• Zayda said on Mar 07, 2008....

  Trav: There is absolutely nothing wrong with being smart. And you know something, you figured out something that most people never do; it's not necessarily the person with the highest IQ who's the smartest.
  
  
  I remember when I first entered my Ph.D. program that the Professor, who would become my dissertation adviser, said that it wasn't the smartest people--the people with the highest IQ's--who became doctoral candidates and completed their Ph.D.'s but it was the savviest and the most determined.
  
  
  When I was working on my M.A. and my Ph.D., I was teaching classes while also taking classes. I had to learn quickly that I couldn't manage reading everything and studying everything--that I couldn't give my all to both my teaching and my studies. I had to determine what was the most important for each class and how to balance that time.
  
  
  Another thing that I don't get is why people think it's a slur to call you smart or educated. Or why they think calling someone a perpetual student is an insult. It amuses me when anyone thinks that calling me a perpetual student is an insult because you know what, it isn't.

• travelr712 said on Mar 07, 2008....

  ahh, it's not how much factual knowledge you can regurtitate, it's how you apply that knowledge that shows the true brilliance!
   
  i take stock z. i find that most of the time, people respect intelligence. they want to make someone who is accomplished in applying knowledge their friends. it is only the people who want to achieve those higher goals and lack that motivation, or focus, or resolve, that complain about it.
   
  i think you're a smart woman, z.

• TinSoldier said on Mar 07, 2008....

  I think that I'm pretty smart, and people have told me that through my life. But I also try to remain humble too.
  
  I confess that I have some (a lot of) resentment that I haven't progressed in my schooling much past high school though.
  
  In some ways I resent the people who found paying for school to be relatively effortless, and in some ways I feel like a failure myself for not putting myself completely through school. Especially since I have a lot of respect for people who have struggled and achieved despite adversity.
  
  *shrug*
  
  But I will never resent someone for being smarter than I am, as long as they are neither smug nor arrogant about it.
  

• queenparanoia said on Mar 07, 2008....

  nothing wrong if you claim youre smart... as long as you dont get arrogant for being smart.... =)

• crybabylu said on Mar 07, 2008....

  There is nothing wrong with it that I know of.

• Fallyn said on Mar 07, 2008....

  i don't think there is anything wrong with acknowledging your intelligence.
  
  i'm smart.
  i realized when i was 6 that i was smarter than most people around me.
  it's not all it's cracked up to be sometimes.
  sometimes it comes at the cost of other things.....like all the genetics went into intelligence...and not much went into common sense.....stuff like that.
  *shrug*
  
  there is nothing wrong with saying "i am smart"
  

• polarheart said on Mar 08, 2008....

  Trav, I dont think there is anything wrong with knowing one's stong points. . .people just dont like arrogance. . .I am sure you will agree. 

  The "top of the class" people I respect are the ones who do not rub other people's faces in it or make them feel dumb / not up to par.  The smartest things a smart person can do is uplift others, encourage them in learning and also sharing knowledge. 

  Its one thing to respect a person just for being clever or scoring high grades, but its another thing altogether to respect them for how they use their talent.

  Great post!

  Polar x

• uniquely-ironic said on Mar 08, 2008....

  Are you skittish at being labeled smart because you think it might diminish your capacity to be funny, handsome or creative?  I think some people believe that if you're smart that it instantly makes you boring.
   
  I don't consider myself to be overly smart, but there are areas I'm gifted in academically.  When I was in high school and college I grew to resent that girls who were popular would assume that my intelligence precluded being funny or pretty.  I guess I've spent a lifetime trying to prove them wrong.

• Mr.Stupid said on Mar 08, 2008....

  I would like to be that smart someday. Maybe I could change my name to Mr.Smart then. That is a long way away.

• travelr712 said on Mar 08, 2008....

  tin - yeah, i felt like that too for years, until the economic and job situations forced me to take on the huge debt and go back. i'll be 80k in debt when i get my bachelor's, but i think it's one of the most worthwhile things i've ever done with my life, so it's worth it. i hope someday you can fulfill that dream for yourself.
   
  queenie - well, i try not to be, but sometimes it comes across like that.
   
  cry - yeah, that's what i think too.
   
  fallyn - yes, you are smart. it's one of the first things about you that impressed me. but for me, it's not a 'book smart' kind of thing. in fact, i have a terrible memory for names and dates, and for explicitly stated facts. i can't read a sentence and regirgitate it the way those acedemic students do, mostly i think because i'm dislexic. but what i can do is see the way things relate where most people can't in some situations, 'think outside the box' as it were, and so they say i'm smart.
   
  polar - yeah, that's kind of what i was getting at. it's not so much that i have an encyclopedia in my head, it's that i can see quickly where my talents can be used, and apply them to the best of my ability, and it usually ends in success. and as i said, i try not to look like i'm 'rubbing it in people's faces', but i know i can come across that way sometimes. goes with the territory i guess.
   
  unique - i wouldn't really say skittish, it's more that i just didn't think i was that smart until graduation showed me differently. it was like the difference between saying you can climb a mountain, and actually standing at the top taking in the view. that makes it real. but since you brought it up, i'll show my arrogant side and say i think i'm well written (because i usually get 100% on my assignments), have a poetic nature, and musical creative talent. i think i can be very boring at times, and i'm not handsom. i mostly got into the high honors catagory because i showed up for class, did all the homework, and studied for the tests, and 3/4 of the other students didn't. and i think you're smart too.
   
  mr - being funny, as you are, is a form of being smart. so you just keep being funny, and you'll do ok methinks.

• polarheart said on Mar 08, 2008....

  Trav, I understand that thing about people getting the wrong idea sometimes. . .some people are just insecure in themsevles, even though it is not one's intention to come across as condescending :-)

• travelr712 said on Mar 08, 2008....

  exactly polar! it's like, i say something because i know the answer, and the person thinks i'm being condescending, and i'm not, i just know something that they don't. but you're right, usually it's because they are insecure themselves. i've found, over the years, that i'm an acquired taste, it takes time for people to know me and understand the meaning behind some of the things that i say. guess that's one reason i've never been popular, huh?

• pickersplock said on Mar 08, 2008....

  I went through this.  I was the school Hermione!  I always was called a brown nose for it.  Nope, you're not popular unitl you graduate and get a real job, and then whoopee! 
   

• travelr712 said on Mar 08, 2008....

  so now you're the class clown pickers? :-P

• bluegum said on Mar 08, 2008....

  i think this post has a lot of potential for debate  if soulcaster's put their honest views without too much anger and mud slinging .

• travelr712 said on Mar 08, 2008....

  well thank you blue. i'd like that. i'm really just trying to figure out why being smart, or pretty, or considerate, is such a bad thing to acknowledge in oneself i guess. that is, as long as you don't rub other people's faces in it. i think that the impressions of such things have been taken so out of proportions, and people are being villified for having these traits unfairly.

• silverwhisper said on Mar 10, 2008....

  i don't know who would say such a thing--that being smart is somehow a negative--but i think that foolish, to be honest.
  
  and yes, IQ is only one yardstick by which a person's intelligence may be measured. intelligence, it turns out, is a pretty complicated subject.
  
  but the real question i have: what the heck prompted this?!
  
  ed

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