• You are currently viewing our forum as a guest, which gives you limited access to view most discussions and access our other features. By joining our free community, you will have access to additional post topics, communicate privately with other members (PM), view blogs, respond to polls, upload content, and access many other special features. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free, so please join our community today! Just click here to register. You should turn your Ad Blocker off for this site or certain features may not work properly. If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us by clicking here.

[NT] How well did/do you do in school?

FDG

pathwise dependent
Joined
Aug 13, 2007
Messages
5,903
MBTI Type
ENTJ
Enneagram
7w8
Never really had a problem getting good marks throughtout all levels of school with just a very little bit of effort. Although in comparison to my top scores in standardized tests, my school performance was not as brillant.
 

Littlelostnf

New member
Joined
Apr 23, 2007
Messages
645
MBTI Type
ENFJ
In elementary school at the very beginning they considered skipping me. After 3rd grade I evened out and just did well A's/B's. In middle school and high school I was bored out of my mind (but still liked school) so did average. In college I was on the dean's list every semester, graduated with a 3.98 and would fight for a grade I thought was deserved or undeserved. I suppose I finally cared.
 

Rohsiph

New member
Joined
Jul 5, 2007
Messages
100
MBTI Type
lego
Massive apathy toward life in general during high school, but I've slowly been ramping up my achievement since starting undergrad. Made my first 4.0 semester a year ago, followed by a 3.8 this past spring thanks to needing to fulfill undergrad foreign language requirements through a fairly backwards program I can't seem to make myself care about.

I am slightly worried that the 3 remaining classes in the foreign language program might keep me from seeing any more flawless semesters, with 3 semesters to go . . .

still, I am on track to graduate in the top 10% in my majors, even if I screw everything up within the next year. :party2:
 

GZA

Resident Snot-Nose
Joined
Aug 13, 2007
Messages
1,771
MBTI Type
infp
Either above average or below average depending on the class -almost never on average. I think my grade average of all ym classes was 75, but my marks were like 90, 56, 80, 65 (although I doubt that actually adds up to 75, those were just random numbers).

In classes like math and science I always have to go in for extra help or else I'll fail, but when I get to the help sessions I always end up understanding everything almost instantly. Its quite odd... I think one on one is much better for me, whihc makes sense as I hate being surrounded by people all the time.

For the most part I really don't like school and find class tedious. Even classes that I should love (like english) I don't enjoy because they focus less on what I'd like to do (like exploring how language can be used in a creative sense) and more on things I find tedious and constricting (like essays, which to me are the worst way to write). I'm the kind of guy who says I'm going to do hoemwork but ends up reading the entire textbook instead... I learn better if I work at my own pace.

Luckily one of my teachers was a really awesome ENTP and he made these amazing, creative, clever lessons that were much more engaging than anything else, and I did great in his class. I probably would have done decently anyway because it was history, but this guy made it a step better.

I still feel really suffocated by school though, there are too many people, it's too noisy, there is too much structure and too much "thats just the way it is" (which is the biggest load of bullshit ever, what a lame answer). I think I'd do much better if I could discover thing son my own and work at my own pace.
 

Maverick

New member
Joined
Apr 29, 2007
Messages
880
MBTI Type
ENTJ
Up to my early teens I was top of the class. Then I started rebelling against the school system and started constantly arguing about anything the teacher said and pretending that I knew better. I stopped answering half of the tests and got the maximum on the other half, just so I could have the average to pass.

In college I started off being a complete slacker and finished in the top 10 out of 200.
 

Caleban

New member
Joined
Sep 3, 2007
Messages
5
MBTI Type
INTJ
Primary school to early high school I was a bit of a all round good student. I was good at both academics and sports.

Then when I got to a certain age things changed, everything in school became just another area for sexual competition and my motivation went out the window. I flat refused to waste my time just to impress girls. I got bored of school and eventually dropped out at 15.

It's not so bad though, at least now I can learn at my own pace and about the things I'm interested in rather than the random irrelevant nonesense that school forces you to learn. I passed all the high school stuff 8 years later by just turning up for the exams and not bothering with the coursework.
 
Last edited:

thirtyfour

New member
Joined
Apr 26, 2007
Messages
53
MBTI Type
INTp
I've always been a very good student. I graduated valedictorian in High School, Magna Cum Laude in college and Summa Cum Laude in law school. Until law school I never tried all that hard either. Now I have to start a real job though and that sucks. I'm good at school, not work.
 

niffer

New member
Joined
Apr 26, 2007
Messages
1,217
MBTI Type
ENfP
Enneagram
8w9
Instinctual Variant
sx/sp
Ha..I don't have that much to say but:

elementary school up to grade 4:
- exerted little effort
- was the teachers' pet

gr5-7:
- exerted more effort
- never handed in stuff on time
- was still the teachers' pet
- won the best all-round student award (gr7)
- got straight A's

gr8 (HIGH SCHOOL dundundunnn):
- started getting my shit back together and handed almost all stuff in on time
- almost got straight A's
- exerted effort sporadically
- was the teachers' pets (or at least they seemed to be very amused with me)
 

developer

New member
Joined
Aug 26, 2007
Messages
117
MBTI Type
INTJ
Always top of my class, without effort, even through college.

Boy, what a surprise life was, when I started working....;)
 

FDG

pathwise dependent
Joined
Aug 13, 2007
Messages
5,903
MBTI Type
ENTJ
Enneagram
7w8
I've always been a very good student. I graduated valedictorian in High School, Magna Cum Laude in college and Summa Cum Laude in law school. Until law school I never tried all that hard either. Now I have to start a real job though and that sucks. I'm good at school, not work.

Strange. While I am good at school, I've found myself much more easily adaptable to the working realm. Might this be realted to activity levels? Extraverts have it easier on entry-level jobs that require less intellectual prowess but more moving capacity and higher workloads in a given amounts of time. Introverts fare slightly better in academic settings where they are allowed to think problems more thoroughly - a soft spot of mine has always been excessive speed in problem solving which, in school, leads to not perfect marks, but at the workplace seems to be appreciated since approximation is enough to guarantee results.
 

developer

New member
Joined
Aug 26, 2007
Messages
117
MBTI Type
INTJ
Strange. While I am good at school, I've found myself much more easily adaptable to the working realm. Might this be realted to activity levels? Extraverts have it easier on entry-level jobs that require less intellectual prowess but more moving capacity and higher workloads in a given amounts of time. Introverts fare slightly better in academic settings where they are allowed to think problems more thoroughly - a soft spot of mine has always been excessive speed in problem solving which, in school, leads to not perfect marks, but at the workplace seems to be appreciated since approximation is enough to guarantee results.

When you are in school or at the university, the outcome basically depends on you alone. So, if you are gifted and a little bit organized, you get good grades. In a work environment, a multitude of factors have an impact on the outcomes (the economic situation, your co-workes, the management of the company, your looks, your social skills etc.). I am mid - fortyish and I have been very successful (and lucky) in my professional life, but it took me many years to get used to the ups and downs, and to the sheer sense of randomness that a professional life involves.
 

Lurker

New member
Joined
Apr 24, 2007
Messages
209
MBTI Type
INTP
Enneagram
5
In ninth grade, my lack of a need to study caught up with me. As one guidance counselor put it, "you're a Corvette doing twenty-five." By senior year I managed to raise my grade point average to a level that would not diminish my standing for college acceptance. In college, of course, I studied what I enjoyed, so earned my bachelor's magna cum laude.

Don't break your arm patting yourself on the back.
 

Ivy

Strongly Ambivalent
Joined
Apr 18, 2007
Messages
23,989
MBTI Type
INFP
Enneagram
6
I did just fine up to the fifth grade -- gifted classes and whatnot.

After that -- I stopped doing schoolwork. My test scores for the SATs and such still made it to the top percentiles of the state, but that is the only reason I passed.

I was thrown from school to school due to moving and my own behavior, and eventually was sent to a 'special' school for the drastically dumb and amazingly intelligent. I finished high school at fourteen and haven't set foot in a school since. I did not do well socially or with the teachers, except a rare few. I was not a fan of school.

This kind of makes me cringe, because the first paragraph could be about me. I loved elementary school, gifted classes were awesome, it was idyllic. Then I went to middle school and everything changed. It was a much more institutional atmosphere, the discipline was punative rather than encouraging, and I pretty much sat on my hands. The guidance counselor put me in a group of underachievers with potential who met with her several times a week to talk about our feelings, which was painfully awkward and lame.

My parents, God love 'em, took me out and my mother homeschooled me. It quickly became apparent that homeschooling was not the answer for me, at least not at that time. So they shopped around and found a private Quaker school that operated as a co-op, which cut the tuition down to almost nothing. My mom and I cleaned one of the school buildings every Friday. It was, quite simply, the best place I could have been placed. I stayed there until the end of 9th grade, then spent a year technically homeschooled but de facto auditing college courses (got no credit for them, except what my mom assigned to me as a homeschool student), took the GED on my 16th birthday, and started college proper at a CC. After a couple of years when I was ready to leave home, I transferred to a 4-year school as a junior. I loved college, too, and would have stayed on as a grad student and possibly a professor if circumstances had allowed.

I know several kids who had similar experiences transitioning from elementary to middle school, but had to stay put. Most of them became jaded and got out of high school as soon as possible and never went to college. It has made me a real pain-in-the-ass when it comes to my kids' educations-- I won't settle for a shitty environment, or punative atmosphere, or dull academics. I'll shop around and get the best, even if that means homeschooling them (but please, God, let it not mean homeschooling them).
 

FDG

pathwise dependent
Joined
Aug 13, 2007
Messages
5,903
MBTI Type
ENTJ
Enneagram
7w8
I've had a similar experience with middle school, Ivy. There are two sides of the coin: the positive is that I breezed through HS due to how hard I had to work in middle school (basically, the math program was more advanced that anything programmed in HS); the negative is that I completely lost any pleasure in educating myself through "official" means, and thus now I perceive college homework the same way I used to perceive middle school homework.

When you are in school or at the university, the outcome basically depends on you alone. So, if you are gifted and a little bit organized, you get good grades. In a work environment, a multitude of factors have an impact on the outcomes (the economic situation, your co-workes, the management of the company, your looks, your social skills etc.). I am mid - fortyish and I have been very successful (and lucky) in my professional life, but it took me many years to get used to the ups and downs, and to the sheer sense of randomness that a professional life involves.

I find the factors you listed as influencing work performance to be fair easier to control in comparison to being organized in study matters. To put it simply, in many instances study does not guarantee the monetary reward that work does, nor it does give me any skill that I find either useful, or interesting to learn, except for specific instances (i.e. computer science courses, accounting courses, finance courses).
 

developer

New member
Joined
Aug 26, 2007
Messages
117
MBTI Type
INTJ
I find the factors you listed as influencing work performance to be fair easier to control in comparison to being organized in study matters. To put it simply, in many instances study does not guarantee the monetary reward that work does, nor it does give me any skill that I find either useful, or interesting to learn, except for specific instances (i.e. computer science courses, accounting courses, finance courses).


As you mentioned earlier, your being an Extrovert (and especially ENTJ) may very well make life in the work environment easier for you than any type of school / university. I wanted to share my experience mostly because of the frustration that seemed to come out of what thirtyfour wrote (probably should have quoted that post instead of yours...sorry), and I could relate so well to it. As I wrote earlier, school and university were like child's play to me, and then for the first ten years of my professional life I kept asking myself "what am I doing wrong, it used to be so easy, now it is so difficult?" As it turned out, there was nothing I did wrong and eventually everything worked out nicely, but it was just a very different environment which needed adapting to.
 

wildcat

New member
Joined
Jun 8, 2007
Messages
3,622
MBTI Type
INTP
As an ESFJ I found school to my liking. I was always the teacher's favourite, finished all my work on time, and passed with flying colours. The entire education system seemed to be ideally suited to someone of my intellect and temperement, while some of my less-than-concrete friends fell behind, making endless excuses for their poor performance. Honestly.
The SJ.
A monolith: the way it is described in this forum?

The Keirsey doctrine does have a place.
It does not mean we have to go beyond the lake to fish.


The XSTJ kid in my class got the best grades.
He was dutiful and he did his homework.

After school he worked in the bank.
He became a bank clark with credentials.
Eventually he became the bank manager.

At school he was loved by teachers and students alike.
He was polite, corteous, respectful.

He paid attention.
He did not exactly excel at sports.
In sports it did not matter that he was not better than the average student.
He did make an effort.

After school he became the treasurer in his local congregation. A man to be trusted.

The money he earned he invested wisely.
He lead a sedentary life.

He has never been seen inside a pub.
On two occasions only he has seen the interior of a movie theatre.

In both cases it was a family occasion.
For the sons and the daughters and their families.
And of course he did buy all the tickets.


To what extent do you find yourself in the description?
 

wildcat

New member
Joined
Jun 8, 2007
Messages
3,622
MBTI Type
INTP
With all the talk on websites about how N's tend to do better in school than S's, I was just wondering how well fellow N's did in school.

Personally, I was an average to below average student in both high school and college. It's not that I wasn't interested in the concepts of things, but I either:
  1. Was interested in what was being taught, but wasn't motivated to do homework or write a paper.
  2. Got bored with the concepts being taught and zoned out -- often doodling in my notebook.

But I never thought of myself as hating school because it wasn't action-oriented or immediately practical (I hated gym class probably more than anything). My interests were very much in line with the abstract academic classes such as philosophy, history, or psychology. (Although I generally suck at math.)

On the other hand, I never really liked literature classes despite my interests in creative writing. I'm usually impatient when I read fiction or poetry, I'd much rather get my creative inspiration through reading science and historical articles and watching movies.

And whenever I'd read or write a fictional story, I'm more interested in the climaxes rather than the character development.

And the only hands-on classes I was interested in were art classes, since, naturally, they were more inspirational rather than concrete.

Were/are any other NT's like this in school?
What does it mean, what is being taught?

At school, nothing is being taught.

Understanding is self born.
To teach is to obstruct.

Tedious is the word.

You learn only one thing at school.
Boredom.

Tic tic tic..
When is the lesson going to end?
 

Ivy

Strongly Ambivalent
Joined
Apr 18, 2007
Messages
23,989
MBTI Type
INFP
Enneagram
6
What does it mean, what is being taught?

At school, nothing is being taught.

Understanding is self born.
To teach is to obstruct.

Tedious is the word.

You learn only one thing at school.
Boredom.

Tic tic tic..
When is the lesson going to end?

Yeah, this is true for many schools. But it doesn't have to be this way. I went to schools (and chose one for my daughter) where they approached teaching as providing fuel for a self-burning fire, rather than dropping pebbles in an empty bucket.
 

Veneti

New member
Joined
Aug 19, 2007
Messages
264
MBTI Type
XNTX
School was difficult for me. I pulled myself from D's when I started to high B's by the time I left (I have a crappy memory for things that don't engage my mind). At University I would invariably get top in course year for unstructured report case analysis (eg Harvard case studies) and get a bit above average in written tests.

I was always getting heat from my lecturers for not getting straight A's. I told them it was their academic system that penalised people like me with divergent thought processes.... biggest thing I learned at University was to start focusing/disciplining my thought processes....
 

wildcat

New member
Joined
Jun 8, 2007
Messages
3,622
MBTI Type
INTP
Yeah, this is true for many schools. But it doesn't have to be this way. I went to schools (and chose one for my daughter) where they approached teaching as providing fuel for a self-burning fire, rather than dropping pebbles in an empty bucket.
Only in America.
 
Top