Child prodigies vs. late bloomers? Article in Science

I thought this was interesting and perhaps might warrant a discussion.

NYT gift link:

Link to article in Science (paywalled, but you can at least read the abstract and the above NYT article): https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adt7790

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On one hand I think that this is reassuring. You do not need to figure out what your path is early in life in order to be very successful.

On the other hand I think that this is consistent with what I have seen. There may be some exceptions particularly in athletic areas (tennis comes to mind). However, the people who I have known who have been particularly successful have often had multiple interests, and have tried a few things that did not work all that well before they tried whatever they did that worked out particularly well. Engineers or mathematicians who play musical instruments is one example that I seen and have mentioned before.

And sometimes there are overlaps between fields, in the sense that something that you learn in one area might be useful in some other area. Something in math might help you in sailing, or vice versa, or maybe a thought might combine some other fields.

But I do think that this varies from one person to the next.

Maybe the primary takeaway is that if you graduate high school, or even graduate university, and still do not know what you are going to do with your career, that is entirely okay. There is lots and lots of time to figure it out.