Hitting the intellect ceiling

if I could just be a physicist that gets underpaid I'd be fine with this
But the fact of the matter is you likely aren't going to be working as a research director
More than likely you will be employed as an engineer, finance analysis, or lab jockey
The real fuckjng issue with physics isn't the pay its that you're hardly likely to even DO physics in any satisfying manner (I.e. your own research)

Shit. That former part is me right now. My plan is to do B.S. in EE then do a master's in CS

I like have my ego stroked. Could I get a citation for that image?
t. chem eng

>I'm quitting physics

Education is for jobs, you mong. It's to let you acquire valuable, marketable skills. Don't start what you don't intend to finish, don't study what you don't intend to use. Everything else is just a hobby. You're just another fickle pussy controlled by feelings and moods.

>More intelligent than everyone in primary school, think of everyone as retards
>Get moved from fifth grade to seventh grade
>Still more intelligent than everyone, still consider everyone to be retards
>"Lol that will all change when you get to college user"
>Get to college, still more intelligent than everyone, still consider everyone retards, make the dean's list every semester with minimal effort
>start working for the FBI
>Feel like a retard, everyone is smarter than me

Meh. It was bound to happen eventually.

Was told by teachers in elementary that I'm smart, we even took a class wide IQ test in which 5% of the generation gets a stipend from the state. The IQ showed I was "above intelligent" and one of the teachers said she has a feeling I'd make it in life. I considered myself smart throughout the high school, but not anymore now in uni. There are some stuff I'll never be cut out for and I don't want to chase butterflies to prove something to myself or anyone else. I like a good challenge and every problem that gets thrown into my face I see as a challenge to be solved. I've come to terms I'll never be a genius, I'll never be really smart, but at least I have a shred of logic in me and I made it.

You sound legitimately autistic.

Fuck you, I do what I want.

I'm a brainlet and I'm almost graduating in pure mathematics. Faggot, I swear by God I'll do my best to contribute to this fucking thing, even though I'm a slug. And I'll succeed.

Save my words, I'll revolutionize my field of study.

"divisibility groups", screncap this.

No ones gonna screencap cause no one cares faggot

What about disability groups?

>get smacked in the face the first or second semester
This is applies to many many people who was known as the smart guy in high school. Essentially in high school you don't really have to study. If you study a bit you can easily max out all the classes that matter.
So basically you don't get used to having a proper load at school and you do other shit in your free time, perhaps even become lazy which leads to a very fast increase of load in your first year at university.
Proper outcome is to shut the fuck up and learn to learn better and dedicate proper time to it. If you don't enjoy (most of the time) learning the stuff they give you then you have probably chosen the wrong degree. If you need it for a prereq to something then man the fuck up and just do it.

> speaking most people here probably aren't going to be the next Einstein, Newton or Boltzmann

I think it's far more harder today. Extreme amount of info accumulated around the start of the 20th century so re-evaluation of physics was necessary. Our knowledge now is much broader and complex.
Just aim for being content.

>>and it becomes part of your identity
>No, I'm not a leftist faggot. I never saw myself as smart, everyone else was just painfully retarded.
That's the definition of smart, my friend.

>I've come to terms I'll never be a genius, I'll never be really smart, but at least I have a shred of logic in me and I made it.
Honestly, being a "genius" isn't about being able to solve every problem at a whim or discover things in a day. Read Feynman's books and you will realize that being a "genius" is more about having the ability to understand stuff and liking a good challenge. You can't be good at everything. You're on a good path though.

Good attitude, keep it up.

t. smart guy throughout primary and high school and still fucking smart at university, but I stopped giving a fuck about it for various reasons and trying to figure out life.

>Not realizing that you just have to work hard and invest yourself in certain ideas and thoughts
>Could likely discover incredible things despite limitations

For someone so smart that's a dumb way to think

Me(me).

But I found I perform better in other disciplines. My math is pretty shit, but my verbal intelligence is alright

>get top marks in the grade throughout middle school for very little effort
>be a beta fag though, fat w/ babyface
>become preoccupied with trying to be cool in high school
>grades slip a bit. but I still easily make it through with a good GPA
>accepted to top uni, but for business, not STEM
>glide through, only go to around 30% of lectures and still graduate with GPA good enough to get into a specific postgrad course with low acceptance rate
>get one of the top thesis marks in my year

But here's the thing anons; I failed the year despite my good thesis because I paid no attention to the core subjects. I was so used to just breezing through that I didn't do much work, then proceeded to have a mental breakdown before my finals.

I hit the wall and I hit it hard. I'm redoing modules now but finding myself hitting the exact same ceiling.

What do? Cut my losses and find something more interesting to dedicate my time to? Accept life as a wagecuck?

well as I wrote I'm gonna be going into applied mathematics so having an understanding of a lot of physical systems (mechanical, electromagnetic, thermodynamical, fluids, optical, quantum mechanical etc.) is not even close to a waste. In fact, for people doing the 5-year integrated master's degree in applied mathematics here at my uni, you have to have minimum 5 physics subjects.

I was the "smart guy" guy I guess, but I still convinced myself in highschool that I was too dumb to pursue something like physics or math. It was in university that I realized everyone else was retarded, became intensely interested in mathematics, excelled, and decided that was my true path. Now I have a math degree and going to grad school in the fall, in a position I never thought that of all people would be me.

Holy crap it was the exact same for me, used to be a lazy piece of crap in high school, got shit grades and all. Now in university mathematics I finally got my act together and am one of the top students.

Makes me feel pity to all of those people that thought I was smart. I have a good life. I've worked hard for it, but all of this work mad eme abandon my social life. I have a GF but that sums it up. Maybe I would've been happier if I had knocked up my high school sweetheart. Gone to community college and gotten a BS in Biology.

I've yet to come across something that I can't understand at some point.

I've definitely had stuff that I might not understood at first, but that's not quite the same as a ceiling, is it?

I'm sure a ceiling exists, and I'm kind of afraid to find it, as ignorance is bliss.

As that guy mentioned he is doing physics because he likes it.

I realise this may sound disparaging but it sounds like learning about physics wasn't your goal. Making an impact was your goal and physics was solely a stepping stone towards that.

Its not an unreasonable goal by any means but I like to think that for a lot of a geniuses who do end up making an impact, that the impact was a consequence or side effect of their desire to learn about their subject.

Me too, must be something about Maths

>Thought I was smart in primary school
>Went to high school where I failed the first years, then somehow - for no reason - was completely above average in all disciplines, except that I failed math, because I'm a retard. Pretty much where I hit my ceiling.
>Going to uni in law where I get trash grades, and I hate it. That's it. I'm just an idiot who ruined his life chances. Hitting the ceiling before uni makes me want to cut myself.

Same story m8
Just one thing is different though:

The more time invest, I get better. Every time. If the next lecture if way harder than the last, people around me are sometimes, if not mostly better than I am, but I get better at the last stuff.

I.e. I just passed my QFT and GR Examen. It was fucking tough, but still I somehow managed it, even though "easier" lectures were sometimes a pain in the ass for me.

I think there's still potential. Or maybe I will hit my ceiling soon.

OP here
>I realise this may sound disparaging but it sounds like learning about physics wasn't your goal. Making an impact was your goal and physics was solely a stepping stone towards that.
fuck this hit me, but in a good way. Gave me something to think about, thanks
>Its not an unreasonable goal by any means but I like to think that for a lot of a geniuses who do end up making an impact, that the impact was a consequence or side effect of their desire to learn about their subject.
I'm absolutely sure you're right, and I do want to learn and become intensely good at *something* but I just don't think physics is it... I have been thinking that maybe combining financial/economics/business skills with science knowledge can be my edge, as most businessmen aren't that knowledgeable in science and a lot of scientists aren't that interested in business or finance, however the two fields benefit each other tremendously (businesses need the innovations from science to make money, science needs funding from governments or businesses).

i would cut my losses. Would legitamately kms if i was a business cuck. You do realize business is the go-to major for brainlets who go to college just so they can become middle class. If you have any sort of intellectual drive or passion you fucked up.

>have a gf
>bad social life

eat shit nigger

yeah I'm taking a senior level QM class right now and the more time I invest the better I get, obviously, but the pace at which I'm improving is slow as shit compared to the geniuses I'm surrounded by every day who can show up high to lecture and still understand everything the lecturer is talking about and more right from the get-go.

I lose my patience with things sometimes but I haven't hit a ceiling thanks to dropping out of college after one semester because I ended up at a retard college for nooo fuckin reason. could've gone anywhere basically for free but I was about to go way in debt at a shit-tier school.

I imagine my ceiling would come some day doing really advanced math. But I don't even know enough to know what it would be like. I've always understood things in a deep way very easily

That's fucking insane. One guy I know is still "just" doing his master's and already has his own approach on the group structure (look up Lie groups if it is unfamiliar to you) of supersymmetry (regarding neutrinos) and he even gave master lectures (even though he has no master's degree yet!) And he looks always so chill and knows every answer to every question.

Another guy just doing his masters, is doing his thesis in topological quantum condensed matter and I have no fucking clue about that stuff (one professor of me is an expert in this field)

It's just crushing being always on the back of the chain.

>It's just crushing being always on the back of the chain.
lol tell me about it

No, I always knew I was retarded deep down.
lol pussies

A true intellectual realises that there is no ceiling just refinement.
You can go horizontally you know.
Intuition is important

It's not about math, it's about retarded highschool teachers who have no clue what they're doing

I dont want to take an IQ test, so i dont get depression and realise that I'm not cut out to be anything good

You're lucky that you haven't forcefully hit the ceiling: I did by failing high school math. It's fucking terrible. I've been terribly depressed for the best part of the last two years, because I realized it's my own fault I ruined my life, and that I'm too much of an idiot to do anything I enjoy.

First year of uni my mum died, I ended up smoking weed and falling behind on course work. It all went downhill from there.

I feel I've learned a lot since leaving, especially Physics-wise, so not sure if we have a "ceiling", more a point where it becomes either all or nothing.

You can always retake math. It's about putting the effort in.

I'm not intelligent enough for that, and besides it's too late. I'm already at uni, and no one would let me retake high school math. I don't even know where I'd take calculus classes.

I still have 3 years of high school left, but looking at differences between IQs in races scares me that I will fail later throughout life

well the IQ differences in races really just say that it's more likely that a white person, asian or jew will have a higher IQ than say a black person, but a black person can still have an extremely high IQ (it's just much less likely)

Im a Sri Lankan which aren't very well known for anything(Avg IQ 79) i hope i didn't draw the genetic short straw

defeatist attitude here folks. when people talk about their 'ceiling', i'm willing to bet this roughly translates to "I'm unwilling to put this much effort in to succeed".

At no point in academia is there a 'ceiling' until you need to do original research and innovate. Which is phd level. If you aren't there you're just making excuses for your laziness.

I'm in engineering physics, and there were a shit ton of times where I just stared at a proof for hours after class and have no idea what I was looking at when other classmates had it click for them right in the middle of the lecture. But I used the resources available to me (google, profs, classmates, textbook) and I've made it.

>>At no point in academia is there a 'ceiling' until you need to do original research and innovate.
of course there is. my ceiling was noncommutative geometry

The difference is that what you have trouble understanding are complex proofs and demonstrations, not pre-calc basics. And you're right, I'm lazy, which is part of why I failed. But it doesn't changed the fact that I failed, and that I can't undo that failure : no uni would accept me now in any program that requires even minimal mathematics.

>average IQ 79
That's literally borderline retarded-tier. So the average Sri-lankan is borderline retarded. It's even worse for subsaharan africans. And people wonder why some countries (*cough*most of africa, the middle east and south asia*cough*) are shitholes.

Worst part is Sri Lanka isn't that diverse unlike India, so there probably isn't a high range of IQs

I just checked *average* IQ's for africa, literally 30 african countries have average IQ's at 70 or below, which is the cutoff for mental retardation. Amazing.

Africans and sri lankans were just an unlucky race to be born into

It's called an abstraction ceiling, you brainlet

Guess that's the difference between you and me, OP. I never went into physics in order to "revolutionize the field"; I did it because I had a deep interest in it and just wanted to know as much about it as I can, with an emphasis on "I".
So some people are smarter than I, who cares? I might not make a huge contribution to physics like them, but at least I get to do something I love every day, mediocre or not.
It's too bad that you quit physics, by the way. Maybe over time you'd realize that the real pleasure comes from the interest in the field, not from the significance of the contribution. Moreover, you don't have to be Einstein to have some random breakthrough.

ok i'll cap you

t. fellow brainlet falling for the math major meme and wanted to die every day until i started hardening up and studying more

come back and post this once you've published

imgur.com/a/07Oem

I think it's the same for everybody. Given enough time, shouldn't almost everyone with an IQ of 110-120+ be able to understand anything with enough dedication an motivation.

hmm I suppose, basically I got into physics for the same reason people get into medicine. I wanted to have a measurable impact on the world, and I wanted to make the world a better place with my innovations. Understanding the true nature of reality comes secondary to me, and is only a top priority if in doing so I also can come up with some practical application of it.

>It's too bad that you quit physics, by the way. Maybe over time you'd realize that the real pleasure comes from the interest in the field, not from the significance of the contribution. Moreover, you don't have to be Einstein to have some random breakthrough.
Maybe you're right, although I'm not completely leaving the field, just "professionally". I'll probably be thinking about new ideas and innovations and reading physics textbooks in my spare time, but as far as formal schooling goes I want to learn something that I know I can do well and that I can make a good career out of.

>for the same reason people get into medicine
Most people get into medicine for the money or because their parents told them to.

huh, most of my friends got into it because they wanted to help people and bring a positive impact to the world. I'm not in europe though and doctors here aren't paid nearly as well as in the US so that might have something to do with it.

I *am* in europe, lol

yep

pretty much me

>elementary school get put into gifted thing with 8 other students
>we just met once a week and didn't do anything
>get to middle/highschool
>depression/gender dysphoria
>currently going to community college and thinking about killing myself

i wonder if I'm dumb or smart, but I'm probably dumb

and best case even I'm pretty sure I have literal aspergers

This is me but I hit my ceiling in middle school, and then recovered to become one of the smartest at my high school/currently at my college.

Being smart is about realising you can create your own playground if you are unable to succeed at someone else's.

We are all going to die anyway. In the meantime, noone will actually care that much what you do on this rock, except for you and maybe your relatives or spouse.

Why dedicate the time to solve some ancient problems for the 1000th time, if you can dropout and create completely new ones?

I'd say that business is for people who want to be able to earn so much so fast that they can stop working as soon as possible. You can't do that with regular employment. Also people that think they can beat the competition. You don't need that in most employed positions.

your problem is that you have the faggot disease.

>gender dysphoria
You're going to have to get started on HRT and plan your transition, user.

Screencaped

I have up institutional education at a bachelors in Biochemistry.
I got an ok job in the pharma industry.
But i have by no means hit my ceiling, since graduating last year i have become adept at programming in C, learned German, and have begun teaching myself mathematics. Oh and I get taught street dancing on a Saturday.

Don't fall for the academia meme, having a bit of paper saying "UR a SMART GUY" isn't the be-all-and-end-all of intellect.

this.

It's called the rising floor m8. The water rises and it gets harder to stay afloat. Most drown, but a few manage to survive.

You sound like you're seeking validation.

Like you're in denial about being a brainlet.

Do your best user. This is the correct attitude to have.

What things made you realize that they're smarter than you?

>conflating achieved academic degree with intelligence
shiggy diggy

never hit my ceiling
I got my bachelors and don't plan on further education, so I guess I'll never know

I never hit my ceiling. But I never aimed high. School came easily from grade school through getting my bachelors, and it was easy in every subject. Should I have pushed myself to discover if I was truly genius or just an above average meme intellect?

Ya

Sup freshie

college was a fucking breeze, graduated with a 3.0 in CS even though I was aiming for a 1.0.

What really fucked me though was afterwards. Obviously I felt I'm too good for a normal job, so I did the startup hustle.

In two years I snuffed out four companies, burned half a million dollars and wasted 20 years of other people's lives, while working on a second ME degree to build credibility. Then I got disillusioned and masturbated for one year while finishing that second degree.

I know a shit ton of shit, and I started applying for jobs. Guess what? The industry needs web developers and fucking code monkeys.

I'm disillusioned and I've been in a rut for 2 years now. I feel like I haven't reached an intellectual ceiling, but the next rung on the ladder is just too fucking far up.

I was too retarded for mech. engineering, quit first month of my second year.

In reality, I probably should have quit in the first month of my first year. I thought I was a complete retard for a long time, but after working as a glorified errand boy at a midsize company, having to patiently explain simple business to my superiors and colleagues nearly every day, being called "smart" for reading fucking Huckleberry Finn during a lunch break, I realized I wasn't actually retarded, just not "bright" like I had hoped.

Going back for a degree in actuarial science, and had the bright idea to study before applying to see if I could hack it. Wish me luck Veeky Forums. We're all gonna make it.

You a pussy, OP. Giving up on your dreams because of one wall? Fuck you dude. Of you're going to give up your potential you may as well start rotting now. You can one ticket through this wild ride, you really going to waste it and let your one life be anything than extraordinary? Be beyond, and push others to do the same. Be a trailblazer mother fucker, let me hear about you on the news. Let me see you break all conventional wisdom. Dare to be great, despite what anyone (including Yourself) says, or you're just here wasting space.

Don't die any less of a legend than you were born to be. This goes out to everyone.

Intellectual ceiling fully realized upon a 3-day migraine episode this past winter. No food or sleep 72 hours. Some force made me write words that came not from myself- like I was watching it happen. Basically I "saw" the tree of infinite timelines. The last line I wrote- "Its not about patterns: Reflection"

I'm sure a social loser like you doesn't understand but having a gf and having a social life are 2 different things.

>wanting to "be" a particular person
>not realizing that einstein, newton, and boltzmann weren't worth a shit, until they were
"Statistically speaking", someone has to be the next einstein, newton, or boltzmann, but no one has any idea who it's going to be, not even the person himself.

Remember Boltzmann's theories got shit on so hard he literally necked himself. Something you should do as well OP.

>Im a Sri Lankan which aren't very well known for anything(Avg IQ 79)
Citation?

Just curious because the machine learning group at my uni has 3 sri lankans in it and they are ridiculously smart

Immigrants that aren't refugees are typically outliers in terms of IQ

Is that why they typically get excluded from average IQ studies?

care to elaborate?

I never had a problem integrating with the nerds.

Some girls were mean. Some girls were nice, idk if it has anything to do with being an immigrant or IQ. More with shared or conflicting interests, and hormones.

>So I've decided to not pursue graduate physics because I'd most likely just end up a slightly-above-mediocre scientist and I'm not interested in that, if I can't be the best I don't wanna do it.
I don't think you quite grasp what a 'mediocre' scientist is. Hint: they're top of their class through grad school and win multiple awards.

You're retarded, those are averages
Or did you not learn averages yet in Alg3-4?
Get the hell out of here

Got ADHD, never really felt like I hit the intellectual ceiling. I can understand pretty much anything fairly quickly, provided I can focus for more than 10 seconds on the subject. That said, I'm generally bad at math, physics and STEM, cooking or anything that comes with instructions, since they require you to follow a certain mindset and path created before you by others. And instead of doing just that, I'm constantly questioning the status quo, experimenting, trying to innovate, and it's very counterproductive to moving forward or producing viable results. On the other hand I have excellent problem solving skills, and if you need to think outside the box, or new ideas I'm definitely your guy.

>think outside the box, or new ideas I'm definitely your guy.

how can you come up with new ideas if you are incapable of even understanding the problem?