Should a person with a low IQ even bother going to college?

But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid

Mudskippers can climb trees.

edited 29th Aug '12 3:46:52 AM by joeyjojo

Why do most online tests that I have seen deal with lists of numbers? Arithmetic isn't my best skill.

Psst, you forgot to pothole Comically Missing the Point.

Well they can.

I'll give you that.

Okay, let's get this out of the way first: An IQ of 87 does not mean you're retarded. You are within one standard deviation of the average, just like most people.

Second, do you remember the test you took and the procedure? The most accepted tests - the WAIS and the Stanford-Binet - aren't your simple "complete this standardized test and the computer will have your results in the morning" deals, especially since more than a few of the subtests tests require verbal communication or physical manipulation. You have to meet with a psychologist to administer the test. Also, you're not just going to get a g score and nothing else, since IQ tests are often used to find certain disorders or learning differences, which requires comparing a subject against themselves rather than the population at large. (For example, a discrepancy between verbal comprehension and digit-span suggests the possibility of ADHD.) Basically, if you didn't spend a lot of money on it ($1000+ without insurance, ~$100 with), have it issued by a trained psychologist, and then later meet with that psychologist to have the results explained to you, you may have not taken one of the tests actually considered to be reliable and valid.

Third, even the tests considered reliable and valid don't necessarily measure innate intelligence accurately - socioeconomic factors, language differences between tester and subject, whether you were having a shit day that day - can all affect your results. The inside joke is that, "Intelligence is defined as what an intelligence test measures." They can measure how well your short-term memory works, how good you are at math, and whether you're good at following directions, but they can't exactly measure how smart you are - in part because nobody is exactly sure what that means, not even smart people.

Fourth, a low IQ doesn't mean you're never going to graduate college, or that you're never going to get a decent job. Personal success tends to be determined less by IQ and more by social capitol (look it up). Bill Gates may have been smart as hell, but the thing that actually made him successful was that he made the connections that he needed.

And lastly - should you bother going to college? Sure. However, you might want to try something other than computer engineering. If it's making you miserable now, it's only going to make you more miserable in the future. Instead, it might be a good idea to find a major that sticks to your strengths and then look for ways to sell that skill set to future employers. You'd be surprised at which majors you can apply to which jobs. You want to know a good place for a psychology major, for example? Advertising. You would not believe the amount of psychological research done to answer the question of, "How do we get people to buy our shit?"

Starting to entertain the thought of working at gamestop, getting an extremeley cheap apartment and playing video games for the rest of my life. I like video games. I think I'll be okay.

Thoughts?

-______- Don't ask for advice and then completely ignore it to continue to mope. You're acting like a twit. Read what we've said, tell us why it's wrong, and then set about throwing away your future security.

That life is difficult to achieve, despite what you might think, and it will ultimately leave you feeling unfulfilled.

Look, you failed one programming class, its not the end of the world and it does not mean you can't succeed in life or in programming. You are not the first College Freshman to fail a class, especially one as difficult as programming. My advice to you is this: If you are still interested I would take the programming class again, I guarantee you'll do better now that you know what o expect. If you're not interested then find a career path that interests you, there are plenty of exciting, high paying jobs out there that don't require programming.

I understand your state of mind right now, I was in a similar position back in Middle School. But trust me when I say that continuing down this path, looking for any excuse to give up on life, will only lead to misery.

edited 29th Aug '12 5:36:03 PM by JudeDismas

• sigh* you guys are right. That was a stupid thing to think. It only entered my mind because of how much I like video games.

I'll look for something I can do instead of programming.

As for my talents, I've done well in my high school math classes...which was why I thought I could take on computer engineering.

edited 29th Aug '12 6:06:07 PM by TetrisBlocks

^_^; Aww, shit, man, now I've got Code Monkey stuck in my head.

Coulton! :D

If you did math well in High School then you're not stupid, no matter what that IQ test said.

Besides, don't IQ tests just measure how fast you are at solving math problems?

And programming IS pretty hard. And kind of boring, which makes comprehending and learning it harder.

edited 29th Aug '12 10:50:10 PM by SpookyMask

Programming and math are actually pretty similar, I think. As a matter of fact, I used to be quite poor in math as a kid, until I started messing around with programming in my free time, sometime in middle school: and after that, my math grades improved drastically.

Do you have any idea of what went wrong with that programming course? Were there some specific concepts you had trouble grasping, or was a matter of procrastination (always a serious issue for students, and don't I know it ) or something else?

One online textbook on the basics of programming that I happened to notice, and that perhaps might be of some help if you want to give it another try, is Learn Python the Hard Way. Despite the title, it's actually a very simple, "hands-on" approach — if you read the text and do all of the exercises (and you should do them: reading a textbook of programming or math and not doing the exercises is little more than a waste of time), you should be able to get some basic foundations of programming (and, of course, you can ask here in the forums if you get stuck — if I am not mistaken, there are a few CS students and professional programmers around here.)

If you like math, perhaps you might consider getting into statistics? It's just a random idea, but good statisticians are in pretty high demand and tend to be quite well-paid if they go in the private sector. You'd have to take some programming anyway, but it wouldn't be as central a topic as in the case of computer engineering.

Or perhaps, does math education tickle your fancy? Good math teachers are hard to come by — the pay is, well, not exceptional, and it is hard work, but perhaps it might suit you. It is certainly important work.

edited 29th Aug '12 11:47:21 PM by Carciofus

My mother works for a college program for young adults with intellectual disabilities. In short, what most people recognize as "retarded." ANYONE can get something out of the college experience. Find a major you love and are good at. If you're not good at what you love, join a study group, hire a tutor, and bury your ass in books. Ask the professor for any extra help and notes they can give you. Don't give up. Even if you don't walk out with a degree, you'll walk out with a shit ton of life experience.

As someone who scores quite high on IQ tests, trust everyone else when they say they don't measure what they claim to measure.

The thing IQ measures is not quite a generalized "intelligence", it is more like test-taking ability. As far as I can tell there is no such thing as generalized intelligence. I personally am REALLY good at IQ tests, and at other kinds of standardized aptitude tests, but I'm absolute *shit* at chess and I've never been great at logic puzzles. Oh, and I'm a reasonably good programmer but if you don't think that's a coincidence by now you haven't been listening.

Don't be a math teacher. For the love of god and mercy, do not inflict your superior understanding of arithmetic on humanities-affinity children. We need more math teachers who used to be bad at math but are good now; natural number people are fucking useless at explaining things.

This is an overgeneralization, I think. True, talent at doing math does not always translate into talent at teaching math; but the same can be said about literature, or arts, or pretty much any other subject.

And on the other hand, some passion for a subject (and, yes, some "superior understanding" of the subject, to a degree) is necessary in order to teach it properly.

I am not saying that the OP should become a math teacher — that's obviously up to him, and obviously no one of us — OP included — has enough information at this point to tell if he would be a good math teacher; but if he liked math in High School and is looking for a possible career path, I don't see why he should not consider this possibility.

edited 30th Aug '12 8:32:15 AM by Carciofus

Agree with Furiko. Genii in general are shit teachers. If you're naturally amazing at something, that means you never had to learn it.

Aherm. Back on topic. IQ tests are rather specific things, and generally have more to do with your ability to take tests more than anything. Yes, if you have a low IQ, you will have issues with academia. However, that isn't to say you won't do fine once you graduate. The workforce is not like college; your pay is not determined by tests.

edited 30th Aug '12 8:41:39 AM by Exelixi

Gotta agree with Furiko and Exelixi. I've had naturally talented teachers before, and they're absolute rubbish at explaining things.

It tends to go something like:

Student: -Raises hand-

Teacher: Yes?

Student: Could you explain (X aspect of the lecture)?

Teacher: Yeah, sure. (Explains)

Student: I still don't get it. Why does X happen like that?

Teacher: It just does. Haven't you been paying any attention?

Pretty much, yeah. It's like they're able to make the mental jump from A to C without being able to explain B to those who can't.

I had a math teacher who was like that, and he got so fed up with the classes inability to understand that he compared us to a bunch of cows standing on the tracks looking at the oncoming train.

edited 30th Aug '12 9:00:25 AM by DrunkGirlfriend

I only really figured it out when I started trying to explain grammar and basic essay construction to classmates who were having trouble with them in high school, only for them to repeatedly not get it no matter how many different ways I tried to explain. After getting frustrated for a while, it suddenly dawned on me: "... this is how every math teacher I've ever had has felt all the time."

I know this is really off-topic but, I was considering becoming a History Professor and a lot of the things involved with that seem to come easily to me.

Should I reconsider?