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bolido_sentimental  1yr ago (text post)   4133 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for December 25, 2022

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Why shouldn't we reward people that can demonstrate diligence and perseverance in addition to raw mathematical brainpower?

It depends on what job you are selecting for. College admissions are a hammer when they should be scalpels.

A rough example; Someone going to college for a math degree might be interested in Research Mathematics or becoming an Actuary.

For the former, you should probably heavily weigh raw mathematical brainpower more. For the latter, you should weigh conscientiousness more.

These two people with radically different brain structures (IMO) and expectations from their future peers; but are made to take the same tests/exams.

Tangentially, if you are of the former type, you might not like the latter for various visceral reasons.

I went to college for Electrical Engineering. I was passionate about it and rarely ever "studied" in any flashy way. Then there were the kids with flashcards and fancy colored notes and whatnot. They often got better grades than me, but were often "worse" engineers. They sucked at programming, didn't know anything outside of the books, could not derive things from first principles if not explicitly mentioned in class, etc.

Those people should be working at powerplants, I should be working at a startup that makes robots.

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