I wonder what's being quantified.. intelligence or obedience.

This would be like rating a strong-man competition by how much time was spent in the gym and how much unnecessary pain was self-inflicted.

It's like there's a culture of "pain enthusiasts". They do things like talk about running until it hurts, they tend to get injured often, and of course they have nothing to show for their dedication.

I'm realizing that there's a mentality about these people. The idea of working smarter and not harder literally offends them. The idea that the amount of work is less important than the effectiveness of work offends them. These are often the same people that voice their concerns about working from home and why it can't work. My suspicion is because their value is measured by "time in the gym" rather than tangible real-world results.

Kind of like hours spent in a gym, actually.

So, when you look objectively you find the most highly paid author has zero relevant accolades. in academic terms, gave the appearance of doing what was necessary".[18] Rowling recalls doing little work, preferring to listen to The Smiths and read Dickens and Tolkien

Interesting, do we have any explanations for this phenomena?

"Even prodigies who avoid burnout and resist social pressures are unlikely to make a big splash as an adult. The problem, notes giftedness researcher Ellen Winner, is that to make a major contribution in the arts, and even the sciences "you need a rebellious spirit and the type of mind that can see new things." Most prodigies, however, are acclaimed not for their innovation but "for doing something that's already been done, like playing the violin in the style of Itzhak Perlman." Only prodigies who can reinvent themselves as innovators, she says, are likely to leave a lasting mark during adulthood." https://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200511/why-prodigie...

High school valedictorians and child prodigies (especially the former) are disproportionately likely to hold positions of societal power. Just read the bio of any president of the IMF or the World Bank or the Federal Reserve. Essentially all of them graduate university summa cum laude or magna cum laude.

Innovative scientists and people who move the world forward? Perhaps less likely to come from this group, for a variety of reasons.

It's the difference between getting funding, and not just having an IPO but actually pay real dividends for significantly more than total investments.

There was a Boston College study awhile back that tracked a group of valedictorians. The were almost all successful and satisfied with life, but were more likely to be in professions. (Doctor, nurse, accountant, etc)

In this forum, entrepreneurs are on a pedestal. It's a different personality type -- when people with entrepreneurial instincts are in an environment that doesn't support them, they tend to do poorly.

My sister was a valedictorian. She's smart and creative, has a great career in a great company, is in a good marriage and has a happy family. Success by any measure that I can think of. There are people on HN who know who she is, but she is unlikely to be a billionaire tech mogul, which seems to be the standard of success in this particular story's comments!

PS: I also had a valedictorian sister who went on to Disney and is now a solid cog in their profit machine. The trap is she never really had a need to strike out on her own. Another sister was salutatorian and became a nursery school teacher. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Until recently where startups have turned into a strange variant of hedge fund, many successful entrepreneurs were frankly oddball types who needed to work for themselves.

One of my cousins is a prep-school/Harvard MBA/Columbia Law school type who is flipping goofy startups instead of closing factories or doing investment banking things. Startups aren't startups anymore when organization men are attracted to it.

I honestly think that having As in subjects that don't matter much, shows a form of mental illness like OCD or a lack of self-identity. It may be a grim and rather crass outlook so if you have a counter-example, I'd love to hear it.

I skipped a lot of boring lessons, read the books (yes, practical and visual type) and got really good grades.

It's like if we wanted to test someone's ability to run a mile but had no way to measure time. We'd still test them to see if they could complete it, and if they can't, well they certainly can't do it quickly. But anyone competent can most certainly pass that basic test.

Grades aren't an opportunity to show off, they're an opportunity to express basic competence.

Obviously someone clever can figure out how to get away with putting in less effort than the average student while still scoring well, but that’s more about learning to play the school game than learning how to think according to the methods of inquiry whatever field is ostensibly being studied.

It makes sense that school takes this form: instructor time is much more scalable to many students when assignments and exams are simple and uniform. Mentoring students who are working on real research problems takes much more time and effort.

The objective is for students to gain and demonstrate basic competence in fundamental concepts of their field, and straightforward answers to straightforward questions suffice. There's not a lot of room here for novel arguments, and the objective is not to solve novel problems; that comes later.

This is time consuming because, for most of us, learning a new concept and applying it takes some time. It's not a sinister plot by the system to waste our time.

Regarding mentoring students to work on real research problems: yes, this doesn't scale to huge number of undergrads. But most undergrads don't yet have the drive or the fundamental knowledge required to tackle real research questions. That said, if a student does well in a class and shows interest, a lot of professors will give an undergrad a chance to work with their research lab.

The best (most time efficient) way to learn factual knowledge is using some kind of spaced repetition.

The best (most time efficient for the student) way to learn mechanical or conceptual tools to mastery is to be presented with a problem which needs the tool, struggle with it for a while and develop some personal familiarity with the problem and personal ad-hoc methods; then have the standard tool presented, then go back and struggle some more using the standard tool to solve various types of problems and combinatorially trying the new tool out with various old tools to see what it can do and how they all relate. Then after basic competence is achieved, continuing to occasionally apply the tool to new problems over the course of months or years, including problems which require unusual uses of the tool or unexpected combinations with other tools, generalizations of the tool, etc. This is all generally much faster and more effective with some amount of 1-on-1 tutoring/mentorship between the student and a subject expert than with any other known arrangement, whether the tool in question is a pair of scissors, argument analysis, google search, rhetoric, regular expressions, or complex multiplication.

The best way to learn methods of inquiry or creative work which characterize various human endeavors (history, journalism, physics, graphic design, ethnography, mechanical engineering, pure mathematics, philosophy, literary criticism, acting, technical illustration, sales, ....) is to spend time actually doing real or realistic work, watching experts do real work, and looking at lots of finished work.

Unfortunately it’s hard to make 1-on-1 tutoring or research project mentorship scale to a classroom. Strategies like putting the students into groups to solve project-type problems of a variety of scopes, “flipping” the classroom by presenting lectures via video outside of class, mixing up assignments to include a mix of easy small-scope problems of the new material combined with harder problems highlighting past material, and so on can help, but there is a huge gap still between (even average quality) 1-on-1 tutoring and the best alternative method, which educators and education researchers would love to know how to fill.

Both figuratively and literally, be very careful how hard you grit your teeth. They (and you) can break.

Your training, and time-in-gym particularly, is only partially related to that. Train on a stupid program (squat-rack curls, sets of 100 reps), and you're not going to progress.

Use a properly periodised training schedule, with complementary and auxiliary lifts that work toward your goal, mind your time between lifts, avoid overtraining, etc., and you can make rapid progress.

Powerlifting's easy, from a measurement perspective, because the end result is so tangible and measureable: legal lift, known weight, success or fail. Speed events, whether sprint or endurance, likewise. Direct contests, whether competition (tennis, darts, rugby), or fighting sports (MMA, wrestling, boxing) largely the same, though some subjectivity of scoring may come into play.

Determining who is the better programmer or systems administrator from a 15 minute assessment is all but impossible if the contestents are even remotely evenly matched: the criteria for drawing judgements are much more complex, and may not become apparent for months or years.

The fact is whether to use some random NPM library is a strawman, in the case of left-pad it's trivial either way. The more interesting question is how you assess the stability risk of NPM.

Time spent present is easy for the social group to measure. Everyone might be impressed by the guy running the 4 minute mile, but after he leaves we're much more interested in Greg improving from his 7 minute mile to a 6:30 minute mile and that 4 minute mile guy was kind of a jerk anyways. Finding a way to get a 4 minute mile without the trackmaster 2000 and the protein shakes, who does he think he is.

Meanwhile I never specifically study for a test. I've just studied regularly every day, thought about these things regularly, let my subconscious do some heavy lifting, and built associations in my brain that help me derive equations or fill in gaps if needed. For my effort, I've got a ~3.9 GPA and all kinds of free time for dating, exercise, hobbies, and teaching myself useful skills in my field that university isn't teaching me.

I think the core problem for most people is that they are attached to the wrong outcome. Their goal is the high GPA. My goal is grokking material and making myself useful; high GPA is almost a given (and frankly redundant) after that, and the only difference between my 3.9 and a 4.0 is the tolerance for BS and busywork... and about a gazillion extra hours of work.

It is, of course, understandable, because people think High GPA -> Good Grad School -> $$$$. But I suspect, and your story confirms, that "Reasonably High GPA" + "An Actualized Human Being Who Is Not a Robot"[0] -> Good Grad School -> Richer Life + $$$$.

[0] - Not trying to denigrate those who take the other path, but I see them miss out on a lot of life and ultimately not be as developed and awesome as they could be. I'm saying these things not just about random strangers, but also about people I know and love. They've optimized primarily for passing tests.

In various subjects, particularly abstract mathematics, I had to grind heavily in order to keep up with the class. I attended every office hours and pattern matched heavily, studying into the wee hours. (I had tried your method and failed in previous semesters).

Other subjects I had no problem. Low-level operating systems, writing, literary deconstruction, chemistry, foreign languages, statistics: I had no issues studying a reasonable amount and having a good work-life balance.

Eventually I realized that I was never grokking things with mathematics beyond a certain point. I was in office hours with the professor, asking how I could generalize the concept to a new problem. He said "just use your critical thinking skills! That's what employers are looking for." I truly didn't have the ingenuity to do it. I really wanted to be good at it, but I knew I never would be.

I think you are forgetting about the areas in your life that you don't excel at, that you couldn't be good at no matter how hard you tried. Some people genuinely have to grind at some things in order to succeed. For me, it allowed me to realize that no matter how beneficial it would be to have a Math minor, it wasn't going to happen. I spent that time pursuing coursework I would benefit more from.

Grinding will always fail with abstract mathematics because it distracts you from divergent thinking and spontaneous insights. The problem is that university courses are on a fixed schedule so people that need more time than allotted for this kind of study are not accommodated, which pushes a lot of people away from mathematics who could otherwise contribute.

That said, I tutor mathematics and I hear all day long "I can't do this" and it has never once been true. For the people I help it is usually a matter of finding how they learn best (visual, verbal, hands on...) and/or finding an appropriate metaphor. And yes, even despite this, they often struggle; but genuine struggle is a good reason to put in more hours. I don't dispute that.

Your prof's answer is the kind of answer that disgusts me. It's not teaching. In mathematics it is exceptionally questionable, because it is tantamount to expecting you to derive the whole of mathematics by yourself.

That's the introvert's version of "just be yourself, you're overcomplicating it" -- i.e. just draw on innate skills that I have without realizing and you don't.

I have a gift of getting good grades. I know what things will be on the test, I know how to answer questions so that I leave enough wiggle room to avoid exposing ignorance on a topic, and I know how to structure an answer to get partial credit if I really don't know how to answer a question. My GPA in my first undergraduate class was essentially all A+s (curse you intro to the philosophy of language!).

For my second undergraduate degree, I just flat out rejected that approach. I exposed my ignorance where possible (and typically as early as possible rather than on the final exam). What was surprising was how little impact this had on my grades. Some, but not much, and I learned a lot more. Now I try to pass that on to my kids, but the structure of school is such that everything in that system is oriented towards the wrong goal.

Really pushes me in the direction of homeschooling, I have to say.

For me, saying "I don't know" was more of a social fear than an academic one. I thought people only liked me for my performance. But, like you, I learned that saying it didn't really affect the outcomes I thought it would, but it did result in learning a ton more. And I think, socially, it actually helped, because it humanized me to people who just saw me as "that super smart guy who gets good grades". I was no longer a machine they could not compete with, but a companion in the same struggle.

It's also much less exhausting just being true all the time, rather than trying to achieve some arbitrary educational or social metric.

> You're point about ...

Now I have to think about a grad school because it's pretty much required for my field of engineering. I'm not sure if any grad school would be interested in my pitiful grades from back then.

Likely to be true for many people. I remember my uncle, who was a prof. in the US, bemoaning the fact (and this was way back) that some of his students used to come and ask him "What do I need to do to get an A?" His point being, of course, that those students did not have a genuine interest in the subject for its own sake (which tends to lead to better outcomes anyway).

For good or bad, academic performance is measured with GPA, so you should not be surprised to see people optimizing for this measurement. You can't measure "interest in the subject" and even if you could, you could not judge teacher and/or student performance based on it, so instead we have GPA.

[1] One exception was organic chemistry in high school. Never could get my head around it, though I did fine in inorganic. I think it had to do at least partly with the fact that in organic, you have to memorize much more (e.g. molecules and their transitions - hardly remember much now), whereas in inorganic, you have to use logic and deduction and problem-solving skills more.

I was a straight A student all though my major (EE), but I never hesitated to take a B+ if I felt the amount of work needed for an A wasn't worth it. In addition, I made sure to enjoy my free time and work on stuff that I love (software dev, for instance!). I think I was successful: IIRC, I pulled 1 all nighter in my 4.5 years as an undergrad.

Obviously, I didn't graduate with a 4.0, but I got a high enough grade to get admitted to an excellent school for a PhD.

I switched from a Computer Science Engineering major to just Computer Science. It saved me 100 more credits of work and gave me the chance to take great courses like beer brewing, samba drumming, plant identification, and history of rock'n'roll. Not to mention all the time I had to spend with friends and enjoy my hobbies.

Graduated with the bare minimum GPA (to a 0.01) required for Honors, and got a great job. Life is definitely more important than the 4.0, and the fancier degree.

The assignment from which I learned the most and which I had the most fun on was totally open ended other than some general methods.

Plenty of smart people follow the rules on principle and plenty of rule-breakers are dumb. Notably, many students who cheat has to cheat, because they are unable to learn underlying material.

There's various ways to go about morals in general but "following the rules" in itself is not a good basis for morality.

Actually, there never was a time where I felt that cheating was worth it. On the contrary, the amount of time I'd need to prepare a strategy (compile cheat sheet, figure out how to use it, where to sit, etc.) probably exceeded the time I'd take to just study for the exam!

I agree, always following the rules isn't beneficial to society, but I'd argue it's better than the case where no one is following the rules.

And note that I was talking about a cheat sheet to be used for cheating.

Do we count work as "being in the office/lab"? Or do we count work as thinking about the problem?

If one were building a company like Tesla for example, I would count going to the gym and thinking of the problem domain while running on a treadmill as work. I would also count thinking of the problem while going for a walk as work.

If one has really set one's teeth into a nasty problem, things like going to a party, or social calls like seeing friends not engaged in the problem, isn't relaxing, it's frustrating.

I think we should redefine the parameters of this conversation into time that depletes the body and time that replenishes it.

Being in front of a computer for long periods is hard on the eyes, it can be hard physically especially if the ergonomics aren't perfect. Being at the office for long periods can be draining as well because unlike being at home there aren't places to go that are replenishing on demand.

If one has a good sit/stand desk and spends a lot of time coding while standing, 10 minutes lying on a bed is incredibly replenishing for example.

The other dimension here is that perhaps it is alienated work that is inherently depleting. Working for someone else, or on something one does not really want to be working on is draining.

Working on something you care about is invigorating and I can't see how spending less time in that state can possibly be more productive than more time in a productive, non-depleting state.

Pomodoros[0] are life changing. While writing a paper/fiction/code/anything, I force myself to take that break; even if I'm on a roll. Sometimes I leave myself a note "When you get back, solve this particular problem/write this particular part" or I'll scrawl some shorthand solution for the problem on my whiteboard. I'm way way more productive if I do anything else for 10 minutes, whether it's laundry, video games, lying down, reading fiction... doesn't matter. It's almost like my brain is working while I'm relaxing.

[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique

I'm not sure I buy the "you get diminishing returns for working harder" in general --- yes, you can absolutely burn out, but you could also just do amazing things if you work really hard. Sometimes there are diminishing returns (like the A vs A+ in school), and sometimes there aren't.

The most important thing is that progress can be made even if you want to work at a more leisurely pace on difficult problems. And, of course, that's far less likely to burn you out.

they had set the load and level for Programming to final year level. A dozen (out of 140ish students) dropped out by the end of the first week, and by the end of the course (13 weeks long) more than half of the students had dropped out, and just 37 were in a position to pass. I don't mean that they had completed the work necessary to pass, but they could conceivably do so by the final due date for the course.

I don't know how many actually passed, but of the 37, not everyone did. It was so bad that they had to drop the prerequisites and allow in anybody who had completed the other papers just so there could actually be a final year (three year Bachelor of Science).

Funnily enough, they refused to refund any fees, even though the person in charge of the course was eventually fired over the mess - one that he didn't even create! He was handed the course and workload, and told "This is it, this is how you must teach it." We were all told "Suck it up and do it." Even the teaching staff had told the professors that it was a badly designed course, which didn't go down well.

I passed that paper, failed all my others (no refund: I was told I should just have worked harder than double the standard semester workload), and burned out. Not one of us paid intending to be part of their incompetence. Had I known how badly put together the course was, I would have dropped out in the first week as well. If I wanted the Honors workload, I would have entered the Honors program.

In this case, of course I don't mean to say that every class in existence follows this grade vs. effort plot. There are absolutely incredibly difficult classes where this is not true, and you need a lot of effort just to pass.

The fact of the matter is that this is absolutely not true in general. I didn't mention that in my comment, but I totally agree there are counterexamples of classes, it's just that the vast majority of classes follow the trend of being pretty easy to just pass (considering classes of all disciplines here --- for example, I know many people that have taken literature courses, pulled an all-nighter before each paper due date, otherwise didn't work at all, and passed. All together the class took maybe 30 hours of work outside the classroom for the entire semester!)

If you are still around then there is a chance you will also be making progress.

Edit: I also realize that this isn't for everyone

Other than being required to get at least Pass in order to remain in good academic standing, I'm not certain what effect these grades have.

However, the grades from the time they spend in the clinic are much more important than the pre-clinical coursework.

Diminishing returns on your health and in actual quality work of done, for sure.

But unfortunately you also tend to get "increasing returns" in terms of appreciation by uninspired middle-level managers, who tend to think: "We know he's a good worker 'coz we can see him workin'!". Which is unfortunately the great majority of them. Who themselves tend to be deeply insecure about their own position and how they're being evaluated, and so forth.

And so the world keeps going, round and round and roun,

Forgive me but I must take you to task for this. The point of post-secondary education is not to graduate; the point is to get an education that enables you to succeed in your career. This may or may not matter if all you're doing is websites and CRUD apps (which should really be taken as a warning about the long-term stability of such a career) but that's not the fault of the degree program.

(Some may wish to point that grades don't necessarily correlate with mastery of the knowledge presented, and I'd have some sympathy for that, but that's a different argument entirely.)

[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2015/02/...