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RufusDawes
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To be an engineer how intelligent does one have to be. Is engineering a skill that can be learned ? Its a bad measure but for people with IQ's ranging between 120-130.
mr_coffee said:I don't think it really matters.
If you have a drive to be an engineer you can become an engineer.
I mean you can't be a moron but it doesn't take a certain IQ to be a successful engineer.
All it takes is hard work and dedication to your studies and you'll do better than the really smart guys who don't take the time to study.
For example:
My SAT scores were quite bad, 930 in fact. The college told me I would fail out of calculus because my math SAT scores were so slow. I told them I'd prove them wrong, just let me take the course. They said fine but don't come complaining to me when your failing.
Well now I'm ranked in the top 10% at my university (Penn State) in the college of engineering and I'm going to college for free because of my good grades. I don't believe I have a high IQ, I just work hard and that's all it takes to get a grade.
wildman said:There are some fields like theoretical physics where one has to be a genius. However engineering is NOT one of them.
RufusDawes said:To be an engineer how intelligent does one have to be. Is engineering a skill that can be learned ? Its a bad measure but for people with IQ's ranging between 120-130.
PhY said:IQ just shows us how knowledgeable one is.
This makes me laugh. Really. Anyone who thinks this either knows nothing about the field..or is in it themselves.wildman said:There are some fields like theoretical physics where one has to be a genius. However engineering is NOT one of them.
Asphodel said:If you have less than 180, the other engineers will catch on sooner or later and take you behind the tool shed. :rofl:
It's not nearly as useful for adults as it is for kids...the idea there is it roughly tells you how advanced or retarded their development is. But the idea of what "grade level" a student is reading or doing math at is probably more effective. It was a really cool idea that was intended for a psychological screening tool, but ended up mostly being a penis game that's not terribly useful for crap.
wildman said:There are some fields like theoretical physics where one has to be a genius. However engineering is NOT one of them.
RufusDawes said:To be an engineer how intelligent does one have to be. Is engineering a skill that can be learned ? Its a bad measure but for people with IQ's ranging between 120-130.
wildman said:There are some fields like theoretical physics where one has to be a genius. However engineering is NOT one of them.
he had a much higher iq than 130. his high schools tests weren't representative. his entrance exams to princeton or something were indicative of genius iq.Ki Man said:Not true. Feynman was in the 130's, which is technically not "genius." If IQ was the determinant of success then I should be at about the level of Feynman when he was my age, doing differential calculus and studying at MIT, instead I'm just a high school student who struggles with Spanish and happens to love physics. Still working on that bit about the calculus and MIT though.
edit: Another thing to keep in mind is that IQ was never intended to be used as a scalar comparison of reasonable people. It was made to sift through which kids weren't mentally up to par (ever seen/read forrest gump?) not to decide which genius is truly more of a genius. Science channel did a 'battle of the minds' type thing where they took an artist, musician, dramatist, quantum physicist, supersonic jet pilot, and a wall street stock broker and took their intelligence through many tests, including the standard IQ test and many other alternatives. 1st place was decided to be a tie between the quantum physicists and the dramatist (who didn't do the best on many of the 'standard tests'.) Even though my personal bias would be leaning towards the physicist, it shows that unlike common perception, high IQ does not equal high intelligence
By the way, IQ isn't even very good for its intended purpose anymore because not everybody develops the same way. Einstein and many others started out their lives with people questioning whether they would even be able to have a normal life at all. you can ask any psychologist and they will tell you that the IQ test is obsolete
That's a good point, or observation. During my senior high school years, i took physics and didn't do very well in the first year so i dropped it (the teacher did not teach it well, more than half the class dropped by the end of the year), and all those people who remained behind said they were going into all those sciency degrees, they were all doing chemistry and all, yet some of them went into nursing, two i know went into education, one for a sports teacher the other something else unrelated, and the others didn't continue in the field, only one guy i know went into something similar which was aviation. And while i did the same, most hardest maths offered in the state as they did, i still continued onto something related to physics and maths orientated when i wasn't so sure.eastside00_99 said:Actually a lot of intellegent people have real difficulty in school especially at a young age. A high intellegence is usually just the sign that particular type of thinking comes very natural for you. That said, people with a high intellegence sort of believe if they don't get it right away then the subject is not for them. This attitude leaves one at a huge disadvantage when it comes to academics and more so work. To be a good at something, no matter how smart you are, you will at some point have to perserver through ambiguity, counter intuitive ideas, very difficult work and so on. You often hear stories of med students who go through most of their lives getting perfect grades relatively easily (even through med school). But, when they have an internship and the real ambiquity begins, then hit a brick wall. It is so distressing for some that they commit suicide. On a personal note, a lot of the students from my high school who got much better grades than me, took harder classes, basically skipped a year of college, have not lived up to the potential that you thought they had. Many of them sort of just give up. I mean they get a degree but end up managing a toys-r-us or something. They wouldn't have a prayer doing some of the school work I do because of the amount of hard work involved. I have talked to many people about this and they have all noticed the same thing.
I like what Columbia looks for in its math majors: "brain wave activity, a pulse perferably." Nothing is really necessary intelligence wise except the ability to be present and do work. I know a few math students who are mentally challenged--proving my point.
ice109 said:he had a much higher iq than 130. his high schools tests weren't representative. his entrance exams to princeton or something were indicative of genius iq.
Asphodel said:If you have less than 180, the other engineers will catch on sooner or later and take you behind the tool shed. :rofl:
It's not nearly as useful for adults as it is for kids...the idea there is it roughly tells you how advanced or retarded their development is. But the idea of what "grade level" a student is reading or doing math at is probably more effective. It was a really cool idea that was intended for a psychological screening tool, but ended up mostly being a penis game that's not terribly useful for crap.
nicely saidleon1127 said:Success is made up with 1% of intelligence and 110% of hard work. IQ is a measure of potential ability, not potential success.
l46kok said:Haha, IQ doesn't tell the true measure of an individual intelligence. I know an engineer who scored 101 on IQ test and getting 3.8 GPA.
wildman said:Could any of you point out a successful theoretical physicist who isn't very smart?
wildman said:You don't have to be a genius to be a theoretical physicists? Every successful physicist I've ever met has been really really brilliant. Could any of you point out a successful theoretical physicist who isn't very smart?
stewartcs said:What is your definition of "successful"?
I don't think how "successful" a person is determines how "intelligent" he is.
robphy said:I agree. Success depends on many things... including:
persistence, the ability to communicate and work with others, relevance to others [who might fund you], timing, and luck.
Confused said:Man I'll have a major problem with this when I go to college. I used to stay home in high school during presentation days. I would just do all the written work, get a zero on the presentation part; it would take a huge chunk out of my final grade.
robphy said:Interesting sequence of words here: "genius", "really brilliant", "very smart"...
leon1127 said:I think IQ, SAT, and GPA are highly uncorrelated...
f95toli said:I know of one theoretical physicist in particular (I won't tell you his name, but he works on interfaces in solid state physics) who tends to write very long papers (10-20 pages in PRB and similar journals) with lots of complicated math; the results are usually long, complicated formulas and a few graphs. He is undoubtly very good at what he is doing.