Hard workers vs gifted (but lazier) people

[StayTuned]

Who has the upper hand in academics (and possibly later in life) in your eyes?

Is the the one who excels in pure thought power, or is it the working animal who studies and works on university related materials multiple hours a day but has trouble understanding new concepts fast?

I have found that the hard working fellows tend to have better exam grades on average, however they do weaker in those subjects where you have to think for yourself, come up with new ideas and express your thoughts.




Purely based on own observation and experience. I understand that gifted people who don't do shit can't achieve shit either... therefore I assume that even the gifted ones do minimal work.

[Deleted]

Hard workers, you can be lazy and smart but still fail due to not bothering to pick a book up on the matter at hand.

The only way around that, would to be an Einstein or a prodigy but even that requires knowledge on said matter to apply the intellect.

Otherwise hard workers all the way, no contest outside the 0.01% of people who're super smart.

[Melt]

There is no such thing as a "gifted but lazy" person.

[Ealyssa]

Why should gifted people be lazy ???

In high academics you'll nearly only see gifted AND hard working people.

[Fus Ro Yay]

brain over brawn

strong people build wonders
smart people draw/design them (and gets paid)

it's human nature to do the least amount of work for the greatest reward.
"lazy" is hard to say tbh, i never have any problems with my presentations or tests at school, yet i never do any of my homework
some of the girls in my class practices hours and hours before tests, makes 2-3 pages worth of notes, and still manage to get a grade or two worse than me.

i'm not a mensa member, but i'm not stupid either. What i'm trying to say is that when people find something to be easy or trivial (because they're good on said subject, or just bright in general) they tend to be lazy about it. And, it does not come back to bite them in the ass.(mostly because they're always compared to the hard working people who might have trouble with the exact same tasks)

Now, im guessing(and hoping) this is less and less true the higher up you go, because then you're also interested in the subjects you work with.

[Shocking]

We are discussing a lot of subjective terms here, which makes it hard to quantify things into an objective discussion. However, in my experience, people who work hard will achieve more than people who may be smarter or more skilled than them but less motivated. This assumes that the harder workers have some average level of intelligence. People of below average intelligence will struggle to accomplish as much as a more intelligent person, regardless of how hard they work.

[Siri]

I think it depends a lot on the level of work you're doing. At lower levels of education you get by a lot easier on just raw talent but the further up you get the more work (or even more talent) it requires. At the end of the day you're better off being a hard worker because it pays off in all areas of life, no one is talented at everything.

Some skills you can't learn but if you're lazy you're not really going to be using them anyway.

[Melt]

I have found that the hard working fellows tend to have better exam grades on average, however they do weaker in those subjects where you have to think for yourself, come up with new ideas and express your thoughts.

Hard working students commit to a perspective designed by somebody else. Therefore, when they get an assignment to "think for themselves" they have a more narrowed down perspective they look from (because they adopted/learned it). People who don't study and don't adapt have a much broader point of view when they judge things and therefore it seems like they have more ideas.

[Velaniz]

The discipline a hard-worker possesses bleeds over into more aspects of his life than just academics. It is primarily for this reason I believe he will go further in life, though I'm certain you could make a convincing case for both sides of the argument.

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There is no such thing as a "gifted but lazy" person.

Let's not be silly. Of course there is.

[StayTuned]

Hard workers, you can be lazy and smart but still fail due to not bothering to pick a book up on the matter at hand.

The only way around that, would to be an Einstein or a prodigy but even that requires knowledge on said matter to apply the intellect.

Otherwise hard workers all the way, no contest outside the 0.01% of people who're super smart.

It's really a shame that our university doesn't attract prodigies. I would love to see these people in live action.... I find them highly inspiring.

At my university, we are clearly dominated by hard working people who deliver very good work once someone else figured out what the work's going to be. I find them a hindrance in developing new concepts or ideas, but a blessing when it comes down to research and execution of work.

If you put both into an individual competition, the hard worker would most likely have the better exam, but would do less good at papers.


Also, please note how I said "lazier", not "lazy". Obviously I understand that you can be the new Newton but if you don't lift your ass from your chair, nothings gonna happen.

[Marthenil]

"lazy" is hard to say tbh, i never have any problems with my presentations or tests at school, yet i never do any of my homework
some of the girls in my class practices hours and hours before tests, makes 2-3 pages worth of notes, and still manage to get a grade or two worse than me.

I used to be like that at school, top of the class without ever touching homework. Until I hit major brick walls in Uni. In academics hard work is a lot more important than being intelligent, at least for my case (Engineering field).

[Raelbo]

Who has the upper hand in academics (and possibly later in life) in your eyes?

Is the the one who excels in pure thought power, or is it the working animal who studies and works on university related materials multiple hours a day but has trouble understanding new concepts fast?

I have found that the hard working fellows tend to have better exam grades on average, however they do weaker in those subjects where you have to think for yourself, come up with new ideas and express your thoughts.

As you get on in life, skill becomes determined far more by effort and work put in than raw talent. People who rest on their laurels because they are more gifted end up doing a lot worse.

In the hierarchy of things:

Hard working gifted people >> Hard working regular people >> lazy gifted people.

[StayTuned]

I used to be like that at school, top of the class without ever touching homework. Until I hit major brick walls in Uni. In academics hard work is a lot more important than being intelligent, at least for my case (Engineering field).

I am majoring in Int. Management. I think I'm going to be in quite some trouble for my GPJ because of all the blunt writing work I'm going to be forced to do next year. That's the origin of my question actually. Throughout the years I've found that being smart and having good ideas is what really counts. I have greatly underestimated the amount of hard work you have to put into your ideas. Thanks to our wonderful groupwork system I actually never cared about that. Others did the work for me, just like accountants etc do the work assigned to them by their managers.

Now that I'm about to do all of that by myself... man, I've gotta change myself a bit here ^^

[Melt]

OP, are you just looking for excuses to justify being lazy or not doing anything? I'm not judging, but let's just put it this way:

Nobody cares about what you CAN do, only what you DO do.

Prodigies are made up myths from the media. There is no such thing as acquisition of knowledge without study, especially not since most of the knowledge is made up by humans. People that excelled in certain areas did so because they were obsessed with it, not because they got anything handed to them.

[Duronos]

Gifted but lazy? No no that's what they tell them to make them feel better, I was one of them and I hated being told I was gifted, I'm not gifted if I don't use shit. Now I've sort of got my life back on track but there is no such thing as a gifted but lazy, they tell nearly every child that in high school.

[StayTuned]

OP, are you just looking for excuses to justify being lazy or not doing anything? I'm not judging, but let's just put it this way:

Nobody cares about what you CAN do, only what you DO do.

Prodigies are made up myths from the media. There is no such thing as acquisition of knowledge without study, especially not since most of the knowledge is made up by humans. People that excelled in certain areas did so because they were obsessed with it, not because they got anything handed to them.

Pls, I never look for any excuses. If I am looking for something, than maybe reasons for why things are the way they are. But right now, I'm just interested in what others think. You also seem to imply that I think of myself as gifted or something. Hell nah, I'm far away from that. I just have a good imagination and I like to think outside of the box, which I found out many people don't do at my university at least.



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You see, the funny thing with obsession is that we know very little about it. What made this guy understand the concepts of mathematics and music at such an early age?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaakFH8JIYU

Once you are gifted, your life can develop twofold. Either you have somebody recognize your talents and push you, or you don't and you get bored till you waste most of your academic life with nonsense.

[Pitkanen]

Gifted in the sciences.
Hard workers in the fluffy memorization fests.
Arts are unclear.
Gifted in most else.

Though I will say that both effort and giftedness are sliding scales. There is a 3rd category that I would call intelligent responsibility. A cross between time management and recognizing where and how effort should be used. Its the difference between treating an old exam as a study guide vs a mock exam. As a study guide it's less comprehensive than your notes, as a mock exam it's a clear indication of the things you don't understand or an endpoint to efforts spent studying if you demolish it.

[Jackmoves]

Self discipline is needed to get through University. Helps if you are gifted and interested in the field you are studying.

Apart from that it comes down to guts(gotta risk some to win some) and problem solving.

There is a saying I like, "the value of your work is the total sum of all the problems you solve" and there is always a lot of problems. People, even driven, gifted people fail more often then not, success comes from dealing with failure and the problems imo. You need to have the guts to do things though, a lot of people never dare to take risks despite having ideas that could have been great.

[StayTuned]

Gifted in the sciences.
Hard workers in the fluffy memorization fests.
Arts are unclear.
Gifted in most else.

Though I will say that both effort and giftedness are sliding scales. There is a 3rd category that I would call intelligent responsibility. A cross between time management and recognizing where and how effort should be used. Its the difference between treating an old exam as a study guide vs a mock exam. As a study guide it's less comprehensive than your notes, as a mock exam it's a clear indication of the things you don't understand or an endpoint to efforts spent studying if you demolish it.

Intelligent responsibility. Sounds quite interesting... The smart guy has to recognize that, for the sake of his future, he better get his ass up and get shit done. Otherwise, can you really call a smart person smart if he ruins his own academic success because he just can't be bothered to write 100 pages long papers and watch the deadlines?

I wonder how this conflicts with the idea of the simply bored prodigy who needs more challenging tasks to keep him interested in the subject. How much self motivation do these people have innately?

[Perryn]

In my experience the hard worker has the better foundation. A gifted person with the right circumstances can do very well indeed but there is a certain tendency that if you don't have to work for something 'early on' you will often tend to develop bad habits and not put enough effort in when it matters. And by the time you actually pull yourself together it may well be a bit late to make a significant difference. Hard workers may not shine as much but will have less variance in performance and will be a safer call.

With the right leaders gifted people can be a veritable force of nature though, sadly gifted leaders aren't much more common than gifted people in general.