International competition

ougnala
Tue, 11 Nov 2008 20:16:53 +0000

lol Unfortunately, International Competitions are nothing like real research.

Many people who are incredibly good at competing at the international level- fall short when actually having to design and carry out their own research in the lab.

Tenacity, creativity, and luck are incredibly hard things to test for.

Mind you, I’m not knocking international competitions. People who compete and do well are fantastically brilliant. But there are also many many bright people who can succeed and do well who have no competed in these international competitions. also, people who did well at these international competitions have no guarantee of doing well in college, though they do certainly have a leg up.

Ahh well. It all gets equalized at the end. The work is never ending- so pace yourselves.



I want to agree with you. I really do. But do you really think that international students like Tiger in that article could have any trouble what so ever conducting research or having a hard time blending science and persistence with creativity?

I’m not one of those people who did all those international crap. But as a math/science oriented individual, I know that these areas require a lot of problem solving. Yea Yea someone is going to come up to me and tell me that the USAMO is kind of like the SAT. You can do a lot of practice tests, in which case you would be able to know what’s coming. Had I done that, I would’ve had the potential to be up there with them. Still, if you look at someone who is simply born to be nerdy (like how that one guy could read up to 300 chinese characters by the age of three), you can’t deny that some people are just more brilliant.