Diary of a College Senior

Nov 6 - Book Smart or Life Smart

Monday, November 6, 2017

I am so tired. It is now almost 12 am and I have been busy all day. First with skating in the morning to chilling at lunch with Stella. Then, attending class and going to the eighth-floor study area with Addie. I finished the day by going for a short run at the gym, which I haven't done in more than a week so it felt really good.

The highlight of today was probably spending the entire afternoon with Addie, which I haven't done in a long time. We gossiped, did homework, ate food, and made plans to go out with other people from our graduating class next Friday.

Addie also talked about how the majority of people around her seems to be like robots who are always getting high marks on exams without really studying much.

"It's not fair." She said. "People like you and me spend hours trying to figure out how to do an assignment, whereas those people can solve it one hour."

I completely understand where she is coming from. Blair happens to be one of those people and just last week, when I spend five hours struggling on an assignment, I watched in awe as she completed the entire thing in just two hours.

It's hard to compete with those people and grad school is probably full of them. I told Addie that I have come to the conclusion I am probably too 'stupid' for grad school.

"Why waste time pursuing something I am obviously not good at nor interested, when I can spend more time playing my strength?" I told Addie.

She and I also decided there are two types of people in fourth year engineering. We call them the book smart people and the life smart people.

The book smart people can understand new materials the first time they come across it. Whereas the life smart people are good at fostering relationships with the book smart people so they can ask them for help.

The book smart people are generally socially awkward, as they only rely on themselves and do not need to interact much with others. The life smart people are good at making connections as they cannot rely on themselves to survive the class work.

As for everyone else who isn't book smart or life smart, they either flunked out or dropped out in the first two years. (University is a hostile environment after all).

Addie and I both fall under the life smart type since we tend to struggle so much on just about everything. Addie asked me which type I thought is better, and I answered I honestly do not know.

But regardless, I decided I don't mind being life smart, as it's allowed me to meet so many new people and make connections which I definitely would not have had had I stuck to the books. It's also given me the courage to try new things, which I think a lot of book smart people do not have as they would rather 'play by the book'. Pun intended. :P