Have you always been “Smart”

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Yes.



....




...No seriously, always.
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wildcat5206 said:
I believe there is a correlation between intelligence and being a pharmacist. You have to be smart to get through all that schooling in order to be a pharmacist. And just was wondering if you pharmacists and practitioners have always been smart in school. For instance, have you always been a good student in school? A’s and B’s and always active in your studies? Just wondering because I am a 3.0 student and thinking about pharmacy school.
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3.0 is low.


B's are crap too. B+ to A is the range of "above average" since "B" is exactly average. Of course, people with straight A's are just exceptional.
 
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Ben1988 said:
3.0 is low.


B's are crap too. B+ to A is the range of "above average" since "B" is exactly average. Of course, people with straight A's are just exceptional.
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Whatever...grades don't tell how intelligent a person is.
 
Ben1988 said:
3.0 is low.


B's are crap too. B+ to A is the range of "above average" since "B" is exactly average. Of course, people with straight A's are just exceptional.
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I thought C was average. Isn't a 3.0 a B? That's not too bad.
 
mike36 said:
Whatever...grades don't tell how intelligent a person is.
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...But tests (and grades) are the only means we have of gauging it. I agree that whether one is a good pharmacist or not doesn't depend on smarts alone, but being a pharmacist, or any kind of competent professional for that matter, requires at least some mental ability.
 
medicalcpa said:
...But tests (and grades) are the only means we have of gauging it. I agree that whether one is a good pharmacist or not doesn't depend on smarts alone, but being a pharmacist, or any kind of competent professional for that matter, requires at least some mental ability.
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True, but telling someone that their B's are crap is just wrong. I do agree that a 3.0 GPA is a little low for pharmacy acceptance, but having a 3.0 does not automatically mean you are unintelligent. It may depend on the school attended, course professor, personal adversity, family life, etc.
 
Yeah a 3.0-3.2 is kind of a "no man's land" in the scheme of GPA things. It's way too low for medical school admissions, and not exactly a competitive GPA for pharmacy either. A "so-so" rest of the application will most likely yield a rejection. It's a respectable GPA, but really can't get you in anywhere except maybe a post-bac program or a master's program en route to a doctorate/professional degree.

Then, it's too high to call someone a slacker who "barely graduated." That's the 2.0-2.49 range IMO.
 
mike36 said:
True, but telling someone that their B's are crap is just wrong. I do agree that a 3.0 GPA is a little low for pharmacy acceptance, but having a 3.0 does not automatically mean you are unintelligent. It may depend on the school attended, course professor, personal adversity, family life, etc.
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Wow that's a lot of excuses.


I didn't say "their B's" are crap. I said ALL B's are crap.

And this thread is about "smart" people. I doubt anyone would consider B's smart. A's yes, B's, no.
 
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I always thought I was smart until I had teenagers and was informed otherwise.
 
wildcat5206 said:
I believe there is a correlation between intelligence and being a pharmacist. You have to be smart to get through all that schooling in order to be a pharmacist. And just was wondering if you pharmacists and practitioners have always been smart in school. For instance, have you always been a good student in school? A's and B's and always active in your studies? Just wondering because I am a 3.0 student and thinking about pharmacy school.
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For me it's been hardwork. People see my grades and say I'm smart and intelligent. But really it's been a lot of work. I remember taking my first test in college, it was college algebra, teacher handed out the test sheets and I froze. I thought, God this is it. This is the end of my college career, I'm never going to make it, and I'll have to drop out and work some trade job for the rest of my life. I ended up doing well in all my coursework. I've found out that stress is paralyzing, you just have to let it go, it's not just an intangible thought, but a real feeling that will make you underperform. If you're having thoughts of inferiority, let them go. Do breathing exercises. Yoga. Prayer. Whatever works for you. There are plenty of pharmacists and doctors who have gotten into grad schools that are just not that smart or intelligent. Sheer motivation and hard work will get you anywhere in life.

Here are some tips that I used to get better grades:

In chemistry I put almost every problem on flashcards for each chapter and did it over and over and over. Repetition and repetition and repetition.

For biology I went online and did every single practice test/question I could find. This was really helpful, especially in lower level bio's where there is a limited number of questions for the teacher to draw from. I installed the programs on the cd that came with the book and did regurgitated practice problems over and over.

For Calculus I kept on all the homework, sometimes putting in 5 hours every night a week, (we had a difficult teacher) and made sure I could solve anything under time constraints.


You get the drift. I've always felt inferior too, and not as smart as everyone else, and that I would never make it. It's just a thought that is common to many undergrads so please don't let it bring you down. Besides what's going on in our heads most of the times has no resemblance to reality. How do you define intelligence? The cognitive ability to realize how much effort a subject requires for mastery, or the least required minimal effort in exchange for the highest letter mark score on paper. Is there a difference in the end?


I don't know your situation, maybe you could still bring up your GPA up with your remaining sciences. Or do post education, or do really well on the PCAT and get some pharmacy exposure.

I'm three years into my bachelors and I look back on my scores (3.8) and realize that a small part of it was intelligence, and the bigger larger part was the motivation behind the effort, the many sleepless nights and tedious hours of studying.



There are multitudes of intelligent students, but hard work, motivation and a sense of humanity and compassion are rare and will win out in the end.


Good luck in the future

Genius ain't anything more than elegant common sense.
Josh Billings

Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently.
Moshe Arens
 
Hmmm.

I "learned" common sense in pharmacy school.

Intelligence, in and of itself, is nothing unless you can apply it correctly.

I've made more saves than errors and haven't killed anyone yet, so I guess I'm doing ok...
 
Ben1988 said:
Excuses dumb people make.
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And this is coming from someone who admits to being "too stupid to be admitted to a Canadian school." It takes one to know one.

You will hear this mentioned on these boards a lot, whether you want to believe it or not: Grades aren't everything. I currently have a 4.0, and yet I have met people with less than perfect GPA's whose brainpower I could never hope to match. A lot of the most insightful posts on these forums come from people with 3.x GPA's. And if you read these forums regularly, you will notice that people with 4.0 GPA's and >90 PCAT get rejected as well, even in the United States which you seem to think that it is easier to get into.

While I don't know what your GPA is, if you are this hung up on grades with a PCAT of 93, what should we do who have PCAT's of 98? What of those with PCAT's of 99? Humility is your friend... :rolleyes:
 
This is an interesting thread. I personally remember, back in the 7th grade when I use to cry for just making a single B in the class. I went to a competitive Middle school (catholic) where so-called "smart" kids Academy are generally choosen from every elementary school in the nation (foreign). My first day of class, I remembered when our teacher told us that "In a country of Blinds, one-eye man is the king", translation, if you were the smartest student in your previous school, you might be the dumbest person out of this "special" group of students.
It was an amazing academic journey, I still believed in my heart that intelligence without application is meaningless. I despise people telling me that I am smart, because I firmly believed that, we all have the ability to be smart.
 
Don't confuse innate "smartness" with effort. No one is born knowing the MAP kinase pathway. They have to put in the time to learn it. Put in the time and you can learn it too.
 
janjanbureh said:
This is an interesting thread. I personally remember, back in the 7th grade when I use to cry for just making a single B in the class. I went to a competitive Middle school (catholic) where so-called "smart" kids Academy are generally choosen from every elementary school in the nation (foreign). My first day of class, I remembered when our teacher told us that "In a country of Blinds, one-eye man is the king", translation, if you were the smartest student in your previous school, you might be the dumbest person out of this "special" group of students.
It was an amazing academic journey, I still believed in my heart that intelligence without application is meaningless. I despise people telling me that I am smart, because I firmly believed that, we all have the ability to be smart.
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I realize that this is your opinion, but I do not agree with you. If by "smart" you mean performance on tests and grades in class, then yes, everyone has the ability to be smart if they work hard enough. But if you mean innate mental ability, then the bolded sentence is simply not true. Un-PC as it sounds, everyone is not equal when it comes to brainpower. But the good thing is, when it comes to success in any given field, genius is not mandatory. I read in a book on intelligence (and I can't remember the title) that in many fields, those who achieved the most were not the ones who were regarded as geniuses. On the contrary, they were the ones who worked hard and long. This finding should probably be taken with a large grain of salt, but I would like to believe that it is true.
 
J Dub, I used to see you in the pre-medical forums. Did you ever get into med school?
 
medicalcpa said:
I realize that this is your opinion, but I do not agree with you. If by "smart" you mean performance on tests and grades in class, then yes, everyone has the ability to be smart if they work hard enough. But if you mean innate mental ability, then the bolded sentence is simply not true. Un-PC as it sounds, everyone is not equal when it comes to brainpower. But the good thing is, when it comes to success in any given field, genius is not mandatory. I read in a book on intelligence (and I can't remember the title) that in many fields, those who achieved the most were not the ones who were regarded as geniuses. On the contrary, they were the ones who worked hard and long. This finding should probably be taken with a large grain of salt, but I would like to believe that it is true.
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:thumbup::thumbup:
 
A pre-med guy in one of my classes said he had always heard that 1/3rd of medical doctors are the smartest, 1/3rd are the best doctors, and 1/3rd make the most money, and there is no carry over.

I don't really consider myself smart. I have a decent GPA and a decent PCAT score, but when my admission was being decided I doubt i was a "shoe-in" but for some reason I got in. Lets say a butterfly flapped its wings in China and they decided to not let me in. I would be someone who didn't get into pharmacy school, people might think I was less smart than the people who got it on their first try. When in reality, intelligence is completely subjective. I have probably the least common sense of any other tech at my pharmacy. I am great at calculus but I can't seem to understand how someones bottle says 1 refill, I fill it, and now they are out of refills? Am I supposed to pat myself on the back and think, "I am going to make more money than my coworkers because I'm so darn smart".

The medical community has this problem of thinking they are the smartest people in society. I have friends who know every line to every family guy episode, verbatim. That has to take a ton more brain power than converting parts per million to mg/deciliters or memorizing glycolysis. So really, I'm probably the ******* because I can't remember lois's last name for the life of me.
 
medicalcpa said:
Wasn't she called Easy Lois before she met Peter? Easy could be her last name.

There. I'm dumb.
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I doubt not knowing Family Guy is indictative of one's intelligence.

Her name before she married Peter was "Pewterschmidt".

I need to quit watching the show. It is sad I know that.
 
J DUB said:
I doubt not knowing Family Guy is indictative of one's intelligence.

Her name before she married Peter was "Pewterschmidt".

I need to quit watch the show. It is sad I know that.
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My last post was missing the following:

/sarcasm.

And yes, you need to quit watching the show. :smuggrin:
 
Ben1988 said:
Wow that's a lot of excuses.


I didn't say "their B's" are crap. I said ALL B's are crap.

And this thread is about "smart" people. I doubt anyone would consider B's smart. A's yes, B's, no.
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See, I beg to differ. My GPA is only ~ 3.3. I'm in my 2nd semester of my 3rd year. I scored a 97% cumulative on the PCAT without studying. (My boyfriend scored a 99%, he's just that good.)

Weeks that we don't have tests I spend ZERO hours that week on study material outside of class. Weeks that we do have tests I rarely study more than 6 hours the day before. I have a therapeutics test in 14 hours. What am I doing? Dicking around on SDN and watching Family Guy. And I regularly (I would guess >80% of the time) score above the median and the mean grades for the class.

I feel sorry for these people who spend 10s, 20s of hours every week studying. I work 20+ hrs/wk, I take my dogs to the dog park, I hang out with my boyfriend. I'm not upset about my B's. I'm 24, I'm don't care to waste my early 20s holed up in the library stressing out over every single detail in a lecture packet.

Now if I were busting my *** for that 3.3 it would be a whole 'nother ball game. But I'm not. Yet some people in pharmacy school are trying their hardest and their grades aren't as good as mine. I feel sorry for those people. It must really suck to work hard and still not excel.

I know this probably reads as very abrasive, but I think grades are just one tool to measure someone's intelligence.
 
Actually, grades don't really measure intelligence at all. The grading system was designed specifically to measure an individuals competence in a selected area. Essentially it is simply a feedback tool to help not only the individual, but also the instructors to evaluate their own performance in certain areas.
 
JerryPharmD said:
I've only been intelligent since they shoved the crayon up my nostril.
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I thought it was UNTIL Homer shoved a crayon up his nose he was smart ... or maybe I'm an idiot for knowing that.
 
hmmm I can think of a few people on this forum..**cough Ben** that I would love to shove a crayon up their nose just one good time..... :idea:
 
BADD281 said:
hmmm I can think of a few people on this forum..**cough Ben** that I would love to shove a crayon up their nose just one good time..... :idea:
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I agree he may make you annoyed, but be nice...
 
To answer the original question..

I dont think there is such a thing as "smart" as humans we all have the same capacity to learn/understand things (except for those with medical conditions)

Its just a matter of determination and interest. Some people will excel in some topics and other people will excel in others, thats just the way of life.
 
unit18 said:
as humans we all have the same capacity to learn/understand things (except for those with medical conditions)

Its just a matter of determination and interest. Some people will excel in some topics and other people will excel in others, thats just the way of life.
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I think you're wrong. All humans have the capacity to learn about things, but not everyone will actually understand what they've learned.

No matter how hard I try, I will never get certain things.

I don't understand how computers work. I don't get the link between 0s and 1s and what appears on my screen. Sure... I can learn about it, but I don't have the capacity to understand it in terms of "visualizing" it in my brain. It just doesn't click for some reason... I can't connect those dots.

I'm pretty weak with engineering stuff too. It's hard for me to imagine something that will be built without a model, picture, or something else that I can relate to it.

I think these quirks are funny, because I spend so much of my time thinking about other abstract things.
 
wildcat5206 said:
I believe there is a correlation between intelligence and being a pharmacist. You have to be smart to get through all that schooling in order to be a pharmacist. And just was wondering if you pharmacists and practitioners have always been smart in school. For instance, have you always been a good student in school? A’s and B’s and always active in your studies? Just wondering because I am a 3.0 student and thinking about pharmacy school.
Click to expand...

Pharmacy School is certainly harder than the so-called liberal arts, but it's not nearly difficult that some like to point out.
 
wildcat5206 said:
I believe there is a correlation between intelligence and being a pharmacist. You have to be smart to get through all that schooling in order to be a pharmacist. And just was wondering if you pharmacists and practitioners have always been smart in school. For instance, have you always been a good student in school? A’s and B’s and always active in your studies? Just wondering because I am a 3.0 student and thinking about pharmacy school.
Click to expand...


I personally believe it is all about applying one's self. I sucked it up in high school. I mean really sucked.

I FAILED chemistry because I just knew I would never use the stuff!

I was just accepted to school after 3 years of undergrad with a 3.76 GPA for pharmacy prerequisites. Once I had decided what I wanted to do I started in remedial math and worked up to this.
 
unit18 said:
To answer the original question..

I dont think there is such a thing as "smart" as humans we all have the same capacity to learn/understand things (except for those with medical conditions)
Click to expand...

Dude, I don't know if you just gave a quick reply without thinking about it too much [ironic in this thread] or what, but you should re-read what you've written.

Capacity is irrelevant; no two humans are equal in their ability to learn all subjects, equally. There are huge variances from English to Math to Biology to Music to Physics.

You can apply yourself as hard as you want, your ability and even capacity will never equal Mozart's - hell probably even anyone in Berklee.
 
sorry to offend some of you guys,

but I haven't met one "smart" person in pharmacy school yet. I've met people who work really hard, and some people who study efficiently, but none that I would consider "smart." Before coming to pharmacy school, I thought I was going to struggle, but I just came to find out that all it requires is hard work, persistence and time. Sadly, the only smart people I know are either majoring in non-health studies or those that don't go to school. It's partially true when they say the real smart people in our generation are the people who use the left side of their brains.
 
njac said:
See, I beg to differ. My GPA is only ~ 3.3. I'm in my 2nd semester of my 3rd year. I scored a 97% cumulative on the PCAT without studying. (My boyfriend scored a 99%, he's just that good.)

Weeks that we don't have tests I spend ZERO hours that week on study material outside of class. Weeks that we do have tests I rarely study more than 6 hours the day before. I have a therapeutics test in 14 hours. What am I doing? Dicking around on SDN and watching Family Guy. And I regularly (I would guess >80% of the time) score above the median and the mean grades for the class.

I feel sorry for these people who spend 10s, 20s of hours every week studying. I work 20+ hrs/wk, I take my dogs to the dog park, I hang out with my boyfriend. I'm not upset about my B's. I'm 24, I'm don't care to waste my early 20s holed up in the library stressing out over every single detail in a lecture packet.

Now if I were busting my *** for that 3.3 it would be a whole 'nother ball game. But I'm not. Yet some people in pharmacy school are trying their hardest and their grades aren't as good as mine. I feel sorry for those people. It must really suck to work hard and still not excel.

I know this probably reads as very abrasive, but I think grades are just one tool to measure someone's intelligence.
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I have had alot of classes with people who brag about how incredibly smart they are despite their GPA. They sound alot like you, "I could make a 4.0 if I studied but I never study, I'm so great at everything". Generally most people have what GPA they're capable of, if you have a 3.3 that is probably what you are capable of. Guess what, being pretentious doesn't make you smart. Actually accomplishing things makes you smart, I know, its a crazy concept.
 
corbomite said:
I have had alot of classes with people who brag about how incredibly smart they are despite their GPA. They sound alot like you, "I could make a 4.0 if I studied but I never study, I'm so great at everything". Generally most people have what GPA they're capable of, if you have a 3.3 that is probably what you are capable of. Guess what, being pretentious doesn't make you smart. Actually accomplishing things makes you smart, I know, its a crazy concept.
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I'm the first to admit that it's a bit of a self protective mechanism. Like I said, I can't imagine how much it would suck to study study all the time and have marginal grades. So I'm the first to admit that part of my avoidance is a fear of failure. I'm just lucky enough that even with minimal or no effort I don't fail.
 
Ben1988 said:
Excuses dumb people make.
Click to expand...

Which is why all poor people are lazy.

sorry to offend some of you guys,

but I haven't met one "smart" person in pharmacy school yet. I've met people who work really hard, and some people who study efficiently, but none that I would consider "smart." Before coming to pharmacy school, I thought I was going to struggle, but I just came to find out that all it requires is hard work, persistence and time. Sadly, the only smart people I know are either majoring in non-health studies or those that don't go to school. It's partially true when they say the real smart people in our generation are the people who use the left side of their brains.
Click to expand...
:( Really? I actually find that many of my classmates are absolutely brilliant despite not coming from the Harvards of the world. That was quite an interesting realization.
 
*ramble alert*
I make B's in pharmacy school, I make A's and C's too. I'm generally intelligent, I can problem solve, think on my feet, and learn a lot of material in a short amount of time.
I won't say that if I studied more I would make all A's, although I'm sure my grades would improve a little. My problem is, and I would say this is because I'm "smart', I don't have any idea how to effectively study. In highschool I could glance over material and make an A on the test. I might have studied an hour or two a week in HS and I finished with a 4.1 out of a 4 point scale (AP classes ya know).
In undergrad I made about the same grades I'm making in pharmacy school, probably somewhere around a 3.3-3.4, but the problem is, I never study before the night before the test. Part of it is pure laziness, and part is that I don't really know how to "study". Should I read the material? Should I rewrite it? Should I just memorize as much as possible? I have a classmate with a 94 average through almost 2 full years now, and he just rewrites it all and studies that a couple times. I've tried that and nearly failed the test.

Being "smart" was quite a hinderance once I got to college because I never learned how to properly study. Another problem is motivation. I really don't give a crap if I make an A or a B. I like making A's, it's rewarding to do so, but it certainly doesn't motivate me.

in closing, I don't know what I just wrote or what it means, but "smart" is subjective. Because you can be "smart" in a variety of different ways or in different disciplines. All of this, you're stupid if you make B's, talk is inane for a number of reasons, but I think the most important is difficulty of material. every school has different profs, different course loads and work, so saying "my making A's makes me smarter than you who makes B's" is like comparing apples to oranges. Get over yourselves, the day you graduate no one gives a crap what you made in school anyway. Make sure you're a good health care professional (regardless of title), just because you made an A in a class doesn't mean you will automatically be a better pharmacist/physician/nurse etc.
 
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