Stop Thinking You’re Stupid

In the words of my Linear Algebra professor at Columbia University, “intelligence is not inherent-- it’s something you engineer for yourself.” In essence, intelligence being thought of as an innate characteristic writes a myth that successfully scares people away from undertaking seemingly difficult academic and professional pursuits.

In high school, I evaded the responsibility to work hard by continuously reminding myself that if I had enough innate intelligence, then I wouldn’t need to work hard. In the culture of that environment, working hard was embarrassing. Students, rather than boasting about how much they had to do, told stories to outdo each other with how little they needed to study.

I heard all sorts of these stories, from the classic “I got a 1500 on my first SAT, but I’m probably going to take it again because I didn’t study at all” to the common “I never do my homework until thirty minutes before the deadline,” so when I started getting poor grades in high school, I assumed that it was just because I was not intelligent. Only later did I realize that intelligence was, like my math professor had said, engineered.

The students who got a first-try 1500 on the SAT may have not actively studied a lot for the test, but they oftentimes worked hard on their classes enough to hone the relevant reading and mathematics skills. They were usually avid readers or clients of math tutoring. Many didstudy, but did it behind the scenes and felt the need to lie in order to prove their “innate intelligence.”

The students who seemed to be able to do things last minute had often already developed time management skills from participating in multiple activities, which involved drive and grit more so than what I had thought of as “innate intelligence.”

I realized this during a Mathematics test in high school. The students at my table and I would play Hangman in class, and I always thought that if I was a smart kid, I would be able to get away with ignoring the lectures but using common sense and prior knowledge to excel in the exams. The difference between me and my tablemates was that even though I only saw them play Hangman with me, I heard their peers attest to how hard they worked at home and behind the scenes. Meanwhile, I felt entitled to getting decent scores with just my “brain.”

The culture of my school led me to believe that nobody was actually working hard, and each person’s achievement was a direct result of their own level of innate intelligence, but in these moments I came to realize that people who did well did have to work hard, even if they didn’t show it.

Of course, it was and is still true that some people can learn faster than others can. Some people can pick up new concepts faster than others. That too, though, is a product of hard work. Past hard work can lead to present intelligence.

AP Psychology in high school also taught me about Howard Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences, which was comprised of eight different kinds of intelligence. The momentI learned about this theory, I realized that absolutely everyone I knew or had ever come into contact with had at least one of those eight types of intelligence. Basically, no one was or is just “stupid,” and all eight types of intelligence could be built with hard work.

Through this conglomeration of experiences in my life, I learned how much of a hoax the idea of “innate intelligence” is. Everybody has innate intelligence, and nobody has enough to get by without hard work or drive.

Intelligence is a tower, and some people’s towers may appear taller. In those moments, it’s important to remember that everybody has access to the bricks of hard work.