I am also still working to overcome the consequences of my parents, other adults, and peers constantly telling me (up through high school) that I was so very smart. The effect is compounded when one grows up in a small American town in the south. It was not at all unusual for a high school peer to believe that because I skipped a grade in junior high school and was graduating high school a year early, that I was somehow on the path to curing cancer or destined for a Nobel Prize. The sanity waterline still has much room for improvement.
What ended up happening was that I was forced to transfer—and forgo a full scholarship—after a semester at a top-15 university (by US News and World Report). I realized there that I simply did not know how to study efficiently, or even at all. Essentially, early association of approval and accomplishments to innate talent led me to disregard the value of hard work and determination.
Another consequence is, of course, having an overblown sense of superiority. At many good, but not necessarily elite, universities, quite a few freshmen come in who were top of their class in high school and have to adjust to being in the middle of the pack.
I am also still working to overcome the consequences of my parents, other adults, and peers constantly telling me (up through high school) that I was so very smart. The effect is compounded when one grows up in a small American town in the south. It was not at all unusual for a high school peer to believe that because I skipped a grade in junior high school and was graduating high school a year early, that I was somehow on the path to curing cancer or destined for a Nobel Prize. The sanity waterline still has much room for improvement.
What ended up happening was that I was forced to transfer—and forgo a full scholarship—after a semester at a top-15 university (by US News and World Report). I realized there that I simply did not know how to study efficiently, or even at all. Essentially, early association of approval and accomplishments to innate talent led me to disregard the value of hard work and determination.
Another consequence is, of course, having an overblown sense of superiority. At many good, but not necessarily elite, universities, quite a few freshmen come in who were top of their class in high school and have to adjust to being in the middle of the pack.