those engaging in-class moments that I thought made the course worth while.

But that was only me. Evidently I was slowing the class down to where the other students where only getting 45-50 minutes per hour of the prepared lecture and I was marked down accordingly. I wasn’t blowing smoke up anyone’s butt…I wasn’t showing off…I just really wanted to know.
I would have sat there 2 extra hours after that bell rang if I could have found out too. But my grades showed it all: just another average student dumbass.

58

I hate to state the obvious here but - to not do good in school, shows a lack of intelligence. In many ways, you are better off in life getting good grades, dealing well with teachers and coworkers (I mean students.)

As far as content goes. It is all memorization. Putting ideas together, developing theories, thinking outside the box, etc comes much later (grad school etc.) All the earlier stuff is memorization…which doesn’t take “intelligence.” Just a good memory.

59

I don’t think that there is a single correct statement in that whole post.

60

Ouch!

I can’t refute your well developed thought :wink: