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Are there any dumb people at Columbia?
Saugus
3584 replies322 threads Senior Member
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Replies to: Are there any dumb people at Columbia?
That's not called "dumb," that's called "lazy."
Are there any lazy people? It seems like there would be those types of people everywhere, but I'm curious as to how they got in.
These people are everywhere. As a student at Duke, I notice that while 90% of my classmates are ridiculously intelligent, there are those that probably paid their way in, got recruited, etc. My friend at Stanford feels the same. My friend at Columbia said the same as well. The good thing about these good schools though is that while a few "less intelligent" people may walk the halls as well, most of the people you meet may make you feel that YOU'RE the dumb one, pushing you to higher limits.
That musn't happen very often though. And it is true that other factors like money can get you in. It happens at all schools. But ultimately if you want to stay in you have to work very, very hard, regardless of your intelligence level.
Sure, lots. Though I don't exactly agree with lvilleslacker. I find most students here are normal people who work hard. There aren't many truly brilliant intellectuals; most are intellectually insipid. It's funny in light of the Core Curriculum.
Everyone feels this way here. We all have a fair amount of contempt for our peers...don't believe that people don't think the same about you tho...
One probably falls into the "dumb" category if s/he sees 9 out of his 10 classmates as "ridiculously intelligent."
Lol if that's how you want to play, I'm glad I chose duke over columbia.
Complex answer: most people here are very intelligent. Some struggle in certain areas. Some are lopsided: brilliant in one thing, completely idiotic at others (note that this is not just academic disciplines but common sense, people skills, etc). If you're very proficient in a given area, you may see people fail laughably in that area. If you're a scientist, you will hear people make completely idiotic statements in Frontiers of Science. If you're a great writer, you will read some hilariously bad essays while peer reviewing for University Writing. If you've got a background in art history, you'll probably laugh at some stuff people say in Art Hum. I tend to have the background assumption that anyone I meet at Columbia will have a good deal of proficiency in some area, and no one has proven me wrong on that score yet (obviously). But I have met lots of people who are incompetent in one way or another, or who don't come off as "smart" at all (and I don't even mean that they come off as something else, like "artsy" or "jockish", I mean if I ran into them on the street, I would not guess that they were very bright individuals). So yeah, it's not like being surrounded by a horde of super geniuses. It's like being surrounded by a horde of people who are probably very good at one thing or another, but not everything.
On the other hand, they could just be dumb.
As this is my experience here at Pomona, and from my visits to Columbia, I think it could be applied to most selective colleges.
Some people are just faster at some things than others are.