Uniquely Bright: Experiences and Tips?

An anonymous reader writes: "I would like to hear from fellow /.ers that consider themselves unusually but non-traditionally 'bright' and how you have dealt with it. What are you doing now? What did you do for education? How is your life now? I'm on the verge of entering college, never having liked school much yet always in love with learning. I would like some tips, suggestions, and experience in living with an extra degree of intensity, depth, and general intelligence. I love learning, yet I never have found school enjoyable. I'm incredibly intense and concentrated, yet I often become bored of specific projects in a few months. It's not anything diagnosable (I've looked into it) but more an inherent trait. Academically, I have managed to be alright, but nothing spectacular. Lots of people I meet think I should have a 4.0 easy, but I'm pretty far from it. My interests are broad, from computers (linux/os x/php/mysql/etc) to photography to cookery, I'm creative and technical. Friends and others recognize my strength in these areas. I can't stand being completely technical alone, but I love it in moderation. My attention span is practically unlimited when I am interested in a topic, and I get intensely interested in it. I want to hear from people who share some or all of these traits. I'm just coming up on entering college, so most of my life is ahead of me. I'd like to hear about everything from your education to your career to things you wish you had done differently!" Sounds like an INTP to me.

Advice

[SpaceCadetTrav]

Drop out and start an Internet company. I hear that's the way to go these days.

It's called

[JTMON]

Obsesive compulsive disorder....I pretty much sound just like you and that's exactly what it is....good luck! :)

Here's a tip

[Anonymous Coward]

Time to start doing acid.

Growing up...

[Anonymous Coward]

I was considered pretty bright. People kept complaining about the glare. So I started wearing shades, and things are cool with everyone now.

I feel ya brother...

[Beowulf_Boy]

I'm in the same situation,

If I really enjoy a subject, I get very deep into it. Take for example Grand Prixs. I love my 96 Grand Prix, I'm a member of the National Grand Prix club, work on everything myself, and can resite stats and shit off the top of my head. But I don't want to do car, I don't want to be a mechanic, so that does me absolutly no good at all.

I also tend to fade in and out of hobbies. About once a year I will really get into FPS games for about a month or two, bone back up on them, and be pretty damn good. Then I just stop, it quits interesting me.

I just finished my first year of college. The only advice I can give is, just get through it, and once you have your degree, you can do anything you want. I originally had a major of Computer Engineering, but after becoming extremely frustrated with Electronics, I switched to game design, basically CS with some art tossed in. I really enjoyed electronics at first, I learned alot, and I did a few projects in my spare time. Then, I just stopped liking it. It left the realm of usefullness and became boring. I don't need to know how to bias transistor networks and stuff to do a few hobby electronics projects, and that was all I was really interested in to begin with.

I'm sure my new degree will do the same thing, I'll go with the programming for a while, then it will become boring, and I no longer will enjoy the projects we are doing, they will become to mundane and useless.

So, all I can say is struggle through it, and when you graduate, you will find what you want to do. I really want to be a sys admin. Its what I find interesting. A nice mix of hardware, software (but not alot of programming), and networking. Hopefully I can tought it through the next 3 years of school, and then find a job doing what I enjoy.

Insecure is *right*

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah - he could have a 4.0, he's just "different".

Yeah, just keep telling yourself that.....

Re:Your first textbook should be ...

[wibs]

That's an ironic sig to have after that post.

What are we doing?

[MongooseCN]

I would like to hear from fellow /.ers that consider themselves unusually but non-traditionally 'bright' and how you have dealt with it. What are you doing now?

The same thing we do every night, try to take over the world.

Re:I feel ya brother...

[YrWrstNtmr]

just finished my first year of college.
and
once you have your degree, you can do anything you want.

These two statements don't mesh with each other in any sort of reality.

Re:Is this guy serious?

[Templaris]

"Lots of people use Linux; that doesn't make them smart."

Wait, so because I still use Windows that doesnt mean I am stupid? ALRIGHT!

(Hi-fives cardboard cut-out friend)

Re:Just know this:

[Lord Prox]

You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake

Well he could be... with a gas operated, semi-automatic, AR-10. Puimping round after round into ....

errr. bad advice, bad advice...

My sweet sig

[garyok]

I'd mod you up myself for that.

Although I'd make the case that one tells you to get involved and the other tells you how to suceed when you get involved.

OK, OK, I know - bullshit rationalisation. So, the next useful tip is: be a better liar.

Re:Go to a college that won't just rubber-stamp yo

[blackula]

Haha, New College. It's like a summer camp, all year 'round! But seriously, unless your idea of fun is sitting around all day with no shoes on, stoned out of your mind, I'd stay away. A lot of the girls don't shave, also. Also, try to take some objective economics courses. I dare you. As far as those professors know, Marxist communism is the only viable economic system around. And yes, I speak from experience.

Re:Advice

[Anonymous Coward]

Below the story submission there is a button that says "Reply". You click this button if you want to reply to the story. Below each post there is a link that says "Reply to This". You click on this link if you want to reply specifically to the post. Right now, it looks like at least three people have confused these buttons.
On a related note, you are in no position to be giving out advice if you can't even figure out how to post a comment correctly on Slashdot!

Re:Just know this:

[orthogonal]

I attended a First Tier College and after a few years there, I dropped out.
. . . .
Ultimately, I went on to become a wealthy serial entrepreneur by persuing (sic) my ventures 100%

Bill?

Bill Gates?

Come on, man, you better than to post to Slashdot!

(But "pursuing my ventures 100%" is a genius euphemism for "creating a monopoly and violating antitrust law" -- a clever "embracing and extending" of the English language.)

Re:Unskilled and Unaware of It?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bob Slydell: What would you say ya do here?

Tom Smykowski: Well look, I already told you! I deal with the goddamn customers so the engineers don't have to! I have people skills! I am good at dealing with people! Can't you understand that? What the hell is wrong with you people?

Re:FINALS IN JUNE!?!?!

[lambadomy]

It's called "the quarter system". All through college I had finals in June. But school never started until the end of september, sometimes even october 1st.

Re:Advice

[wibs]

Being intelligent does not count for very much, not unless you are actually prepared to do some work and learn something that is useful. Its like having the worlds fastest computer and no software.

This is completely off topic, but your anology launched a friend and I into a whole list of these.

"He has Maya and Photoshop, but he's using a PocketPC!"
"His computer would be worshipped by geeks everywhere, but he has no internet connection!"
"He has a fast computer with maya and photoshop, and everything else worthwhile installed. but he has shitty ram that core dumps quite often causing the computer to reboot, and he never takes the time to make a backup!"

Alright, fine, my buddy and I are graphics geeks. Just wanted to say thanks for getting us started, I'd mod you up if I could. Not quite sure why you're at +1 Troll right now.

Re:Is this guy serious?

[cgenman]

I know it was a joke, but because this comes up a lot:

The contrapositive is your friend!

Mr. Converse: Hello kids, I'm Mr. Converse. I'm a misleading fallacy of logic. You may have seen me before, while you were taunting your best friend for being fat. While it is true that if you eat like a snooty porker you will become fat, it is not logically true that if you are fat you had necessarily eaten like a snooty porker. Maybe your friend has a glandular condition, a natural affinity for a higher weight plane, or maybe having a friend like you has made his hypertension medically significant. Jerk.

Ms. Inverse: Hello you little kids, I'm Ms. Inverse. I put the word "not" in front of both halves of a logical statement, to come up with something that looks right but isn't true. Let me give you an example... White people are good, therefore black people are bad. Isn't that easy? Now you don't have to read either Mein Kampf or the Bible.

The ContraPositive: Hello Kids! I'm the contrapositive! I'm not the inverse, and I'm not the converse, I'm both! And unlike inverse and converse, I'm true! Yay! You know how if daddy sleeps with that secretary bitch again mommy will leave him, like mommy promised during the last session? Well, if mommy hasn't left yet then daddy hasn't slept with his secretary again. It's 100% true! Daddy must have done something else to make mommy cry. I wonder how mommy got those bruises?

Remember: Only the Contrapositive is your real friend. Mr Inverse and Ms Converse are just out to touch you in those special places.

Re:Advice

[webplummer]

There's nothing /.ers like more than talking about themselves. I'd say this is the perfect post for this forum . Close up shop and go home. We've reached the climax of this venture.

And...

[Anonymous Coward]

``we quite often see those who think of it as an intellectual penis-extending exercise fall by the wayside''

and those were just the women!

Re:Own business

[Eil]

But you're not bitter or anything, right?

Re:Many types of skill

[xnixman]

In case you didn't read all of this crap he said, "I'm gay, I read too many self-help books, and I wish I worked in HR."

Dan

Re:Advice

[Col Bat Guano]

If you want my advice, do a trial by fire. Do something REALLY hard and unpleasant, like outward bound, the AIDS ride across Alaska

...or read all of the slashdot posting for a week.

TENACITY!

[Grendel Drago]

this "stick-to-it-ness"...

TENACITY! It's called tenacity! I swear, the next grade-school teacher who I hear use the word "stick-to-it-ive-ness" is getting a swift and painful English lesson.

Seriously! It's a syllable shorter! Let's do a comparison! (In list form, because Slashdot's support for preformatted text is bad.)

1. Is it a real word?
   • Tenacity: Yes, and a good one as well!
   • Sticktoitiveness: No, and it never will be.
2. How many syllables does it have?
   • Tenacity: Four. Rolls right off the tongue.
   • Sticktoitiveness: Five. It's an ungainly hippo-in-a-tutu of a word.
3. Does it make you sound like a Special Ed teacher when you use it?
   • Tenacity: Not in the least.
   • Sticktoitiveness: Yes, if not straight-up retarded.

Stamp out sticktoitiveness wherever you see it. It's the red-headed stepchild of the English language. ...

This has gotten really, really offtopic. I have a pet peeve; this was a point onto which I could latch. I don't really have an issue with you, just with the word.

--grendel drago

Re:Advice

[Lemmy Caution]

Hmmn. You may want to consider ABAP programming. Because after a while, you'll envy the dead.

Re:Advice

[NarrMaster]

Like highschool its 90% bullshit

You misspelled 100%

The one rule you need to follow...

[frobnoid]

The best tip I can give anyone who is "unusually but non-traditionally 'bright'":
Shower regularly.

Re:No, I disagree

[Anonymous Coward]

And being called Doctor isn't a bad thing :)

But if you're booking a hotel room, ensure that the hotel staff know that you are an academic research doctor, and not a medical doctor. There's nothing worse that being woken up at 3am becuse the lady in room 1704 is feeling a bit funny.