[0xdefec8]

Growing up, my best friend was always one of the smartest and successful kids in the class. But he also had an annoying habit of going around making offhand remarks about how he hadn't cracked a book until 10 minutes before the finals and still aced it, etc...

Although I shouldn't have let it get to me, it definitely did since we were always competitive. And it took quite a few years before I realized how stupid it was to believe that he could possibly be relying on innate intelligence to know things like obscure Gettysburg lieutenants or isotope neutron counts, whatever.

Anyways, as it turns out, we became roommates after college and I finally got to see the man behind the curtain. The kid's a workhorse! Sure he's still brilliant, but I had no idea how intense his work ethic was. His job requires all sorts of certification exams, and he would be locked in his room 10 hours a day for weeks at a time just memorizing, memorizing, memorizing...

Anyways, I'm sure Einstein wouldn't have wanted people to know that he used flashcards either :)

[zmimon]

Maybe not your friend, but there are people in this world who truly have "photographic" memories. I had one such friend at university and it frustrated me no end that we could go to a lecture and then he would go out that night and do no study whatsoever while I would study hard, and he would show up the next day with much better recall than me. Not just important concepts but any small detail about exactly what was on the board at the time ... he could just read it off from the mental image in his mind with no effort at all.

[biohacker42]

I always wondered is there a downside to a mind like that.

[comatose_kid]

I have a counter example. I've known one guy who aced his EE degree, receiving the highest marks in his graduating class. He also scored the second highest in his graduating class for his economics degree. He earned both degrees simultaneously. I knew him really well, and he usually copied assignments and spent no more than a day studying for exams. I think he was really good at getting the most from the lectures.

[noahlt]

"The plural of 'anecdote' is not 'data'."