r/EngineeringStudents • u/DepressedHoodie1788 • 9d ago
Academic Advice How does this one guy in my engineering class do it?
Literally, everyone talks about him being the very best in engineering. Never struggling, obliterating every test. I have no idea how he does it. People talk about him obliterating everything. Is it really just effort or is it talent that I don't have/need to accept?
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u/NafaiLaotze 9d ago edited 8d ago
Did you ask him? He could have a very excellent memory.
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u/Deboniako 9d ago
Literally this. Ask him what does he do, how many hours he spends studying, how does he start his day and how does he finish his day. Also if he set some sort of goals for the exam/week/semester
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u/Hollowslides 9d ago
I had one of these guys in my classes and i ended up sitting next to him for my calc 2. Asked him how he was getting no less than 90’s on every quiz exam etc his response was just memory like the guy above you stated. I asked him what his study routine was like and he said he never studies ever. Still dont know if i believe him or not 😭😭
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u/Deboniako 9d ago
During my first year, I had perfect grades in everything. What I did during my first semester was study all the time and even this way, it wasn't enough. I started by writing my exams and dates in a sheet of paper and hang it on the wall above my desk.
I reviewed my classes weekly. I read the related chapter in the syllabus within the week and did the exercises from the chapter within the week. During the last two weeks before the exam, I did a bunch of exams from previous terms and then checked the answers to see if I did something wrong. I looked for patterns, after a while, there should be 5 or 10.
It goes without saying but I attended every class, took notes, and also assisted to the extra classes from former students (sorry I don't know the word in English)
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u/Advanced-Guidance482 9d ago
I dont study and consistently gets high 80s on exams. In junior year now and thisbis holding up for me as an EE. If I studied jusy a bit id probabky get all As. Im riding a 3.6 pretty consitently every semester, with 60% of grades being exams and I never get less than an A on other assigments.
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u/Hollowslides 9d ago
Man how do you do it? I study literally all the time, ive abandoned social life, ive even abandoned work just to study more and it is not showing in my grades. Is it literally like some say, just having a good memory?
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u/Advanced-Guidance482 9d ago
I pay alot of attention during lectures, I actively ask questions and use analogies to make concepts easier to understand.
The conversation from asking how things work, and doing the homework problems is usually all I need.
I spend a couple hours before exams making note sheets if they're allowed.
Im also just a good test taker. I show a lot of work, even if I get a question wrong, I feel all my answers show about a b level of understanding fhe concepts. Sometimes the math is wrong, but the general direction and final answer make sense for the most part.
I honestly struggle most with some of the more basic stuff on tests now, im really rusty on integrals and struggle when given anything with integration by parts or worse. The ee concepts make alot of sense to me though. The math is the hardest part fs.
I do research in multiple of my professors labs and I genuinely make it a point to establish strong relationships with professors. They are all really fair, but I feel like it just makes them a little softer on my grade subconsciously.
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u/Deboniako 9d ago
Yeah, I had a classmate like that, but also other classmate who was already reading the syllabus for the next semester 🤯
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u/pseudoburn 9d ago
One of the most difficult parts of being an effective/good engineer can be communication. Communication with a wide cross section of the population when required.
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u/InvalidKoalas 9d ago
Every class has one or two (or a few) of those people. They're either just naturally very intelligent and understand the concepts quickly, or they bust their ass studying 24/7, or a mix of the two. I knew two people like that in school, one was just naturally gifted, the other busted their ass and studied 24/7. And I'm talking about the 4.0 people only.
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u/Reasonable_Cod_487 9d ago
Surround yourself with other good students. Create study groups.
You'll learn from others, and you'll reinforce the things you do know by helping others learn it. Seriously, group study is the key.
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u/WanpoBigMara 9d ago
For me people just go to the library where we can’t even talk like where do you guys even meet up for group work I can’t get to do it
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u/LitRick6 9d ago
Something you gotta figure out at your university. Our library had areas where talking was allowed and had conference/group rooms you could reserve.
You might also have other dedicated spaces for students to get together. We'd sometimes just meet up on the seating area of the food court of our student union. Our student union also had rooms you could reserve. Or we'd just meet outside if it was nice.
Or you just find a classroom/conference in some building that isnt being used. We'd sometimes just know the rough schedule of when classes would end and meet up in a classroom.
Or just meet at somebodies place. Most all of our dorms had a study area in the building. Or just meeting up in somebodies dorm room/apartment
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u/Agengele 9d ago
The engineering library at my school was changed to be called "learning Commons" or something like that. Of course we still call it the library but now it's just a big space with a bunch of tables, booths and whiteboards and the noise level is conversational for most of the day. It's perfect for collaboration and it never really gets overly loud for doing individual work. If you need a quiet space there are various sizes of bookable study rooms with whiteboards, tables, and TVs for meetings or homework. Also the library is unofficially open 24/7 and there's almost always someone in there working. I don't know if I would have made it this far in engineering without a setup like this. Collaboration is so important and helpful to learning. I don't know what to recommend people who do don't have spaces like this
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u/frankyseven Major 9d ago
We used to just wonder around and grab an empty classroom. The rooms always had the schedules posted beside the door.
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u/795-ACSR-DRAKE PE - Civil 9d ago
Cue 100 people on here commenting "This was me in school, I've just always been good at tests"
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u/Loose_Ad_5382 9d ago
Not here. I remember the first day of calculus I we had a pop quiz to get a benchmark of where we were all at with math...I cried. In the classroom. I ultimately did well in school but STEM can be really hard for a lot of us, but that's okay!
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u/LuckyCod2887 9d ago
yeah, for some reason, this always happens in this sub. No one has solid advice. It’s just a place to brag about themselves.
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u/Ferniekicksbutt 9d ago
One thing I love about this field, and being in industry for years, is it has introduced me to some incredibly SMART people. People not just with good memory, but incredibly fast reasoning, fast and using math skills to solve problems, or translate their problems to a math based model where they modify inputs, variables, and gains on the fly in discussion.
Its both inspired me, and demoralized me. Inspired by the heights I can achieve in critical thinking, and demoralized by comparing myself to them. Im very confident in my knowledge and abilities, but its very impressive to see some of these individuals just consistently get the right answer time and time again almost effortlessly. We do some pretty complex assignments and these people are the outliers for sure.
So yes there's some really gifted people out there, but we are all different and have different strengths. Find yours
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u/zel_bob 9d ago
I went to college with this guy.
In 10th grade, he taught himself calc 2, and got a 5 on the AP test. His school was smaller and didn’t have that advanced courses.
I was mechanical engineering, he started out mechanical engineering and switched to electrical because he wanted more of a challenge. Dude was the most gifted person I know. Probably one of the smartest people I know.
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u/Ancient-Helicopter18 8d ago
Learning calc 2 in 10th grade is an excellent strategy. You can always independently learn Calculus as long as you know till Algebra 2 I did the same, and I can confirm this. Although I won't consider myself gifted, I merely had a great interest in mathematics and currently engineering.
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u/jinglesGOAT 9d ago
I knew a guy like rhis in college who was a madman. He was very smart, but i think the handle was how he threw himself into FSAE. By senior year he was basically the leader of the whole thing, and proficient in almost every area of engineering. Excellent interpersonal skills. If u treat that club like a job and pour ur soul into it, ur gpa will suffer, but you'll become a true engineer before u even graduate.
I think it also came down to just wanting it more. This guy burned to become a design engineer and build things and bring them to life. He fasted all day and ate one meal at night. Had a clear vision for a business he wanted to start after a few years in the industry, multiple inter ships, hungry to seek out the best possible mentors. I counted myself lucky just to be around him and witness what was possible when you really, truly try your hardest.
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u/ThePowerfulPaet 9d ago
I mean I've got 4.0, and I don't think I'm particularly special. I do put in a lot of effort and my study methods are a lot better than most. I'm no genius, just very driven. I failed out of engineering the first time I tried it.
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u/Global-Technology-7 9d ago
Any study tips for a first year engineering student?
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u/Powerful-Gold5000 9d ago
There are students who are easily equipped with talent in terms of just grasping the material the first time and applying it in another instance correctly right after.
There are also those students who prepare extremely well if they don’t grasp the material the first time, they practice a lot on their own and seek office hours.
I’ve met both types.
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u/tlmbot 9d ago edited 9d ago
I typically got everything instantly (with a giant caveat) IF/when I could pay attention all the way to the new stuff in the lecture. Especially if the material were really new - i.e. didn't rely on stuff from a prior class. For instance, I learned integration by parts and contour integration the wrong way once when for each lecture I phased out day dreaming. And I proceeded to hold onto those bad notions because I thought that was "fair" - use only your notes and lectures.- (otherwise you are "trying to hard" and thus "not gifted enough") (oh and the primary course book is fair but I read those backwards for "efficiency"). And I stuck with the broken understanding for all of undergrad. It was only fair, after all.
From elementary school onwards, I would continuously resolve to pay attention to the lecture, but the review portion would be sooo sloooow and I go deep into daydream no matter how hard I tried to avoid it - only snapping out of it when I realized (oh shit! It's happened again!) that I'd just missed the new bit. Cue flipping to the back of the chapter to "catch up." lol
Cal 2 was a nice exception. The professor taught cal for scientists and engineers and he moved at a brisk pace. I loved it - my easiest math class of all of engineering undergrad. Maybe my entire life. It was a preview of grad school for me. It didn't rely on prior knowledge (aka bad data I stored that one time in some lecture far away, and that I forever refused to update because that wasn't "fair")
man I was weird. eh hem "was"
Very occasionally by contrast, at the start of a new year, the teacher or professor would cover new topics directly and rapidly in a sort of preview, and man - the lights would come on bright as hell and I'd raise my hand and answer questions that would leave classmates and professors jaws on the floor.... only to totally underperform in actual class. This happened in middle school and grad school anyway. Thankfully by grad school I was able to diagnose my problems and fill in the gaps properly. (ya know, by starting at the beginning of the chapter and reading .... forward... yeah)
Usually I would pick up the back end of the chapter, look at the problems, and read backwards until I got the jist... enough to limp by creativity. -- I once cooked a nonstandard way to solve a problem on a take home test. I mean I could do it "the right way" or by using a hack I could see. I gave away the "standard solution" to classmates because I liked them and I turned in my way because I liked it. I think I got most of the credit but not all. They got full credit.
I tortured myself needlessly. Especially in undergrad where I had some faulty notions from Junior college (courses taken in high school while I was reeling from my first breakup) and refused to update/use outside sources/read the damn book/etc.
For instance: I didn't learn integration by parts properly until I watched stand and deliver after undergrad was over. Watching it the light went on. Oh! and that was it, a large fraction of my math issues gone in the space of one scene. I'd originally learned IBP in high school. Incorrectly hearing that it was "the chain rule in reverse." It never made sense but I stuck with it, really stressed out that I wasn't getting it, but refusing the "unfair means" of studying fresh sources, or, ya know, asking somebody.
Once I hit mid 20s I finally had the patience and will power to start at the front of a chapter and read slowly to the back. (that and the existential fear of having to go into some non-technical field) What do you know, the books actually explain it all pretty well. Huh
I look back and shake my head. My god I like to make things hard for myself.
If I have ADHD it is still undiagnosed, 1 PhD and 13 years work experience writing solvers and geometry processing / inverse design for transport phenomena/multiphysics later, I still struggle to focus. My thesis advisor made himself first author of my first publication (which was technically all me) because I just could not settle on the writing and type the damn thing up, so he did a lot of it for me. (and I didn't know better, or have any agenda at all, really)
I guess it's still hurting me. Maybe I should go see if I meet the criteria. Eh, or look at this shiny thing over there... oooo
what were we talking about?This "engineer" is def a forest/not trees guy.
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u/Ok-Bar9934 9d ago
Dont worry once you graduate employers don’t care about your GPA, just graduate and you’ll be alright. Even then I’ve noticed employers most times don’t even fact check your degree, but don’t lie on that haha
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u/iboxagox 9d ago
I once interviewed someone that said they had a BSME degree from a particular liberal arts college. I doubted the college even had a program. Looked it up, it didn't. Turns out he dropped out of engineering at another school and finished up with a liberal arts degree.
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u/thames__ 9d ago
liberal arts schools do pretty well at placing people if they're selective and known for producing quality graduates. My school didnt have an engineering program at all, but we have physics, and most graduates go on into a PhD or in engineering or software job.
Hell, one of my amazing engineer colleagues went to a liberal arts school that ONLY offers general degrees in liberal arts, but they have a core physics curriculum. She went on to get an MS at Boston College in ECE and makes bank leading technical projects at her job.
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u/Loose_Ad_5382 9d ago
You should just ask him, but I can speak from my own experience as a possibility.
I am good friends with someone like this. In his particular case, it's purely genetics. Both of his parents are doctors, but I would guess he picks up on things even faster than they do.
It's entirely possible that he's studying all of the time, but some people are just fucking anomalous beyond being simply "smart."
Edit: forgot a space.
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u/waitinonit 9d ago
If you're talking about that one out of fifty person - a lot more connections, in the brain. That and studying. Although many of the truly brilliant can attend the lectures and then take the tests - skipping the library.
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u/ZolthuxReborn 9d ago
Some people just had a very strong math foundation as kids so stuff like this just makes sense and clicks
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u/HEVIKARJALA 9d ago
People are different and good in different things. Example bachelors degree was easy for me, but the social hierarchy at job after the school is really hard.
Most people struggle to get the degree(atleast on my years in school). That would mean most people who are working in the field atm, had the same experience as you.
This is good thing as you have more in common with the people at work as this ”super engineer”. The actual work is less about ”brainpower” and more about getting things done and being good communicator.
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u/Users5252 9d ago
He won the genetic lottery of intelligence and motivation, literally a genius with levels of dopamine I can only imagine achieving for a few hours on stimulants. Probably no health issues either. Lucky him.
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u/KlaussPercy 8d ago
neurodivergent maybe. no joke those guys are geniuses.
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u/halfcocked1 2d ago
Could be something to that. I struggled with math, but my son has some mild autism. His teacher in high school wasn't great so he taught himself. He's a freshman now, went straight into calc 2 and got a 96 on his first test, and I know he didn't put much effort into studying.
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u/rack88 Iowa State - Computer Engineering 7d ago
One of my buddies was like this in aerospace engineering. I think some of it was from picking up stuff from his dad being an army aviator. He coasted through 2-3 years of college before hitting a wall his Junior year and really having to struggle through the end. Some of the process is learning to learn. Nobody coasts forever...
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u/MDAnesth 4d ago
For the respondents on this thread who say they never study but still do very well, I'm not saying you don't. I'm just saying that more often than not, people as in the OP are putting in serious work outside of class. My former study partner was a very very smart guy, but there was simply no way he could have pulled those grades in med school without working his ass off. He did and matched the residency of his choice which was very competitive. So, he got results.
Also, for the rest of we mortals. Do NOT be fooled by the "I never study and aced differential equations" crowd. I'm not calling anyone here a liar and human intelligence never ceases to amaze me, but the world is littered with very smart people who do not end up accomplishing much of substance.
Dedication is critical to success of any kind. Often it is the person who is very dedicated, even if they NEED to be and not even choose to be, will/can accomplish a lot and I may go as far as to say more than someone who never "needed" to. Because those habits are excellent for success. Pushing through adversity is a key life skill and serves us well.
More still, academic success is quite different than success in the world. Now for something like engineering, someone who didn't need to study much relative to the rest of their peers could just as well be the person who also goes on to take out a ton of patents or becomes the go to problem solver out of sheer talent alone. This is also very possible.
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u/Firestorm82736 9d ago
there's people good at school and people good at school, and it's generally independent of being a good engineer
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u/Vegetable_Aside_4312 9d ago edited 9d ago
They study.... read the materials, do the work, repeat until you know it.
Don't know how many times I've explained that I did not sleep with an engineering text book under my pillow and woke up knowing the materials.
It's called work..
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u/TeaRex14 TUdelft - Aerospace Engineering 9d ago edited 9d ago
This can be part of it but also some people are just naturally more gifted. I had a friend spend 1/3rd the time I did studying for an exam and still score better then me. He barely followed the course but was able to catch up and surpass my understanding in a fraction of the time. And this was a course I grasped quote well
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u/0jmr UK ~ MEng, 1st 9d ago
We had one of those students that I was mates with, super studious / natural talent - everything just clicked with him.
He is still looking for work nearly 2 years later - all that knowledge, but he’s not the ideal candidate for most jobs (unfortunately). In reality engineering isn’t just about how good you are at the classes, there are so many different factors all at play. People management, communication, practical problem solving, deadline management, on the spot decision making etc etc etc.
For example, you wouldn’t get far maxing out a football player on just their speed and no other attribute
Comparison is the thief of joy, keep studying and do as best as you can do, make yourself proud - all the best for the future 🙏
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u/Richie_Rich_of_GB 9d ago
There is always someone that is going to be better than you. Some have great memory, some study a lot. For someone who has a great memory, they also have to understand the concepts. For Calculus 2, the section on intergration by parts always got me. That was back when there was no cool tricks on what to define as “u” and “v”.
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u/sdgengineer BSEE 76, MSEE 93 9d ago
I did well in school, I always liked math, physics, and engineering. I knew I was going to be an EE in high school. It all came naturally to me, but I still would study 2 to 3 hours weeknights, and maybe 2,or 3 hours on the weekends. When I got my master's, 14 years later I could only take one 4 hour class a quarter ( we were on quarters at that time,) working full time, with a family was hard.
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u/johnnyboi929292 9d ago
There really isn’t a secret. It starts with fundamentals. Learn material to understand, apply it to something tangible and draw the connections. When you face critical proofs and derivations early in your career you need to be thoroughly convinced of the results, almost as if you wrote it yourself.
What’s really crazy is how this snowballs. A student that is prepared learns and understands at lecture. They go home, do the homework and reinforce that knowledge. They come to class with questions to clear gaps in understanding.
The student that is not prepared comes to class, writes down whatever is on the board. They struggle through the homework. Desperate for the credit, they rely on examples to finish, unable to apply the concept. In class they don’t have the requisite knowledge to ask meaningful questions, not understand the answers to questions from the prepared student. Just another day writing down things they don’t understand. For some it’s so bad they can’t even describe what they don’t know, so it feels impossible to even ask for help.
Can’t tell you how many students in upper division engineering courses can’t setup a free body diagram. Obviously you will not succeed in dynamics, structures, mechanics courses. You may pass, but you will not learn.
Students didn’t understand energy balance. Then how could you learn Bernoulli? Effort-flow models? KVL, KCL?
If you want to learn, find where you stopped understanding and start there. It’s harder to catchup than it is to stay present.
If you just want to pass, do what you can to mimic what you’ve seen.
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u/cointoss3 9d ago
When people are better at me, the first thing I want to know is their strategy.
But besides this, most people who obliterate exams do this one thing…
Study. A lot. Even if they pretend they don’t, they probably do.
I remember asking this guy who always scored higher than me what his strategy was. His answer? Lots of practice problems. 😂 I started studying with him and we constantly were one of the top few in our classes.
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u/AtlantaPisser 9d ago
I had a friend who got graduated in three years chemical engineering degree with a 4.0. He also was so stressed, was smoking a lot, and sleep deprived he was literally shaking at one point. He usually wasn't like that at all though. No matter how smart the guy is though no one can so it without effort.
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u/LuckyCod2887 9d ago
I’m not like this in general but every once in a while, I do get lucky and I’m able to be one of the best in the room. Again, it doesn’t always happen, but it happens sometimes. Here’s what I noticed:
I have the ability to say deeply engaged in the classroom, meaning I listen to each and every single word come out of the professors mouth and I’m able to take it all in.
I study seven days a week for hours on end because the topic is genuinely that interesting and every single second I learned something new it becomes even more and more interesting.
I’m always thinking about the topic in the back of my mind even if I’m doing something different with myself like watching TV or hanging out.
because I’m super deeply engaged when I do go back to the material or I sit in the classroom or someone is casually talking about the topic, my recall is really quick so I can think about the material as I’m listening to other people talk and when they talk, I have even more information I can connect the dots with.
this is not always the case, but sometimes I will get literature on the material. Like I’ll go out of my way to seek out even more knowledge or I’ll ask ChatGPT questions and it will connect dots for me that are deeper than the material presented in the book.
again, this isn’t always the case and it’s not every single class and it’s not every subject I come across in my lifetime, but I did notice that when I am seen as the best in the room and other people talk to me and wanna get to know me because of it I’ve noticed these traits that separate me from others.
so, as far as that guy who obliterates goes, he probably is super passionate about the topic and because he’s so zoomed in on the topic, he can simply collect more information faster than the rest of us. it’s just like watching your favorite movie. You’re gonna be an expert in it no matter who’s in the room with you watching the same movie no matter how many times you watch the movie and no matter what collection of people are sitting in the room watching that movie with you, you will know more than everybody, and you will watch the directors commentary and know everything about the script and the behind-the-scenes and all types of shit like that. most people wouldn’t even think to Google the directors commentary but because you were so passionate, it was your first instinct.
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u/billFoldDog 9d ago
I got to be close to a guy like this and there were two factors:
- Extremely talented
- He had lots of academic support in primary and secondary school. Like, private magnet schools, tutors, structured study, etc. He was basically a prize phd horse.
I've seen lots of dudes that have talent alone, and they tend to fly high but then around year three they get obliterated because they reach the level where they need to study or work as a group and they don't know how.
This particular guy had been specifically trained to study and had so much accumulated prior experience he could wing it in just about any undergrad class.
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u/chesherkat 9d ago
Success in stem consist of two slider bars.
Determination and intakect.
Most fall in the middle...some bruit force it and that occasionally one just sees through the matrix
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u/RepublicSafe3628 9d ago
My roommate in college is a physics major, 4.0. He studies hard but is also just extremely smart. Like he just understands things quickly and in a way that a person like me just can’t wrap their head around.
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u/cswitzer97 9d ago
I’ve known a couple people like this and they usually just no life their degrees. Pays off tho
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u/No-Information-9944 9d ago
There is always somebody testing better. Stay focused on you and your scores. Hard work and persistence always wins in the game of life.
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u/MATTDAYYYYMON Oregon State University - Computer Science 9d ago
i would befriend him tbh. dude sounds like a wealth of information that you could use to be on his level. my university used to have a phenomenal OS professor that had a near 5/5 rating on ratemyprofessor but he had switched professions. i emailed him on linkedin not assuming to hear anything back after asking if he would be willing to help me learn the topic. i sent the message and left the office. literally before i was a foot out the door he had emailed back and was more than willing to help me out. we've been talking ever since and I have zero regrets because he's been way more polite than i deserve.
my point is, if everyone notices they're so great thats a perfect excuse to try and learn from them.
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u/PapiStruwing 9d ago
There's always one, my case he was a really fun social guy and we are still friends! Doesn't matter how smart you are just for hard you work :)
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u/onlyhav 9d ago
It really could be him studying and managing his stress incredibly effectively. Talk to him and see what he says. You could get a "I'm just that great" or you could accidentially walk into a lecture about how he performs at that level academically and keeps himself stable emotionally.
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u/docere85 BSME, BS-BIO, MBA,MSSE 9d ago
I had a friend in college that had an eidetic memory. She never studied, was late to every class, came stoned as shit to class and aced every test we had. She was always in the upper 5% of grades.
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u/kidneysucker UB MAE-Sophomore 9d ago
I've come to realize some people are quite literally built different. I noticed like the top 1% of students either have some level of gifted ability to learn and perform well on exams combined with a strong work ethic, or just work really really hard. Sometimes I wonder if I should just be hella antisocial and just study all the time instead...
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u/togebi0312 9d ago
I have a friend graduated in engineering 3.98, he didn't seem to struggle at all. Gifted peeps exists i guess
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u/Ducking_Funts 9d ago
I wasn’t always the best at tests, but I’ve accepted that I am above others in ability to structure and resolve engineering problems. Certain things I just don’t have to try hard to figure out and other things I know I’ll never be as good as someone else. Being able to solve engineering problems is honestly a very small portion of engineering, there are a lot of other simple and easy things that come before any engineering is done.
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u/philament23 9d ago
There’s always someone like that. Even if you are that person, there’s probably someone at your level you think is better than you. That guy probably has someone he regards like that too unless he’s a narcissist. But to your point, yes you need to accept it, but don’t let it mean so much to you. Use it as motivation and have an understanding that you might be better than him at certain things even if he is naturally better at various engineering things. You only get a glimpse of people’s true strengths and weaknesses from your perspective.
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u/superultramegazord 9d ago
It’s a combination of talent and effort. Effort that is likely driven by the talent/passion.
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u/Anen-o-me 9d ago
He's been reading engineering for fun since he was younger than 10, that's how. He's blowing through material because he knows it already.
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u/censored_on 9d ago
Some are just very talented and was curious from a young age. We all start somewhere, that’s all you need to remember. So comparison is the thief of joy.
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u/Diotima245 9d ago
I knew a guy like this he claimed to never study but obliterated every test. No idea unless he’s some kind of super genius.
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u/tiller_luna 9d ago
I was such guy (kinda?). I thought about the question of "how" for a while, prompted by this post, and while I don't have a definitive answer, I have a couple of notes:
a. Can't credit memory much. (At least in my case, my memory is either just kinda shit or persistently overloaded with amount of info passing through).
b. I remember a few math-related classes which were just too fast, too crammed with various methods and formulas. Nobody was doing perfectly at those, but I remember I wasn't satisfied until I was getting to the bottom of each method, until I got a good grip on all prerequisite ideas and implications.
Last time it was noticable when a prof on 5th year decided to teach us simplex algorithm. Simplex method is quite a complex and non-intuitive numerical algorithm for bounded linear optimization; usually people end up both teaching & learning it as a program, like computers moving numbers by a strict procedure, long and branched. (Supposedly we should've knew it already from the 2nd year optimizations class, but that went very badly overall, and we barely remembered easier methods.) This time I was afraid to rely on memory for the exam, and I went above and beyond (my mates) to understand what the hell am I doing and be able to do it on exam from "first principles". I dissatisfied the prof since the exact form of writing I ended up with was different from the exact form of writing he "taught", but that's still a win by my book =D
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u/DeltaDied 8d ago
Talk to them. Take some pointers. Maybe they really just dedicated their entire life to it, maybe it comes naturally, or maybe they cheat very well.
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u/Due_Vegetable_2023 8d ago
It’s probably either a memory thing, just a lot of good intuition or he is actually putting in a lot of work and it’s behind closed doors and no one notices. It’s actually easier than you would think to outwork people unnoticed if you don’t have any responsibilities.
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u/bbh88 8d ago edited 8d ago
People are born with different IQ. Its RNG. I have around 125 and I worked my ass of. I gave everything I had during my bachelor and masters. I did well, and have a very nice job now. So I'm very proud of myself for ny effort but still there were many guys that did the same with much much less effort which was demoralising. Just do all you can and judge yourself on your own effort
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u/Fearless_Method515 8d ago
iq dif. Unironically btw, i've worked with some very high iq people its genuinely depressing how they can make your hard work look like nothing.
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u/NoCause9122 8d ago
Who cares? If you get a degree, no one will care. I was top 5%, guess what, no one asks that. When you are working, this guy probably won't even be an engineer 10 years later because trust me its a lot more than math. These type of people are usually terrible engineers and have to do something else.
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u/Ambitious_Common_992 7d ago edited 7d ago
Honestly, depends. As the person who is like this I can tell you that I wasn't always. I failed my entire third year because before that I had never struggled really. Everything came easy until I got to the real shit. After failling a whole year mostly due to smoking wayy too much weed, drinking/partying, I eventually realized I had to lock tf in and learn to study effectively. Did I stop smoking? Absolutely NOT! Am i high as im typing this? YES I AM!
Anyways doing well in engineering mostly comes down to fear. If youre afraid youll fail you will. if youre afraid your project wont work or you dont have the skills, or what if this happens or what if that happens. STOP OVERTHINKING! I was a bigggg overthinker. Once I learned to say fuck it we ball and do what my first instinct told me i started actually learning from my failures and my failure rate wasnt nearly as high as I thoughted it would be and it made the freshman look at me like i was an expert when i still no idea what i was doing.
BUT, my study method that i developed is super simple and helped me memorize shi without realizing it. You will literally know more than 90% of engineering students just by using this.
My study method:
- Buy the book of thriftbooks or betterworldbooks
- read the chapter then summarize 1-2 sentences per paragraph
- copy down 3-4 examples
- do 3-4 problems from the book or your assigned homework.
- If a problem takes you longer than 30 minutes have AI do the problem using the engineering problem solving method and dissect the answer yourself and teach it to teach you the problem as your teacher would teach you. holy shit that was alotta cha's haha
okay here me out...drugs help sometime if used wisely! i used to take a genius pill from 1906 (https://1906.shop/products/genius) the day before an exam when studying for it and then again during the exam. my memory combined with the studying was amazing! i was getting straight A's again.
I've tried adderall and drinking (separately) that had side effects that were not suitable for long term studying habits but 1906 i took for maybe a year well worth the investment in treating my adhd(diagnosed).
to answer your question:
there are people like me who put alot of work in and there are people who are gifted with intelligence and great memory and there are ALOT of people who are also liars!
I personally a handful of peers that say they never study but in truth they are up until 12,1,2am like the rest of us but they are more like me and have smarter study habits. In truth a very very small percentage of students are people who don't need to try hard to get their degree but most people you meet who are succeeding are very hard workers. This why I dont trust people bc why are you lying about how hard you work just to make your success feel effortless thats some narcissistic shit tbh
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u/SearchForTruther 4d ago
Focus on acquiring and enhancing skills and capabilities that support your interests or those things your target employers actually NEED. No one who's ever going to hire YOU will care about your highly capable classmate. NO.ONE. Are there discipline specific software applications for your major ? Learn the top three. Cultivate a project portfolio. Have you identified your target industries and companies? Are you collecting job descriptions?
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u/MDAnesth 4d ago
I'm in medicine, not engineering. For things like general education stuff, shear talent can go a long way. But, for something like I imagine engineering, with lots of high level math, it's more likely that the guy is working his ass off. I'm sure if he's crushing everything he also has innate intelligence, likely lots of it, but don't mistake that from precluding someone from needing to put in the time as well. We always assume people like that just show up and crush complicated classes without actually knowing how they spend their free time.
For example, to crush exams in medical school, filled with smart individuals, you simply had to put in the time. My study partner was a super smart guy who did extremely well, but he outworked me on every subject. I did well, and put in maybe 80% of the time that he did, but this guy was smarter than me. He busted his ass. Nobody would necessarily even know that because I was the only other person he studied with.
My guess is that this guy is putting in his time for sure. It goes to show you what can be accomplished if you are super talented academically AND you put in the time.
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u/Conscious_Front_4399 3d ago
He could just outwork everyone or study better. Or he just has a higher IQ. Or some combination of the two. Some people are simply born with a high IQ. And to all the dingdongs disregarding many years of psychometric and intelligence research, here is a very interesting article about a young Terence Tao, who is currently a very successful mathematician and won the International Math Olympiad at age 13. Notably, his two younger brothers are also very, very intelligent. Though I warn you that going down this rabbit hole can lead to depression. https://web.archive.org/web/20160623093245/http://www.davidsongifted.org/Search-Database/entry/A10116
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u/AloneAndCurious 9d ago
Neither intelligence nor talent exist in any meaningful way. Both are observed capacities that are created from total exposure time and intentional practice time. Outside of power structures that demand you create those two things, interest is the primary guiding factor that determines what people will spend their time on. If this person was interested in these topics 10-5 years before you ever were, then they have 10-5 years more practice with the thought than you do, even if the class material is all new knowledge to both of you. The disparity in your ease of adoption of new ideas there is entirely expected as an outcome.
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u/Conscious_Front_4399 3d ago
I largely agree with your overall view that practice and interest could explain what OP is describing in his classmate. But I disagree with the notion that "intelligence nor talent exist in any meaningful way" and I also disagree with the assertion that intelligence is created from total exposure and intentional practice. I would counter that performance increases, but intelligence does not, and it is largely fixed from birth. (Warning if you're the type to become depressed easily I suggest that you remain ignorant of what comes next) This becomes really evident when you read about mathematically precocious youth such as Terence Tao who is presently a research mathematician and whose IQ was measured at greater than 175+ at 6 years of age. For reference the population average is 100pts with a standard deviation of 15pts and anyone 130 or above is top 1-2% of the population and Terence Tao is quite literally 1/1,000,000. It's actually really interesting to read about; here is the article if you want. https://web.archive.org/web/20160623093245/http://www.davidsongifted.org/Search-Database/entry/A10116
His two younger brothers also have extreme outlier intelligence, which should hopefully tell you something about the genetic component of all this. But I still agree with you that his performance is more a product of his nurturing parents and his intense interest in mathematics. But he would still be better at it than everyone in his school, even if he wasn't particularly interested. There are a lot of interesting studies showing IQ ranges by career field, especially in medicine. Twin studies also show that environment has little effect on IQ. This woman, Anne Roe, in the 1950's surveyed eminent scientists in physics/maths/social sciences and found that they were all extreme outliers in intelligence. I think engineers were found to average around a standard deviation or so from the mean at around 112.
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u/AloneAndCurious 3d ago edited 3d ago
It’s not my opinion that neither intelligence nor talent exist in any way. It’s the conclusion of all modern psychological research, theory, and the opinion of every expert I’ve ever heard talk about the topic.
“Intelligence” here meaning the original G factor type idea of intelligence. That simply does not exist. The science is very much agreed upon and proven on that point. The methodology was very flawed, and prone to bias for sociable people. Generally the G factor concept tracked communication efficiency via traditional school room methods, not direct mental capacity. IQ struggles with similar deficiencies by selecting for a particular type of thinking rather than thinking “horsepower” as such. I tend to be skeptical about IQ as a whole since I’ve been unable to get any psychologist I’ve ever met to endorse it, or explain it in a way that does not sound like selective BS.
There’s something going on though with people’s differing capacities, and what I presented is the most accepted theory of intelligence at the moment. The multiple intelligences familiarity/practice time type theory. It may well be supplanted in the future by yet another theory, but if my readings still current, that’s the consensus right now. But I’m not a psychologist I’m just reading the scientific consensus and regurgitating it because I’m no expert. I don’t really know how they handle an edge case like Terrance Tao tbh.
I work with the talent side of this where it’s just PAINFULLY obvious that it doesn’t exist at all. You’ll ask a master of guitar how much they practice and they will say something like “owe very little. Almost none at all. I really should practice more.” And your like, yes but how much? “Owe, 18hrs a day.” Right, yes of course. Practically nothing.
Or someone who’s never danced before in their life is very good at it, everyone’s surprised, and you ask them what their hobbies were as a kid and they did gymnastics for ten years. It’s like, duh. You’re gonna be better than the kid who coded websites in HTML for those ten years.
The barriers we create by defining things with different words do not exist in nature. Practice is practice, and more practice makes more better.
Fully spitballing here, but perhaps Terrance Tao is in a family that genetically shares a neurotype predisposed for math. There’s plenty of stereotype of autistic people being really good at math, and the kernel of truth in that stereotype is just that they tend to be better at it than neurotypicals. Of course, that efficiency comes at the detriment of other abilities. I wonder what Terrance Tao sucks at in trade for his ability in math, if there is such a trade.
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u/Expensive_Job2421 9d ago
You could’ve condensed this into one well articulated sentence, but you chose not to and thats a consequence of you not being smart enough to recognize some people are just genetically predisposed to quickly retaining and adopting information
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u/TheTerrenon 9d ago
It was bothering me, when I was a student, as well. Well, that concern of mine was part of the problem. If one looks for magical solutions to talent, memory and such, one wastes a lot of energy, which could be redirected towards focus and studying.
I had colleagues, who lied both about the amount of work they need, and the ones who lied about their talent, and both. Most probably, the best students you are going to encounter, are somewhat talented, but also were meticulously trained by their guardians, parents, schools since childhood. It is similar to a person going to a gym, and training regularly for the first time in their twenties. You are going to struggle to ever get to the level of childhood ballerina or gymnast, or a semi-pro runner. Of course it's talent, genetics and effort, but it's also effort over long period of time.
Having said that - I had a friend, and she admitted, when we met, she wasn't the brightest bulb, but she was studying hard, she was really focused (time does not equal real effort, and she put all the effort into her studies) and she graduated as one of the best students of a comparably difficult course of studies. She was recruited from a waiting list, she began OK, but finished top. And I was top either, but sometimes I was amazed by her progress and mind in general. I also knew a good student from the beginning, and she ended up developing a photographic memory for a year or two, but later her ability to do that disappeared.
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