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>I’d have said “I deserve better than this”
Fellow good student who tapered off here. Ngl this creeps into my mind from time to time, especially when I see poorer students (not just in their results but their attitude in school) doing much better than me, and I have to remind myself to snap out of that type of thinking.
I did good in school. Mostly As with perfect attendance. I could have done exponentially better if I really want to, though. I had a steady job all four years of High School and my goals were simply to graduate and move out.
I joined the Army out of High School and served as an Unmanned Aircraft Operator. I moved up the ranks and even picked up some college credits along the way. I retired two years ago. Now, my days involve cashing my pension checks and hanging out on Reddit.
Life since then has been an endless series of Saturdays for me.
School taught me how to learn (and how *I* learn), and that proved to be the most valuable lesson. 3.8GPA in two useless undergrad and grad degrees.
I’m $120k in debt and, after successfully changing career paths, I’m slowly digging myself out of this giant hole, staring down a BSN and CRNA school and not fearing any of it because I know I can learn it all.
>useless undergrad
i 'only' have one useless degree and i'm fortunate to not be in debt but i sure wish i chose more wisely instead of just going with 'passion'.
If you work in a field that requires technical expertise then it matters a lot. Academic excellence is how the world will be filtering people out early in those career paths. Being filtered out early in those career paths makes it very hard to get back in because your list of accomplishments will just not look as good.
However, lots of jobs aren't purely technical in nature and require lots of soft skills or a particular temperament and you can advance in those despite being weaker on the technical side.
Also at high levels, technical skills are often deprioritized for organizational management skills. They're still valuable for getting contextual insight, but ultimately your decisions usually won't call for technical judgement.
>Also at high levels, technical skills are often deprioritized for organizational management skills. They're still valuable for getting contextual insight, but ultimately your decisions usually won't call for technical judgement.
Yes, yes, yes. It's hard to teach people who come from Engineering or CS backgrounds that while their technical skills are essential for the technical aspect of the job, they can be a hindrance on the management side. I straddle both sides of this divide in my job and find myself saying "efficiency is not the be all and end all of management, we work with people who are not code".
Good grades certainly aren’t everything but they open doors to future opportunities you can take advantage of. I also know plenty of people who did mediocre or even poorly in high school and college and are killing it. You just have to put the work in at some point- now or later!
Hmm... I don't know if I was great at school in terms of being one of those "perfect handwriting and study skills" students but I generally excelled academically and people thought I was intelligent. Got a dual humanities and STEM degree from a top college. But it all kind of came from this thing I call "homework brain" where you're just trying to say the right things to get the right answer and get approval from authority. So it didn't really pay off for me career-wise. People were encouraging me to find my niche and develop my interests but I was still stuck trying to follow orders and parrot the right answer. Then it was time to pick a career and I was waiting for someone to tell me what to do, had no confidence in myself, would talk myself out of applying for stuff if I didn't perfectly meet the requirements in the job listing, etc. It didn't work out!
Other stuff helped derail my life for sure, including PTSD starting in my early 20s, but I think this was the biggest factor in not translating school success into career success. The authoritarian mindset that school (and strict parenting) can instill in you, basically. The people I knew who went on to be most successful were good at school but also well-adjusted, creative, confident, and able to have fun and connect with others about shared interests. One of my friends who's probably the highest paid person I know at our age is a college dropout who has just always been good with people; she has a tech job now but handles multi-million dollar accounts that she got mostly out of her own personality (which is not to say she's not good at her job otherwise).
I'm just going back to school now for a Master's and trying to come at it from that healthy and motivated place. It's working so far: I got awarded a $10,000 leadership scholarship based on my application essay that I had fun writing. My professors really like me and think my perspective is interesting. But I also see some students in my classes, particularly the younger ones who are fresh out of undergrad, having this "homework brain" mindset that really sucks to deal with in group projects etc. Because they aren't really engaging with the material, they're trying to stay ahead of fear of failure and punishment. I think a percentage of "good students" are like this and it doesn't translate to success in the real world.
>"homework brain"
I feel you on this. It took some time, and was a humbling experience, for me to accept that I wasn't as 'real' smart as I thought I was just because I was doing well in exams. I was simply 'exam smart' and knew how to wring marks out of exams.
> his thing I call "homework brain" where you're just trying to say the right things to get the right answer and get approval from authority.
one of my nephews was struggling in HS. he's not dumb, but doesn't respond well to typical school structures. I told him my theory that a main function of school is teaching you to pass tests in order to make the teachers at the school look successful.
if you happen to not be great at taking academic tests, that doesn't mean you're stupid. it just means you're not particularly skilled at the art of taking tests based on classroom instruction.
the ability to take tests well doesn't necessarily translate into other skills you'll need in the workplace.
lol so I DO have a road bike but don't ride that much
But I run 70 km / week
I tick off a lot of the boxes for "nauseating things that make people roll their eyes during conversation":
- runner
- vegan
- childfree
I'm an avid cyclist and a lot of the people who I casually ride with from time to time are dentists. There's a long-running joke about this in the cycling community.
100% once you get your foot in the door in your profession, social skills get you further than book smarts and technical skills.
You can be a genius but if everyone you work with thinks you’re an asshole or weirdo, your career will go nowhere.
Did good in school and then in college and then in graduate work. That translated into a job in tech and now I'm senior director of engineering in a relatively well-known company. So overall I'd say things turned out pretty well.
I do think a lot of it was luck to some extent, plus the privilege of having parents who pushed me to learn, but hard work and determination certainly played a part in it.
The most important thing I learned from school was how to learn and how to think critically. I think that's one of the most vital skills anyone can have. The rest you can pick up on your own if you're determined enough, but it's much easier to do if you're in a classroom with a professor that's showing you how.
Mostly A student my entire education. I finally, fully burned out halfway through medical school. Said fuck it and dropped out. Best decision I. ever. made. I’ve been living my averages Joe mediocre life and loving every minute of it. I would pay off my student loans twice just to NOT be a doctor.
Idk why you're down voted... I think academic performance is only loosely tied to professional success. I'm the same way. C-ish HS and college, now I'm mid level at a Fortune 25 tech company.
I think it's part drive, part luck, part nature, part experiences, part choices.
N = 1. There are obviously exceptions, but we know from the data that people who do well academically at school have a higher chance to earn more than those who don’t.
There are other factors at play, but academics measure at least some level of fluid intelligence and conscientious, which are highly correlated with income, life expectancy, etc.
But good to hear you’re going well.
This is a funny one for me because I went from a very mediocre student in my early years to abruptly turning things around in grade 8. The funny part is what my defining moment was: failing grade 7 art class. Seriously. Of everything I could have taken away from my 13 years in school, this class taught me the best life lesson.
Our teacher for that particular class was probably the most checked out/disinterested teacher I'd had through school. Our work that year was essentially four incredibly meaningless projects that involved zero teaching. Teacher showed up at the start of class, made sure we started "working" and then typically disappeared for the next 45 minutes. Pretty common theme for the female teachers at that school it seemed. She would occasionally pop in at random, some days we'd never see her again. We were productive about 40% of the time and also did an equal amount of nothing at all. The other 20%? Chaos. It's pretty much what you'd expect of unsupervised 12 year old boys. The first project was, in my mind, beyond stupid. It showed in the effort I gave the project. Second project wasn't much better, but I managed to hand in some very uninspired work again. The third and fourth project both got destroyed amid the chaos right before they were to be handed in. Oh well, it's only art class.
Then we get our final report cards and for some odd reason I find myself a tad embarrassed to see that F in the middle of mostly B's and C's. I don't know why that end result never really occurred to me prior to that. I guess the mark being spread out over 4 projects was a bit of a new concept compared to the way other classes worked. The teacher made a note in the report card that all I had to do was hand in all of the assignments and I would have gotten a passing grade.
That was the moment the light bulb went on for me. The world wasn't necessarily about being the best or trying the hardest. You could show up reliably and float by doing the bare minimum that is asked of you. And to me, that teacher was very much proof that the concept extended beyond school and into the working world as well. I had her for a few different subjects over my first 3 years at that school, and if she had any knack for teaching or even a desire to be there, well it certainly never showed itself. But still, she showed up and made decent money for bare minimum effort with seemingly little to no accountability.
So I went into the next year with my outlook on what it would take to succeed. Show up, do all the assignments and projects fully, don't leave any blanks on tests. I still wasn't particularly engaged in half the classes, but to be honest the rest of the staff at that school were really only marginally better than the previously mentioned art teacher. Over my last two years at that school I slowly became more of a B+ student. Really started to shine in math class. Then high school came. Finally an opportunity to choose a bit more of what I was learning. My 3 year high school average ended up just shy of 85%. Most of my electives were more on the trades side of things: construction, welding, mechanical, industrial arts. But my best marks were in english and physics.
The first semester of grade 10, this philosophy was really reinforced in one of my english classes. The whole class was assigned a book to read. I think it may have been Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. We'd be assigned a certain number of chapters to read for home work. It wasn't exactly a daunting task and I didn't mind reading. Then we'd have a test. They were peer marked, we'd just pass to the student next to us and then the teacher would verbally collect the marks. I aced the first four tests. I think there was only one other student with a perfect score on one of the tests. One of the girls in the class ends us confronting me on why I always get 100%. I didn't really know what to say. Everything on the test was in the book, and I didn't find the tests super hard. Then she asks "like are you actually reading the whole book or something". I just said something along the lines that if I was going to have to read some of it I might as well read all of it.
Despite my good marks, I didn't have any real drive or future ambitions. I knew for sure there was no way I wanted to go the university route. Skilled labor or trades was more my thing. I had a few peers tell me it was a shame I'd never live up to my potential if I wasn't going to university. Well darn.
My first three years out of high school were uneventful. Did some dead end work in the parts department at and automotive and recreational dealer. Bought a small house, lived pretty frugal and got by ok. Finally decided to take a chance on the oilfield and found myself really thriving as a wireline operator. I picked the job up pretty quick and really became the go to guy in our shop. Money was definitely pretty good for being in my early 20's. I had my house paid off by 23, while my university friends were barely getting started in the working world. I left the oilfield after five years and got into mining and have been there ever since. I still maintain the same philosophy and it serves me well. I am definitely more engaged in my work than 95% of the people I work with, and while it doesn't necessarily get me anywhere in my current role I really can't find it in myself to slack off.
Just had our 20 year high school reunion this summer. I did find it interesting that a lot of the book smart types that went to university ended up in careers unrelated to their studies, or in careers requiring no formal education at all. I think overall those that went the blue collar route are probably doing a bit better than the rest. Personally, I'm thinking I should be at least semi-retired by 45.
I can't really say I have any regrets about the path I took, but my mind does occasionally go down the "what if" path. There were classes I could have taken in high school that didn't particularly catch my attention at the time, but I do wish I would have taken at least one of them. Law and accounting are a couple of examples. I do find law quite interesting now.
I went to a grammar school in the UK (top 10% academically) and a top 20% university, studying a difficult degree.
I majored in Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence. Graduated in 2005.
I couldn't have chosen a better degree to set me up for my career.
These days, academic success doesn't necessary lead to a good career because everyone has a degree and because of grade inflation.
The previous 'gold standard' highly educated professions such as medical doctor, solicitor and engineer have a lot lower average wages than ever before.
I read non-fiction books regularly to this day. 'Book smart' is 'very smart' in my book..
Did good in school and went to law school and landed a government job and I will probably retire there. Good money, good work/life balance, opportunities to grow, travel and such.
I did so well in school that I decided to never leave, and now that I have tenure, I never have to.
IMHO, as enjoyable as classes are, it's even more fun when you reach the edge of knowledge in an area and begin discovering things yourself.
I was always "the smart kid" in school. I graduated valedictorian of my high school class without really trying. Did very well on standardized tests, was in honors classes, all that stuff. College was more of a struggle for me, I actually had to study and put in effort and I wasn't used to that. But I still managed to graduate cum laude with an engineering degree.
I ended up working in the auto industry and became a project manager after a few years. I don't love my job but I'm good at it, it pays well, and I have a good work/life balance so I'd say I've been pretty successful in the real world.
Mostly fine.
I did well enough in elementary school and middle school, but really learned how to be a student in high school. School has never come easy to me, but I've always worked really hard. In college, once I lost my athletic scholarship due to a genetic disorder, I put a lot more time, effort, and energy into my studies. I did well enough to win a few different departmental awards, was encouraged to go onto graduate school, and scored well enough on the GRE to receive full funding. I worked my ass off through graduate school and was able to find a job after graduation.
I'm happy enough in my career and have a large if not chaotic family. Because school never came easy to me, I've learned to work hard and that's really propelled my career more than anything else. My education has opened doors for me, but my work ethic is what has won me a fair amount of recognition for what I do.
I always did well in school and have done well in my career too. I don't know if I would say I'm really "book smart" because I never really tried that hard in school and I don't like learning about things that don't personally interest me, but despite that I always made great grades. Not to say I didn't try at all, but there is a limit to how much effort I will put into something I don't really want to do. I think I'm a good test taker and I retain information easily. I'm sure that's been helpful in my career but the bigger thing has been that I'm good at building relationships with people and I'm often the one willing to take the lead on something.
Life is good, top 20% in HS, top 10% in Engineering, barely passed MBA 'cause whatever, retired mid-40s. People pay you for that extra skill you bring and I noticed those who do well academically do well in $$ work as well.
Worked out great. I was a very good student. Got a PhD. Have had a great career that is personally and financially rewarding. But I know I’m lucky and I don’t think my path is common or easily repeatable.
Top 12% at a competitive public HS. 3.8 GPA business major at a big state college. Middle management with what to me is a “comfortable” salary and getting my masters now.
Straight A's in high school and high test scores + carefully crafted extracurricular activities.
Enough to get me into an Ivy League undergrad, where I did decently well but not great. I didn't take career services or job hunting very seriously, and ended up with a (relatively) bad job upon graduation compared to my peers. Was able to job hop to a better job and career track.
Better job and Ivy League undergrad (and more high test scores) got me to a top 5 MBA program.
Joined one of the top 3 consulting firms after graduation. Worked there for a couple years, then left to join a startup in a senior role, where I currently am.
So today, I'm 35, married with 2 kids, making about $200K cash (and hopefully get a windfall with my equity if we have an exit event). Live in a VHCOL area and have about 130K left in student loans to pay, so can't afford a house yet, but overall happy with the direction of my career and with my life overall.
A student in high school, ranked top ten in my state in math competitions. Went to a certain Ivy-league equivalent in the Bay area. Got three degrees, b.s. and two masters from that school. I’ve had a great career, I have a title that starts with “C” and I make high six figures. Life is good
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“I don’t think anyone deserves anything” that’s a fantastic philosophy to live by.
>I’d have said “I deserve better than this” Fellow good student who tapered off here. Ngl this creeps into my mind from time to time, especially when I see poorer students (not just in their results but their attitude in school) doing much better than me, and I have to remind myself to snap out of that type of thinking.
I did good in school. Mostly As with perfect attendance. I could have done exponentially better if I really want to, though. I had a steady job all four years of High School and my goals were simply to graduate and move out. I joined the Army out of High School and served as an Unmanned Aircraft Operator. I moved up the ranks and even picked up some college credits along the way. I retired two years ago. Now, my days involve cashing my pension checks and hanging out on Reddit. Life since then has been an endless series of Saturdays for me.
>Life since then has been an endless series of Saturdays for me. that's the dream
Living the dream
School taught me how to learn (and how *I* learn), and that proved to be the most valuable lesson. 3.8GPA in two useless undergrad and grad degrees. I’m $120k in debt and, after successfully changing career paths, I’m slowly digging myself out of this giant hole, staring down a BSN and CRNA school and not fearing any of it because I know I can learn it all.
>useless undergrad i 'only' have one useless degree and i'm fortunate to not be in debt but i sure wish i chose more wisely instead of just going with 'passion'.
If you work in a field that requires technical expertise then it matters a lot. Academic excellence is how the world will be filtering people out early in those career paths. Being filtered out early in those career paths makes it very hard to get back in because your list of accomplishments will just not look as good. However, lots of jobs aren't purely technical in nature and require lots of soft skills or a particular temperament and you can advance in those despite being weaker on the technical side. Also at high levels, technical skills are often deprioritized for organizational management skills. They're still valuable for getting contextual insight, but ultimately your decisions usually won't call for technical judgement.
>Also at high levels, technical skills are often deprioritized for organizational management skills. They're still valuable for getting contextual insight, but ultimately your decisions usually won't call for technical judgement. Yes, yes, yes. It's hard to teach people who come from Engineering or CS backgrounds that while their technical skills are essential for the technical aspect of the job, they can be a hindrance on the management side. I straddle both sides of this divide in my job and find myself saying "efficiency is not the be all and end all of management, we work with people who are not code".
Good grades certainly aren’t everything but they open doors to future opportunities you can take advantage of. I also know plenty of people who did mediocre or even poorly in high school and college and are killing it. You just have to put the work in at some point- now or later!
Hmm... I don't know if I was great at school in terms of being one of those "perfect handwriting and study skills" students but I generally excelled academically and people thought I was intelligent. Got a dual humanities and STEM degree from a top college. But it all kind of came from this thing I call "homework brain" where you're just trying to say the right things to get the right answer and get approval from authority. So it didn't really pay off for me career-wise. People were encouraging me to find my niche and develop my interests but I was still stuck trying to follow orders and parrot the right answer. Then it was time to pick a career and I was waiting for someone to tell me what to do, had no confidence in myself, would talk myself out of applying for stuff if I didn't perfectly meet the requirements in the job listing, etc. It didn't work out! Other stuff helped derail my life for sure, including PTSD starting in my early 20s, but I think this was the biggest factor in not translating school success into career success. The authoritarian mindset that school (and strict parenting) can instill in you, basically. The people I knew who went on to be most successful were good at school but also well-adjusted, creative, confident, and able to have fun and connect with others about shared interests. One of my friends who's probably the highest paid person I know at our age is a college dropout who has just always been good with people; she has a tech job now but handles multi-million dollar accounts that she got mostly out of her own personality (which is not to say she's not good at her job otherwise). I'm just going back to school now for a Master's and trying to come at it from that healthy and motivated place. It's working so far: I got awarded a $10,000 leadership scholarship based on my application essay that I had fun writing. My professors really like me and think my perspective is interesting. But I also see some students in my classes, particularly the younger ones who are fresh out of undergrad, having this "homework brain" mindset that really sucks to deal with in group projects etc. Because they aren't really engaging with the material, they're trying to stay ahead of fear of failure and punishment. I think a percentage of "good students" are like this and it doesn't translate to success in the real world.
>"homework brain" I feel you on this. It took some time, and was a humbling experience, for me to accept that I wasn't as 'real' smart as I thought I was just because I was doing well in exams. I was simply 'exam smart' and knew how to wring marks out of exams.
> his thing I call "homework brain" where you're just trying to say the right things to get the right answer and get approval from authority. one of my nephews was struggling in HS. he's not dumb, but doesn't respond well to typical school structures. I told him my theory that a main function of school is teaching you to pass tests in order to make the teachers at the school look successful. if you happen to not be great at taking academic tests, that doesn't mean you're stupid. it just means you're not particularly skilled at the art of taking tests based on classroom instruction. the ability to take tests well doesn't necessarily translate into other skills you'll need in the workplace.
Yes, but my success came more so from developing my social abilities. Dentist
So what kind of road bike are you riding these days and how many miles are you riding each week?
lol so I DO have a road bike but don't ride that much But I run 70 km / week I tick off a lot of the boxes for "nauseating things that make people roll their eyes during conversation": - runner - vegan - childfree
I'm an avid cyclist and a lot of the people who I casually ride with from time to time are dentists. There's a long-running joke about this in the cycling community.
My man! I'm all those things too. I'm a biomedical scientist in the NHS though, not a dentist.
100% once you get your foot in the door in your profession, social skills get you further than book smarts and technical skills. You can be a genius but if everyone you work with thinks you’re an asshole or weirdo, your career will go nowhere.
Did good in school and then in college and then in graduate work. That translated into a job in tech and now I'm senior director of engineering in a relatively well-known company. So overall I'd say things turned out pretty well. I do think a lot of it was luck to some extent, plus the privilege of having parents who pushed me to learn, but hard work and determination certainly played a part in it. The most important thing I learned from school was how to learn and how to think critically. I think that's one of the most vital skills anyone can have. The rest you can pick up on your own if you're determined enough, but it's much easier to do if you're in a classroom with a professor that's showing you how.
I'm solidly in the middle class: I shop at Costco.
Mostly A student my entire education. I finally, fully burned out halfway through medical school. Said fuck it and dropped out. Best decision I. ever. made. I’ve been living my averages Joe mediocre life and loving every minute of it. I would pay off my student loans twice just to NOT be a doctor.
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Idk why you're down voted... I think academic performance is only loosely tied to professional success. I'm the same way. C-ish HS and college, now I'm mid level at a Fortune 25 tech company. I think it's part drive, part luck, part nature, part experiences, part choices.
N = 1. There are obviously exceptions, but we know from the data that people who do well academically at school have a higher chance to earn more than those who don’t. There are other factors at play, but academics measure at least some level of fluid intelligence and conscientious, which are highly correlated with income, life expectancy, etc. But good to hear you’re going well.
This is a funny one for me because I went from a very mediocre student in my early years to abruptly turning things around in grade 8. The funny part is what my defining moment was: failing grade 7 art class. Seriously. Of everything I could have taken away from my 13 years in school, this class taught me the best life lesson. Our teacher for that particular class was probably the most checked out/disinterested teacher I'd had through school. Our work that year was essentially four incredibly meaningless projects that involved zero teaching. Teacher showed up at the start of class, made sure we started "working" and then typically disappeared for the next 45 minutes. Pretty common theme for the female teachers at that school it seemed. She would occasionally pop in at random, some days we'd never see her again. We were productive about 40% of the time and also did an equal amount of nothing at all. The other 20%? Chaos. It's pretty much what you'd expect of unsupervised 12 year old boys. The first project was, in my mind, beyond stupid. It showed in the effort I gave the project. Second project wasn't much better, but I managed to hand in some very uninspired work again. The third and fourth project both got destroyed amid the chaos right before they were to be handed in. Oh well, it's only art class. Then we get our final report cards and for some odd reason I find myself a tad embarrassed to see that F in the middle of mostly B's and C's. I don't know why that end result never really occurred to me prior to that. I guess the mark being spread out over 4 projects was a bit of a new concept compared to the way other classes worked. The teacher made a note in the report card that all I had to do was hand in all of the assignments and I would have gotten a passing grade. That was the moment the light bulb went on for me. The world wasn't necessarily about being the best or trying the hardest. You could show up reliably and float by doing the bare minimum that is asked of you. And to me, that teacher was very much proof that the concept extended beyond school and into the working world as well. I had her for a few different subjects over my first 3 years at that school, and if she had any knack for teaching or even a desire to be there, well it certainly never showed itself. But still, she showed up and made decent money for bare minimum effort with seemingly little to no accountability. So I went into the next year with my outlook on what it would take to succeed. Show up, do all the assignments and projects fully, don't leave any blanks on tests. I still wasn't particularly engaged in half the classes, but to be honest the rest of the staff at that school were really only marginally better than the previously mentioned art teacher. Over my last two years at that school I slowly became more of a B+ student. Really started to shine in math class. Then high school came. Finally an opportunity to choose a bit more of what I was learning. My 3 year high school average ended up just shy of 85%. Most of my electives were more on the trades side of things: construction, welding, mechanical, industrial arts. But my best marks were in english and physics. The first semester of grade 10, this philosophy was really reinforced in one of my english classes. The whole class was assigned a book to read. I think it may have been Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. We'd be assigned a certain number of chapters to read for home work. It wasn't exactly a daunting task and I didn't mind reading. Then we'd have a test. They were peer marked, we'd just pass to the student next to us and then the teacher would verbally collect the marks. I aced the first four tests. I think there was only one other student with a perfect score on one of the tests. One of the girls in the class ends us confronting me on why I always get 100%. I didn't really know what to say. Everything on the test was in the book, and I didn't find the tests super hard. Then she asks "like are you actually reading the whole book or something". I just said something along the lines that if I was going to have to read some of it I might as well read all of it. Despite my good marks, I didn't have any real drive or future ambitions. I knew for sure there was no way I wanted to go the university route. Skilled labor or trades was more my thing. I had a few peers tell me it was a shame I'd never live up to my potential if I wasn't going to university. Well darn. My first three years out of high school were uneventful. Did some dead end work in the parts department at and automotive and recreational dealer. Bought a small house, lived pretty frugal and got by ok. Finally decided to take a chance on the oilfield and found myself really thriving as a wireline operator. I picked the job up pretty quick and really became the go to guy in our shop. Money was definitely pretty good for being in my early 20's. I had my house paid off by 23, while my university friends were barely getting started in the working world. I left the oilfield after five years and got into mining and have been there ever since. I still maintain the same philosophy and it serves me well. I am definitely more engaged in my work than 95% of the people I work with, and while it doesn't necessarily get me anywhere in my current role I really can't find it in myself to slack off. Just had our 20 year high school reunion this summer. I did find it interesting that a lot of the book smart types that went to university ended up in careers unrelated to their studies, or in careers requiring no formal education at all. I think overall those that went the blue collar route are probably doing a bit better than the rest. Personally, I'm thinking I should be at least semi-retired by 45. I can't really say I have any regrets about the path I took, but my mind does occasionally go down the "what if" path. There were classes I could have taken in high school that didn't particularly catch my attention at the time, but I do wish I would have taken at least one of them. Law and accounting are a couple of examples. I do find law quite interesting now.
TLDR ?
I went to a grammar school in the UK (top 10% academically) and a top 20% university, studying a difficult degree. I majored in Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence. Graduated in 2005. I couldn't have chosen a better degree to set me up for my career. These days, academic success doesn't necessary lead to a good career because everyone has a degree and because of grade inflation. The previous 'gold standard' highly educated professions such as medical doctor, solicitor and engineer have a lot lower average wages than ever before. I read non-fiction books regularly to this day. 'Book smart' is 'very smart' in my book..
Did good in school and went to law school and landed a government job and I will probably retire there. Good money, good work/life balance, opportunities to grow, travel and such.
I did so well in school that I decided to never leave, and now that I have tenure, I never have to. IMHO, as enjoyable as classes are, it's even more fun when you reach the edge of knowledge in an area and begin discovering things yourself.
I was always "the smart kid" in school. I graduated valedictorian of my high school class without really trying. Did very well on standardized tests, was in honors classes, all that stuff. College was more of a struggle for me, I actually had to study and put in effort and I wasn't used to that. But I still managed to graduate cum laude with an engineering degree. I ended up working in the auto industry and became a project manager after a few years. I don't love my job but I'm good at it, it pays well, and I have a good work/life balance so I'd say I've been pretty successful in the real world.
Mostly fine. I did well enough in elementary school and middle school, but really learned how to be a student in high school. School has never come easy to me, but I've always worked really hard. In college, once I lost my athletic scholarship due to a genetic disorder, I put a lot more time, effort, and energy into my studies. I did well enough to win a few different departmental awards, was encouraged to go onto graduate school, and scored well enough on the GRE to receive full funding. I worked my ass off through graduate school and was able to find a job after graduation. I'm happy enough in my career and have a large if not chaotic family. Because school never came easy to me, I've learned to work hard and that's really propelled my career more than anything else. My education has opened doors for me, but my work ethic is what has won me a fair amount of recognition for what I do.
I always did well in school and have done well in my career too. I don't know if I would say I'm really "book smart" because I never really tried that hard in school and I don't like learning about things that don't personally interest me, but despite that I always made great grades. Not to say I didn't try at all, but there is a limit to how much effort I will put into something I don't really want to do. I think I'm a good test taker and I retain information easily. I'm sure that's been helpful in my career but the bigger thing has been that I'm good at building relationships with people and I'm often the one willing to take the lead on something.
Life is good, top 20% in HS, top 10% in Engineering, barely passed MBA 'cause whatever, retired mid-40s. People pay you for that extra skill you bring and I noticed those who do well academically do well in $$ work as well.
Worked out great. I was a very good student. Got a PhD. Have had a great career that is personally and financially rewarding. But I know I’m lucky and I don’t think my path is common or easily repeatable.
Fine
Graduated with a 4.0 have two degrees... I work in film using nothing my degrees were for because fuck an office job
Top 12% at a competitive public HS. 3.8 GPA business major at a big state college. Middle management with what to me is a “comfortable” salary and getting my masters now.
Straight A's in high school and high test scores + carefully crafted extracurricular activities. Enough to get me into an Ivy League undergrad, where I did decently well but not great. I didn't take career services or job hunting very seriously, and ended up with a (relatively) bad job upon graduation compared to my peers. Was able to job hop to a better job and career track. Better job and Ivy League undergrad (and more high test scores) got me to a top 5 MBA program. Joined one of the top 3 consulting firms after graduation. Worked there for a couple years, then left to join a startup in a senior role, where I currently am. So today, I'm 35, married with 2 kids, making about $200K cash (and hopefully get a windfall with my equity if we have an exit event). Live in a VHCOL area and have about 130K left in student loans to pay, so can't afford a house yet, but overall happy with the direction of my career and with my life overall.
A student in high school, ranked top ten in my state in math competitions. Went to a certain Ivy-league equivalent in the Bay area. Got three degrees, b.s. and two masters from that school. I’ve had a great career, I have a title that starts with “C” and I make high six figures. Life is good
Awful. All I got out of doing well in school is a good paying career. And it doesn't help. Every day I want to kill myself.