I moved into one of the dorms at MIT thinking I was hot shit. I had, after all, just gotten into MIT. And beyond that, I had tested out of the freshman calculus and physics classes, meaning that I was able to start math “a year” ahead in differential equations and start with the advanced version of the physics 2 class we have. Registration went by easy enough and I was pleased with my decisions.
Term rolled in and I was getting crushed. I wasn’t the greatest student in high school, and whenever I got poor grades I would explain them away by saying I just didn’t care or I was too busy or too unmotivated or (more often than not) just cared about something else. It didn’t help that I had good test performance which fed my ego and let me think I was smarter than everyone else, just relatively unmotivated. I had grossly underestimated MIT, and was left feeling so dumb.
I had the fortune of living next to a bright guy, R. R. was an advanced student, to say the least. He was a sophomore, but was already taking the most advanced graduate math classes. He came into MIT and tested out of calculus, multivariable calculus, differential equations, linear algebra, real analysis (notoriously the most difficult math class at MIT), and a slew of other math courses. And to top it all off, he was attractive, engaging, sociable, and generally had no faults that would make him mortal.
I suffered through half a semester of differential equations before my pride let me go to R. for help. And sure enough, he took my textbook for a night to review the material (he couldn’t remember it all from third grade), and then he walked me through my difficulties and coached me. I ended up pulling a B+ at the end of a semester and avoiding that train wreck. The thing is, nothing he taught me involved raw brainpower. The more I learned the more I realized that the bulk of his intelligence and his performance just came from study and practice, and that the had amassed a large artillery of intellectual and mathematical tools that he had learned and trained to call upon. He showed me some of those tools, but what I really ended up learning was how to go about finding, building, and refining my own set of cognitive tools. I admired R., and I looked up to him, and while I doubt I will ever compete with his genius, I recognize that it’s because of a relative lack of my conviction and an excess of his, not some accident of genetics.
Inri137 comments on I’m not as smart as I thought I was.
自分は賢くないと嘆いてredditへ投稿した人へのMIT卒業生からのムチャクチャ素晴らしいアドバイス。
この回答者は、MITに入学できるくらいだから高校時代からベストではないが成績もよく、それなりに「賢さ」に自信があったそう。高校時代にたまたま成績がよくなくても、それはヤル気にならなかったとかいってごまかしていたそうだ。
しかし、MITに入学して一年目で微分方程式が理解できなくて躓き、自分はバカであると惨めになったそうだ。それでもこの回答者の幸運は寮の隣室にR. R.という2年生の学生がいたことだったそうだ。R. R.は数学がとても良くできて、2年なのに実解析（アメリカだとアドバンスな4年、ただ日本だと数学科の3年レベルか、物理学科の4年レベルだけれど…）をとるくらいのレベルで、そのR. R.に数学のコーチをしてもらったそうだ。
そのときにR. R.のコーチによって数学を学習することでこの回答者が気づいたことは、R. R.の「賢さ」や成績の良さは地頭や遺伝によるものではないということだったそうだ。R. R.ができるのは、膨大な数学概念を道具として「装備」し、常に利用可能にするように時間をかけ勉強していることにほかならず、それを日頃から意識して実践していることによるものだと気づいたそうだ。
できる人を「賢い」というのは簡単なことだけれど、それは単に自分が怠けることを許しているに過ぎないとも思ったそうだ。更にはもっとも学ぶべき「道具」とは、（少しメタな観点だが）自分一人で物事を学ぶということで、その道具が「タネ」になってR. R.のようなできる人間にだんだんとなっていくとのこと。
まさに！特に以下の表現は個人的に心に響いたよ。
“the (bulk of his intelligence and his performance) had amassed a large artillery of intellectual and mathematical tools that he had learned and trained to call upon.”
(via kashino)
(via kashino)
