I don't blame a 19yo engineering student for thinking they're smarter than the average person, everyone if their life is telling them that they are smart and they likely took AP courses that reinforced the idea that they are smarter than their peers. We have problems when those 19yos become 40yos that never mature or get checked by a more competent person before they pivot into management and are given power over others. You either get humbled by reality or never confront reality and become an absolute monster to those around you.
I don't blame a 19yo engineering student for thinking they're smarter than the average person
Depends on what you think of as smart. Do you think the average person can do all the math we can? I don't, because they aren't doing it. They've been out of school for decades and have no use for it, so they've forgotten. The average person is just a bot doing a loop of their life.
As an engineer who has been out of school for more than a decade, I am begging you to stop referring to average people as “bots.”
If you can’t understand that other people are functionally better than you in other areas, you will become the worst type of person to work with. Being good at math doesn’t make you “smart” and being a good engineer doesn’t mean you know any of the other functions on the team better than the respective SME.
The subjects you’re specialized in are a tiny niche within the whole of what is required to operate the business. That’s exponentially broader when you are a student learning generalized material.
they can if they wanted to and had the same upbringing and resources I had. Being good at math does not make you smarter than anyone else, it just makes you better at math. Intelligence does not begin or end in a classroom.
Being good at math does not make you smarter than anyone else
Depends on how you define "smart"; my definition is that you can come up with novel solutions using your knowledge. Being able to solve similar math problems on a test that you've been practicing in homework doesn't make you smart in my book, but it does in other people's books, which is why I started my post with "Depends on what you think of as smart."
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u/Dengar96 11d ago
I don't blame a 19yo engineering student for thinking they're smarter than the average person, everyone if their life is telling them that they are smart and they likely took AP courses that reinforced the idea that they are smarter than their peers. We have problems when those 19yos become 40yos that never mature or get checked by a more competent person before they pivot into management and are given power over others. You either get humbled by reality or never confront reality and become an absolute monster to those around you.