Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion more on "Tiger Mom"...

There aren't many tenure track professorships at research universities and staff positions at national labs. The world does not need many mediocre research scientists. Therefore only academic superstars should try to get PhDs. An advantage of going to a Harvard, MIT, Princeton, Stanford etc. is that you get to compare your abilities to those of the best students in the country. Finding out that you are only mediocre in that crowd is painful but can save you half a dozen years of your life trying to get a PhD unless you have blinders on. Ahem.

Okay. Fast forward to my own high school graduation. It is 1976. Gerald Ford is
president. Everybody is playing Bruce Springsteen’s breakthrough album Born to Run and Bob
Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks (which, by the way, is Dylan’s best album).

At the time, I was the school math geek. I took all the hardest math classes, took more
math classes on the weekends at a nearby university, spent the summer before my senior year at
a summer activity focused around math and astrophysics, and won the school math prize. I
thought I was pretty hot …..Well, you get the idea.

When I went to college the next fall, I started off as a math major, thinking I would end
up being a professional mathematician. I was doing what economists call pursuing your
comparative advantage, which means doing what you are good at compared with other people. I
thought if I was so good at math compared with my high school classmates, it would make sense
to turn that talent into a career.

But then something happened: I met some other students who were really good in math.
And I mean really good. These were the kind of kids who not only took hard math courses in
high school and did well in them, but they spent their free time competing in the international
math Olympiad. They were in an entirely different league than I was. I felt like I was the most
valuable player on my little league team, and all of a sudden I was practicing with the Red Sox.

Over time, I realized that I was pretty good in math, but far from a star. I was good
enough to take college-level math classes and pursue a more quantitative career, but I was
probably not cut out to become a professional mathematician.

So here is my second lesson for you: You may think you are good at something, and you
may think you know what you should spend your life doing, but you may well be wrong. You
will learn a lot about yourself during your first few years of adulthood. Be prepared to change
your mind about your path in life and about your self-image. I know I certainly did.

I realize that is a bit of a downer. But don’t worry: The story will get better.