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August 4, 2006
What did he mean?
When I was a freshman the dean of the engineering school said that the most successful professional engineers were the ones with B averages. I've thought a lot about what we can really learn from that fact. When I was a freshman the dean of the engineering school said that the most successful professional engineers were the ones with B averages. I've thought a lot about what we can really learn from that fact. The story in Self control is learnable and Giblfiz's comment made me revise my ideas on it again.
Imagine a world in which IQ is normally distributed within the general population. Sitzfleish, or discipline in study also has a normal distribution, which is uncorrelated with the IQ. Finally, measurement of academic success is related to the product of IQ and Sitzfleish, but is measured with some unknown error. Now let's return to the class of engineers.
Who is in the class?
1) Those who have neither the IQ (<110) nor the sitzfleish to be there but measurement error got them accepted. The people are generally bad students and often fail out.
2) Those who lack the IQ to be there but have the sitzfleish. My experience is that these people generally switch to other majors, but some eek it out as C level engineers.
3)Those who have the IQ (>120 but <150) and some sitzfleish. They are typified by better SAT scores than high school GPA, but that GPA wasn't terrible. In my experience these either learn some better sitzfleish or fail out. However, good habits being hard to learn on short notice, these folk have grades that improve as they
move through school. They start with C's and finish with A's. That usually means a B average.
4) Those who have the IQ (>120 but <150) and no sitzfleish. Perhaps they were the smartest kids in their rural high school, and so never had to work hard, but they aren't geniuses. Their first contact with hard work usually kicks their butt. Thos is this category usually switch to an easier major or fail out. Sometimes they pull it all together and develop study skills, eking it out as C students.
5) The geniuses. They have big IQs (>150) and minimal sitzfleish because it never takes them long to do anything. These people's grades are all over the place. Though often found at the A level and eliminated from the sample by dropping out or switching to math.
6) Those that barely make it with IQ (>110,<120) but with great study skills. These students study like crazy, make flash cards, meet with professors, do all their reading and homework. They are often very quiet in class. I find these students almost always get A's.
7) The right IQ (120+) and great study skills. A very rare category, because most students like this end up going to a better school, so that they end up as a member of category 6, but at a better school. These guys get great grades but again, are rare.
My intuition, therefore, is that the low grades are dominated by those who can't study, and the high by those that can, but that the middle is where the smartest people reside, at least on average.
Posted by OneEyedMan at August 4, 2006 9:29 AM
Comments
I love this topic. I also love the word "Sitzfleish", though I think that the one which comes into play here is actually Chutzpah
I essentially agree with you in your view that your grades come down to something like Sitzfleish^x * IQ^y with x and y being constants in this case (and I'm guessing that X is a lot higher than Y). I think that this is also a good measure of your general ability to get things done, in school and afterwards as well.
So what about the Chutzpah? Many students have a built in desire to meekly obey and or please their parents, teachers and other authority figures. They want to earn shiny gold stars and so they bust there ass and let their fearful and servile nature channel into there sitzfleish, and they excel.
On the other hand if you look at people with lots of Chutzpah they tend to not take school all that seriously. In some cases they are intentionally pissing off their parents or trying to prove a point, but I think that most of the time they just don't care about impressing anyone. They may be in school with the desire to learn, but they most likely will not bend to the busywork without a fight. They have the Chutzpah to take a bad grade now and then, or frequently even, and let it roll off their back.
So lets divide the group who has the chutzpah into three subgroups, in relative terms for the school they are attending:
Dumb, Smart, Very Smart
The Dumb kids who have Chutzpah will see themselves not cutting it. At this point depending on just how much Chutzpah they have they will either buckle down and apply the seat of their pants to the seat of their chair and pull Cs with hard work, or just suck it up and drop out.
The Smart kids with Chutzpah learn about what they find interesting, and not a whole lot more. They knock off what they can do easily and cruse by with a B. These are the kids your professor was talking about.
The Very Smart kids with Chutzpah, the ones who can get As without even trying, most likely went to a better school where they were only Smart. After all they probably had the Chutzpah to go out and be their best, even if it means that they would risk failure. Once you hit the top tier of schools (the Ivys, MIT, CMU et all) They do just get As. Or they drop out and get started with real life a little early. Or they get involved in some massive project, and really ignore their schoolwork dropping them back down into the C to B range.
Now I think that Group two (chutzpah + Smart) was the group that your professor was talking about. There IQ is a lot higher than their grades would indicate, and they don't necessarily lack in the sizfleish to get things done. They just are not willing to give it to school. More importantly they are willing to take the risks unnecessary for advancement once they leave school. They are the ones who will walk away from dead end jobs, and bring up ideas that go against the grain.
I do also agree with #5 though. I have also noticed that the very smart also often have serious psychological issues leading to even wider fluctuations in grades. I have often marveled at the correlation between genius and madness. I think it would be a great topic to discuss on its own.
Posted by: giblfiz ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.belligerati.net/nav-commenters.gif)
at August 4, 2006 4:46 PM
Couldn't it just be an example of simple selection bias? Speakers say the same thing about most professions (top people in a field are generally "B" students). Could it be as simple as looking at the top people one sees lots of "B" students because there are a lot more "B" students to begin with. Eg "A" students might make up 20% of the top people in a profession while only making up 1% of the population... still 80s of the top people are "B" students, but doesn't mean you have a better chance of being a top person as a "B" student.
Posted by: -M- at August 14, 2006 2:53 PM
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