Just thought I'd share,but this guy is my new hero:if youre a non-trad student

[wisvuze]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Smale
you may or may not know him, but he's only a fields medalist.. Scoring B's, C's and even an F in his 2nd and 3rd years of university.. Goes to show that schmucks like us ( like me ) who have had non-traditional marred track records stand a pretty good chance!

 

[gb7nash]

This happened over 40 years ago!

It looks like the reason he turned himself around was because he was on the verge of getting kicked out of school due to not working hard enough. While this is a great story, anyone who's in college should give it their all and prevent something like this from happening (and plus times are much different now than 40 years ago).

 

[zif.]

Goes to show that schmucks like us ( like me ) who have had non-traditional marred track records stand a pretty good chance!

No, it doesn't, and you're setting yourself up for failure if you start thinking like this.

He was obviously brilliant and the profs recognized this. I think this is indicated by the fact that he was accepted for graduate studies at the same institution he did his undergrad at.


This really reminds me of the excuse, "Bill Gates is a university drop-out!" for why someone isn't in college or why they dropped out.

There's a huge difference between being a university drop-out and deciding to leave Harvard to start a company.

 

[Pengwuino]

Goes to show that schmucks like us ( like me ) who have had non-traditional marred track records stand a pretty good chance!

No they don't.

Number of schmucks who do poorly: Uncountable.

Number of schmucks who do poorly yet win the Nobel Prize/Fields Medal: 1

 

[micromass]

So, let me sketch that for you

STEP 1) Get C's and F's
STEP 2) Win Fields medal

One of these steps should be easy...

 

[gb7nash]

So, let me sketch that for you

STEP 1) Get C's and F's
STEP 2) Win Fields medal

One of these steps should be easy...

step 1: Get C's and F's
step 2: ?
step 3: profit

 

[klackity]

You all are way too pessimistic.

The people who fail aren't the people who mess up. The people who fail are the ones who don't go head-first into what they want to do.

You get confused, because all these great mathematicians seem to have perfect records. You think that their greatness caused them to have perfect records. The thing is, the causation is the other way around. They had perfect records because they figured out EARLY to go head first. Then they were rewarded along the way with confirmation and support because of their early achievements, which led them to go even harder into it (thus making their record even more impressive).

When someone starts off on the right foot, they have every advantage.

The inverse is also true. If someone starts off on the wrong foot, they have every disadvantage. First and foremost, they don't have the support of anyone. This leads them to be hesitant, and not devote so much time into it, because failure seems likely. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Stephen Smale is a perfect example of someone who was given a chance, and reversed his momentum. If you guys think it's just a blip in the radar, that's fine, but I think that's a terrible way to look at it.

It's completely ridiculous to think of mistakes in the past as damning to the future. Everyone screws up now and then. Some people screw up majorly. But you know what the worst mistake you could ever make is? To be afraid of screwing up.

There are too many math majors at my university who only take the basic courses, and let other people decide what they are going to learn. It's way too common. And you know what? These are the people who are really failing. Even if they get good grades, and graduate with a 4.0, they're failing badly - very badly.

So STOP IT! Stop promoting the idea that you need to be brilliant or perfect or whatever to do something great. It's the wrong way to think about things.

 

[micromass]

So STOP IT! Stop promoting the idea that you need to be brilliant or perfect or whatever to do something great. It's the wrong way to think about things.

You don't need to be brilliant or perfect, but if you aren't brilliant and perfect, then you need to WORK HARD! Steven Smale was a brilliant guy who was given another chance, but guess what? Not everybody will get a second chance in this life. So you better start working hard NOW and start take things serious.

The OP let's it appear that it's ok for somebody to slack off with C's and D's, but it's really not. Not everybody will be as lucky as Steven. If you want to do something with your life, you'll need to work hard. It's the way it is and it's the way it has always been... And simply because there's this one student who does get good grades, doesn't mean a thing.

 

[zif.]

So STOP IT! Stop promoting the idea that you need to be brilliant or perfect or whatever to do something great. It's the wrong way to think about things.

No one here is saying that.

Go read the posts again.

 

[mege]

This happened over 40 years ago!

It looks like the reason he turned himself around was because he was on the verge of getting kicked out of school due to not working hard enough. While this is a great story, anyone who's in college should give it their all and prevent something like this from happening (and plus times are much different now than 40 years ago).

This is definitely ideal, but sometimes people do get 'start off on the wrong foot' due to maturity or other life issues which can be hard to self-identify.

You all are way too pessimistic.

The people who fail aren't the people who mess up. The people who fail are the ones who don't go head-first into what they want to do.

...

Stephen Smale is a perfect example of someone who was given a chance, and reversed his momentum. If you guys think it's just a blip in the radar, that's fine, but I think that's a terrible way to look at it.

...

So STOP IT! Stop promoting the idea that you need to be brilliant or perfect or whatever to do something great. It's the wrong way to think about things.

The parts quoted I think are the meat of the issue with the Smale story. As I said above, there can be countless reasons someone perfectly capable does poorly early in life and can succeed later in life. However, I disagree with the last part - those whom have failed and accepted their second chance and excelled are behind in their field. They CAN do something great, but it's much more likely that someone that spent all of their time the most efficient will do better.

Ultimately, it's great encouragement for those that have screwed up. It's not saying "HAY KIDZ GO SCREW UP AND GET A MEDEL" (that's what modern American gradeschool is for :D). Instead, it's a beacon for those looking back and attempting to correct their transgressions.

 

[Pengwuino]

You all are way too pessimistic.

[...]So STOP IT! Stop promoting the idea that you need to be brilliant or perfect or whatever to do something great. It's the wrong way to think about things.

That's not what's at issue here. To me, saying people who have pretty much sucked it up in college have a pretty good chance is grossly misleading. I've seen countless numbers of people who are in the mindset "Ds are for Degrees". These people have no future. It's not because college is special in any way, it's because college isn't special. People who enter college are, for the first time typically, on their own and fully responsible for themselves and have to face the kind of deadlines and rules that exist all the time in the real world. When they can't do that, it's a good indicator that they haven't matured and don't have a good chance.

Let's be even more obvious about this. What about high school? You can find great people who didn't even make it through high school but in the end, did great things. Now, wouldn't it be outrageous to say that people who can't make it through high school still stand a "pretty good chance"?

 

[Ryker]

Goes to show that schmucks like us ( like me ) who have had non-traditional marred track records stand a [STRIKE]pretty good[/STRIKE] chance!

I think that's all you can surmise, and I also think that's good enough of assurance on its own. No need to go overboard, and rest assured that any schmuck (your word) that does apply such flawed logic will not be successful in a field based on logic.

 

[Ashuron]

rather than showing a chance for less motivated students..
this just show bad grades are not the end of everything..

for Physicist..Douglas Osheroff also did badly at first few years of his UG study...
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1996/osheroff.html

 

[twofish-quant]

I've seen countless numbers of people who are in the mindset "Ds are for Degrees". These people have no future.

On the other hand I've seen people that have gotten A's through out their life and then fall apart at some point.

People who enter college are, for the first time typically, on their own and fully responsible for themselves and have to face the kind of deadlines and rules that exist all the time in the real world.

I'd argue the opposite. Most people since kindergarten have ended up with deadlines and rules. What is different about college is that sometimes you end up learning that the rules are silly, and then you have to figure out what to do with that. Ignoring every rule that exists will get you in trouble, but following every rule that exists will get you into equally as much trouble.

You'll find that sometimes you have to break or ignore rules, and figuring out when those times are is quite interesting.

When they can't do that, it's a good indicator that they haven't matured and don't have a good chance.

But maturity involves challenging authority sometimes. If you do exactly what authority expects you to do, then you are going to be in for a rude shock.

The other thing about academia is that eventually you will end up at the bottom of the heap, and I've seen people that have had excellent grades just totally shatter when they found that they reach their limits.

 

[twofish-quant]

You don't need to be brilliant or perfect, but if you aren't brilliant and perfect, then you need to WORK HARD!

No one is perfect, and even if you are brilliant you need to work hard.

Not everybody will get a second chance in this life. So you better start working hard NOW and start take things serious.

At some point in your life, you will have a mess up. It goes with the territory.

The OP let's it appear that it's ok for somebody to slack off with C's and D's, but it's really not.

Except that you'll find a lot of people that are working as hard as they can, and still get C's and D's. Also if you work hard, you just get bumped to a higher level where you end up failing.

 

[Simfish]

Hahaha I love this thread. The title is somewhat misleading. Sure, it's possible to do great things after you've flunked. But flunking does make it much, much harder to do great things. And you'll have to compromise. You may need to spend a couple of years doing unpaid research, for example. If you're REALLY REALLY into science, that may not be too much of a problem.

Anyways, Steven Chu is also pretty inspiring. http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1997/chu-autobio.html. He didn't flunk out of anything, but he wasn't that exceptional either.

 

[Ryker]

Anyways, Steven Chu is also pretty inspiring. http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1997/chu-autobio.html. He didn't flunk out of anything, but he wasn't that exceptional either.

Exactly what part of the article lead you to believe that?!

 

[Simfish]

In this family of accomplished scholars, I was to become the academic black sheep. I performed adequately at school, but in comparison to my older brother, who set the record for the highest cumulative average for our high school, my performance was decidedly mediocre. I studied, but not in a particularly efficient manner. Occasionally, I would focus on a particular school project and become obsessed with, what seemed to my mother, to be trivial details instead of apportioning the time I spent on school work in a more efficient way.

I approached the bulk of my schoolwork as a chore rather than an intellectual adventure. The tedium was relieved by a few courses that seem to be qualitatively different. Geometry was the first exciting course I remember. Instead of memorizing facts, we were asked to think in clear, logical steps. Beginning from a few intuitive postulates, far reaching consequences could be derived, and I took immediately to the sport of proving theorems. I also fondly remember several of my English courses where the assigned reading often led to binges where I read many books by the same author.

Well, this was in high school anyways. I've read a lot of Nobel laureate biographies, and most Nobel laureates were already exceptional before age 17 (actually, I read the biographies when I was 15, and *even at that age*, most of the biographies still discouraged me - Steven Chu was one of the few exceptions)

==

Anyways, regarding Osheroff's biography - you have to note that Osheroff studied at Caltech, where MANY intelligent students flunk their courses due to all the pressure. So I would find Smale far more inspiring than Osheroff.

 

[chiro]

You don't need to be brilliant or perfect, but if you aren't brilliant and perfect, then you need to WORK HARD! Steven Smale was a brilliant guy who was given another chance, but guess what? Not everybody will get a second chance in this life. So you better start working hard NOW and start take things serious.

People get another chance all the time. I can understand if you screw around for a long enough then granted people around you will form opinions and probably lose respect for you and it can be harder to get their respect back.

Having said that, its really naive to think that people only get one, two or even a limited number of chances. Two-fish put it brilliantly when people who are used to getting A's crash and burn.

There are so many variables to consider when you're comparing someone with a fields medal or a nobel prize. Everything from the environment of the person, their experiences, everything about them counts.

Personally I think the most important variable with success is attitude. People can fail many times yet still have a positive attitude and get there in the end. I know you guys might say that's a cliche but it's true.

If you have a really strong (good) attitude and you set out to achieve something, then even if you actually don't achieve it, you will probably learn more than you thought, and the experience will make you stronger.

Contrast that to someone with a poorer attitude who gets good marks and faces a situation where there is a high chance of failure, and the attitude helps reinforce negative opinions which may bring that person to a standstill.

The average life-span (in my country) is about 70 years. That's a lot of time for learning, for experiencing, for making mistakes, for growing, and for a lot of second chances.

 

[Simfish]

Also, these two articles are really inspirational:

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/print/2009/12/the-science-of-success/7761/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differential_susceptibility_hypothesis

 

[twofish-quant]

Anyways, regarding Osheroff's biography - you have to note that Osheroff studied at Caltech, where MANY intelligent students flunk their courses due to all the pressure.

And obsessing over grades just adds to the pressure. Having gone to MIT, I've seen people that were so incredibly obsessed with grades that they just totally fell apart when they were getting B's instead of straight-A's. By contrast I knew people that got consistent C's and D's, barely graduated but they ended up ahead because they didn't burn out.

Also from what I understand of Caltech the grading system is very similar to MIT. It's very, very hard to flunk out of MIT, because there are no weed out classes, and if you weren't generally competent and hard working, you never would have gotten in. It's much, much more common for people to burn out, and it's usually the people that were most obsessed with grades that were most likely to burn out.

 

[twofish-quant]

One other thing is that I really hate this "cult of success." One thing that I think causes a lot of problem is that people in college don't think very much about what success means and why it means that to them.

 

[Latecomer]

Simfish, those links are incredible.
That first article really hit home. It wasn't until my mid to late twenties that I was finally able to turn my life around and head in the right direction; I'm just happy I hadn't messed things up too much by then. I also see my son as a mirror-image of myself, and I see how well he is thriving in a good environment.
I'm curious, though, how one would go about getting their SERT genes assayed? Where would you go for something like that? Not that I really want to do that as it really doesn't serve a functional purpose; I suppose it's just a curiosity thing at this point.

 

[Simfish]

Wow, interesting examples, twofish-quant. Yeah, I agree - I really hate the "cult of success" as well.

I'm curious, though, how one would go about getting their SERT genes assayed? Where would you go for something like that? Not that I really want to do that as it really doesn't serve a functional purpose; I suppose it's just a curiosity thing at this point.

Well, you could get your genome scanned. A small scan can be obtained at https://www.23andme.com/. Personally, I'm going to get my entire genome scanned for free as part of the personal genome project, but I still haven't received any updates about my role in half a year.

Personally though, I think it's *a lot* more than just SERT, and SERT only explains a small fraction of variance with respect to the phenomena I linked. Both ADD genes and depression genes could contribute (of which there are many for each), as well as all sorts of other genes.

 

[Simfish]

Also inspirational is our very own forum's mathwonk, who's now a math professor at UGA (but IIRC, he got some F's in calculus and left school for some time)