Google Zeitgeist is a collection of talks by people who are changing the world. Hear entrepreneurs, CEOs, storytellers, scientists, and dreamers share their visions of how we can shape tomorrow.
Being a top student works both ways. Not only you shine, but you also get all the attention from the teachers. The teachers prefer to speak with top students, suggest ideas to them, in practice you are part of the closed club of the people who publish. It's not that students get discouraged, it's that the professor's time is a scarce resource
Malcolm Gladwell is unique. His way of explaining, comprehending and delivering highly advanced and difficult academic research to the common man never seize to amaze me. Cudos to you sir.
i know im asking randomly but does anybody know a trick to get back into an Instagram account..? I was dumb forgot my password. I would love any help you can offer me
This guy's extremely smart. I think what I can take with me from this is: Make everyone close to you feel capable of doing everything they wish to accomplish, because just making them feel this way is going to make them accomplish more.
David Lopez there is a confounding phenomenon: starting in preschool, students who excel at one stage of schooling aren’t the ones who excel at the next (grade school, middle school, high school, college, income. This was in some TED talk. Of course there were numerous unmeasured variables, but it is likely that the skills needed to succeed at each level are quité different.
I honestly don't think he is that smart. Here, for instance, he's playing a kind of intellectual three-card-monty. What happens, for example, if everyone follows his advice? Why does he never criticize the competitive grading system and lack of student engagement which gives rise to the behavior? What are the consequences to the larger economy from the waste of talent? Of course he's at least smart enough to know not to threaten his audience, but even if he were the smartest guy in the room, this particular contribution is of little benefit except to potential parents operating under the assumption that the existing system will continue to operate. He's like the Jordan Peterson of statisticians - though I'm pretty sure he's not as crazy as JP. Everything he chooses to publish is essentially non-threatening or actually reinforcing to the status quo. JP gives great advice to young men looking to succeed in Western competitive society, but seems psychologically incapable of thinking in aggregates. Likewise Gladwell uses aggregate stats not to provide a measure of system performance or even to drill down into the individual subjective realities from which the stats are derived, but to attempt to explain in abstract terms how normal people operate. He just spent 20 minutes explaining, and god knows how many hours researching, a phenomena which genuinely smart people know to be operative without even thinking twice about it. It's a childishly simple exercise. They're not smart - they're autistic, or maybe in Gladwell's case, he just assumes his audience is.
bebopalooblog the counsel he offers is VERY pointed and VERY counter-culture. Not pursuing elite schools? Not even advertising which schools you attend? How on earth can you think that kind of advice _enforces_ today’s status quo? But you’re not interested in a discussion. Your tasteless use of autism as an insult is more then enough proof of that. I know you’re type. I know you’re more then willing to start battles in comment threads. You even re-edit your comments to fix grammar mistakes, in hopes they won’t be used against you. You live in constant fear of those smarter then you, and so you resort to belittling others to aggrandize yourself. Know that I’m muting and blocking you the moment you launch your “witty come-back”. I know you’ll write one, because you can’t help yourself. You’re even welcome to feel like you got the last word. It makes no difference to me, I won’t be reading anything you write. Or maybe you’ll realize this is one battle you can’t win, so you’ll withhold any comment in a desperate attempt to prove I was wrong about you. Either way, I’m grateful I’ll never have to see you again.
I quote Malcolm Gladwell every time I see EICD or Relative Deprivation Psychology in the real world. His understanding and speech on the subject are brilliant! When I found this video, I only had to write one research paper during my freshman year on whether it were worth going to an ivy league school. It's almost poetic that I'm currently attending a lower-end institution that hardly anyone has heard of. I did poorly in middle school to where I was nearly held back a grade, and my high school transcripts aren't much better. Now, I'm making dean's list every semester; not because people in my school are not smart, but because having the opportunity to succeed when I'm usually a slow learner has provided me the confidence to really appreciate my education. Thank you, Malcolm, for helping me understand how academia really works; and for making my paper easier to write!
Finally, a validation of what I experienced all my life. He doesn’t mention the necessity of working while in school when from low income families which prevents the science labs, and language labs as well as music activities required too after classes.
So, here we have a very real explanation for why it can be very hamful for college applicants to "shoot to high." I've thought this for years, but I've never seen it this well articulated. Thank you, Malcolm.
This is my personal story - my PhD degree was NOT the Ivy league university but now 128 peer reviewed papers, 12 book chapters, Ed-in-Chief of a journal, 1 edited book and 1 co-authored book behind me, I know he is right.
For Phd's , uni does not matter. A good adviser is what is needed. For undergraduates, it might, unless you are at schools like MIT or UniMi ( i do not count yale or harvard), you will more or less get the same standard of education IMPO.
One of the the finest thinkers of our time, Malcolm Gladwell makes a strong case against the popular perception through this thoughtfully demonstrated education pattern study conducted in the elite and non-elite schools of America. Highly recommended for everyone.
Indeed If you like him you might also like to listen to Eric Weinstein. Further if you're interested in "big picture" thinkers you should look at the work of Ken Wilber
PS. My high school teachers made this exact point about the most elite selective private school in our city, nearly 40 years ago. That is, common knowledge among educators. Still good convention challenging in the US, but he only begins to make a strong point...
Really wish I saw this before picking my school. I made the mistake of choosing the best school I got into instead of the second best that I would rather have gone to and would have done really well at. I lost confidence in myself, didn't understand why I was not performing as well as I had in high school, and ended up being worse off academically, intellectually, socially, and holistically. It's not an understatement to say it was the worst decision of my life to go with the "number one" school in the country over a top 25 with less prestige.
He's pretty brilliant in his knowledge base and ability to make observations that nobody else is making. He has the data to back up everything he says. He's kind of loud in this presentation, but he's quite charismatic most of his others. I suggest you watch them. BTW he's the Author of "Outliers" and "David and Goliath"
Counterpoints brought up by a Quora user Russel Huang, answered on April 7, 2015 Which dropout rate, exactly? Is it: - the proportion of students who declare a STEM major and then do not graduate within X years in that major (out of all students who declared STEM)? (I think this is the 90%, or rather, 10%, figure.) - the proportion of students who declare a STEM major but switch to another major (out of all students who declared STEM)? - the proportion of students who wanted to declare a STEM major when they started college, but eventually don't (out of all students who said they wanted to do so)? (I think this is what Gladwell is trying to get at.) Gladwell's argument appears to be that many of the people who don't go into STEM at Harvard could or would have done so at another university. In other words, he posits that your "chance" of getting a STEM degree isn't based on your absolute ability but rather your relative ability compared to your peer group. He then conflates that with the idea that the relatively-lower ability students are "dropping out" of a STEM field. That's not really what his data shows. All his data shows is that, for whatever reason, people with a 700 Math SAT (or whatever) are less likely to major in a STEM field if they go to Harvard rather than Hartwick.
Continued by the same Quora user Here are some points which I think that overlooks: - Harvard undergrad classes are a manually-selected 8% (or so) of a pool of 30,000+ applicants. They are not chosen to be interested in only getting STEM degrees, but they are selected to be good (as measured by a test) at math even if they eventually decide they're not interested in majoring in it. - Economics is the most popular major at Harvard, but is not usually considered to be a STEM degree. On the order of 200-300 students each year (out of a class of 1,600) graduate with an Ec concentration, and probably a lot of them were in the bottom third of their classes in math ability. I doubt many of them are breaking their parents' hearts--at least, not because their salaries are too low. - People could be making the rational calculation that an English degree from Harvard is just as "monetizable" as a math degree from Hartwick, and is probably easier to get. Anecdotally, I'd say that if you go to Harvard, your choice of major does not stop you in any way from participating in the salmon spawning grounds of recruiting. There are a whole lot of other assumptions in there to criticize, but I don't want to go too far, since I do think that the "relative deprivation" feeling also plays some role in causing the observed phenomenon. However, it's hardly the entire explanation. Gladwell is probably doing that thing he does where he makes the most contrarian argument that can be reasonably defended. It's made him very popular and reasonably rich.
Wow. Very interesting. I can apply this to many things in my life, not just in the classroom - music, athletics, the workplace. And, as we all know, we're hungry for theories that will explain why our lives turned out as they did. Mr. Gladwell is a brilliant man.
Malcolm accepted the invitation to speak at Google b/c he wanted society to hear this message. Google offered him a platform for his message to be heard. I graduated an undergraduate science degree in ‘79. In my first year of study I intuited my marks and class ranking would be inconsequential unless I was in the top 1 percentile upon graduation. That everyone from 99%-50% would be lumped into one large group: “Not First”. Similar to the Olympic Games. One Gold medal equals a corporate endorsement offer, esteem and financial gain. Five silver medals is rewarded with obscurity. 43 years since I was graduated with Honours: here are the numbers to support my position.
This must explain why self taught foreign language students progress way more as opposed to those who attend language classes at some institution or study it at school where they constantly compare their poor pronunciation or vocabulary with some other peer. THAT IS WHY , some kids that went to public schools in Latin America with poor language teachers sometimes end up speaking better English than those who went to bilingual schools that cost a hell lot of money. Even though they were getting better chances to succeed their inferiority in relative terms to their peers and it’s effects on their psyche outpaced the quality of the education they were getting. In Argentina we say or at least I say and assume I heard it from somebody : “Would you rather be a lion ‘s tail or a mouse’s head” The worst of the best or the best of the worst. And might also explain why some people , like elite families in Latin America , having the chances to live a better life somewhere else just choose to don’t do so in order to stay on top of the curve. Why people some people choose to stay in small towns and so on. Hierarchy an it’s effects on the human mind are extremely interesting.
10 лет назад
This explains high school situation. When I changed my lousy high school and go to a private, academically flying high school, I became one of the worst students there. However, when I was at that lousy high school, I was more motivated and "relatively" better.
This is kinda like how the best basketball players I've ever played against end up being the last guy on an NBA bench at BEST and usually end up with no shot at getting in the league at all
I read most of his book and it is only until this week that I got interested to watch his talks. Honestly, I am very pleased to know your work and picking up your brain. Peace
Great observations I had not heard of before. I love the shirt kind of tucked in in front and out in the back. And he does not button the collar buttons down. And the jeans are worn. He is so talented and brilliant, he can do that. In fact, the more brilliant and accomplished you are, the more slovenly you can and should be.
Malcom being malcom in this one. His slight of hand in this one is that a math degree from hartwick is the same product as one from Harvard. Ask a kid from hartwick how his job search is going vs. one from Harvard. Malcom, malcom, malcom. Never change.
Let me share my story , Grown up in an unacademic home , grandma took care of me during early upbringing , basically without a father and mother(2 different nationalities ) right after my 4th birthday , as they took the decision to get separated and part each other way, at that moment I did not realize what that all meant , I continued to attend my basic education , with really good grades in math and languages sometimes at the top of the class I was in , however my performance went abit more south during the end of my high school , unfortunately little by little my performance did not really overall improvement except for highly quantitive subjects during my University degree ( econ major ), I had to stay to stay one more year , I realized bit by bit that it was the drag of the past that in many ways affecting my , and my grandma did not really help me to see and visit back my mother which was a constant pain for me till this day , HOWEVER , I did not give up like others would do , I had to work side by side during my Uni period , and managed to get a good distinction at my bachelor and now I'm moved to other country where I can finish my master degree , but again it is not that easy , but once I get it done -but I have to find a way first to see back and visit my mother -, I will come back to this post and let all the world know that I can still do it , the moral of the story is relative position to peers matters but equally important in my experience , relative position to your external circumstances do matter and how given the lack of the right emotional upbringing can be a huge challenge in itself . Keep it up , you are born to be wild
Three points this presentation brought to my mind . 1. A far more interesting question for Malcolm: Why do so few music students at university drop out even though they might not be very good? 2. You have to prove yourself a genius but once - 3. SAT scores don't tell us much about the whole person.
It's all RELATIVE! D'uh! But seriously, MG's my favourite author ATM & in the current state of the world, this is a highly valid, even vital, discussion.
I've been in Harvard/MIT science labs. In my experience, it has nothing to do with a relative deprivation 'of self', but rather a relative deprivation of focused mentorship / multi-paper publishable projects. Every well-established lab has a ton of core work to do for large grants that keep the lab running but only result in a paper every two or 3 years. For the risky new stuff, timely publications is so important (you don't want to get scooped) that a PI/lab manager will always choose your best students to work on those projects in their "spare time" while everyone else gets stuck 'calibrating the instruments', managing the inventory, or following up on less promising data with theirs.
The outward effect is still a relative deprivation. You will only get enough resources if you are at the top. And the effect is so profound, that if you are in the top 99 percentile of a not highly ranked school, your output will be in the 95 percentile of the highest ranked school. The conclusion therefore is also correct: Go to a school where you will be in the top and you will achieve more (in the institution) than you would if you were to go to a higher ranked school and just be a nobody without any focus on you. It also shows how immense the effect of mentorship and focus on people is. The effect is a lot higher than IQ or any other metrics.
There is a point where intelligence barely matters and only work ethic, discipline and luck determine how you do in school. I am certain that a very small fraction of drop-outs are due to just not being smart enough.
This is a helpful belief because diligence is in our control but intelligence is not. But sadly, there is a limit to this. if you're of average intelligence you could work your way to higher intelligence performance. but not if you're are in the lowest percentages
This is why I always like this guy, breaking it down like a beast! Go on with your bad self, can't wait for his new book, if this is any indication, it's going to be another great read.
Based on experience with child at a prestigious Ivy engineering program - engineering instruction even today is academic hazing rather that academic encouragement. The system and instructors conspire to weed out all but the top of the class even though ALL are superior talents. And, unlike the real world, group success is under-emphasized. Malcolm, you are on the right track.
Brilliant, let me tell my story, being a good student during my Secondary and Higher secondary school, I went to the best Engineering school of Bangladesh, its screening process is very similar of that of IITs for uninitiated people. Stood in the 10 percentile among 10,000 participants that year and maybe among 1 percentile among that year 100K prospective applicant. What I found after admission that how grueling and demanding the courses were, I were not simply ready. I struggled. I didnot study because I didn't fell the urge of studying. I was more into developing video games!!!! I huffed, I puffed...... But when the results start spawning I was near the bottom of my department. And Relative Position came into play. I thought I was not good enough, but I was. I deemed myself worthless on others perceived success. After graduation, top 10 percentile went onto top schools of US to pursue their Phds. Life became difficult, I joined a big organization but when you see your friends working in big labs under eminent professor that hurts. Hurts a lot, I might say. We put our emphasis on wrong places and therefore we might loss on things that are actually more important.
i think i can say i was in a similar situation, in the university there were classes like physics or electronics that i did not like, and in which i had mediocre grades, but there were classes like maths or programming that i did like and where i had very high grades. it reminds me of what Einstein said - "if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid" - i think it matters to excel in what you like and are passionate about and for you to know that you are doing the best possible
Thanks for sharing your own story. I think parents & society should be encouraging you to find the best place for you to succeed versus trying to get into the most prestigious school which might not be right for you personally for any number of reasons. As an example, lets say you could afford a new Porsche 911. That doesn't mean you should buy one again for any number of reasons. With colleges I think the grim reality is that parents pressure their kids to get into the most prestigious school because it makes them look good. Of course they say on the outside it's all for our boy and that is certainly partially true in most cases but there are definitely cases as Gladwell discusses where the student would have been better off at a "lesser" institution and I think parents have got to realise this. To be fair, I think a lot of parents have made the realisation that life isn't about getting into Harvard. But this same logic applies across basically everything in life. Nearly anything in life has things that are seen to be impressive/cool by the crowd and if you operate your life to try to impress everyone you're not likely to fulfil your potential or be very happy/fulfilled. Sorry to go on so long but again thank you for sharing your education story.
i think he has some points. when you think you are smart due to your lack of exposure to smarter people, you are more confident and daring than you would be if you were surrounded by smart people. But by going to lesser competitive schools so you can feel better about yourself is not the same as going to more competitive school and actually fight your path through a train of capable opponents. Of course not everyone has the appetite for an overachieved life. But it prepares you for a "eat or be eaten" world out there.
Solely speaking on what he spoke in regards to kids dropping out of math and science courses. My issue with math and science is that a lot of it is based off of memory and not much understanding. For me, if I don't understand the purpose of something, it will forever be alien to me. I have a hard time seeing the "logic" within those equations.
“This is the first time I have used PowerPoint”...by Microsoft...at a Google conference. LOL. I’m betting it wasn’t PPT. But the nervous laughter in the room was priceless!
Gladwell always seems to marshall interesting and reveaiing perspectives on how things are working. At 17:11 he says something that seems to come out of Nonduality related to the Relative and the Absolute! :) Ha. Talking with Strangers his new book is crammed with these kinds of experiments and insights and review of studies and literature.
I don't think it's about confidence like says- more about structure and incentives. Professors don't want to go at the speed of the bottom 3rd of the class because the top students would get bored, so the less talented kids can't keep up. In any given school, professors take their pick of students and choose the best ones to work with. You don't have to invoke confidence as a mechanism.
You have to account for the quality of the published material. The threshold for submission to the best magazines from the best schools is very, very high. You have to be smart, insanely motivated, believe in what you do with religious zealotry, have an advisor who believes in you, and be lucky enough to have your research work out in order to get published at one of these institutions.
He clearly states that the research accounts points based on the prestige a publication has. Theoretically a journal that has more prestige and is harder to get published in is weighted at a higher score than an easier publication.
Jaxson Goldsdmith theoretically......There has been some pretty awful stuff published in some pretty selective journals. Once the journal publishes your stuff the first time, they stop checking.
Just discovered Google Zeitgeist. The talks look good. Thanks Google. Y'all hit it out of the park, again. Jim Ps. When I think of the cognitive revolution y'all have created... I stand in awe. I'm a rainbow family, mud pit rolling, ex LSD head, so I got a pretty good education on my own but you guys amount to Angles on this Earth; available to everyone, almost for free
I think he was being humorous. I think he's from Toronto. And I wouldn't set much store by those silly THE (or any other) rankings of academic institutions
"At any college, you will always see, regardless of the level of cognitive ability among the students, you will always see the same pattern, The kids who get the science and math degrees are the ones at the top of their class and the kids in the bottom of their class never do." [15% or so in the bottom third do get their degrees. But a strong point anyway.] "We form our self-assessments based on our standing in our immediate circle..."
I hadn't read a book in four years. I picked up Outliers based on a friend's recommendation. I've flown through all of his books, and I'll watch his speeches. The guy knows shit.
Might I point out that, simply getting the more able students to choose 'lesser' colleges will not improve the number of successful graduates overall. The "relative" effect will remain: those who ultimately succeed will still form the same proportion as before.
“Relative deprivation theory”...Rousseau called it “Amor Prope”. The beginnings of civilization and its evils came from comparing ourselves to the next guy. Just learned that in a Harvard Lecture on YT. That’s why I love philosophy. There is really nothing new under the sun. The greats said it much better, and now science is proving their best intuitions.
Yes for sure. And the larger the group and the more complex the sets of intelligences/skills/capacities - the more potential for comparision, hence more potential for negative consequences of comparison
i dont think he is lacking in data science!! most of the data he uses are analyzed by others, but he is wonderful to collect such research papers and build a story around that which makes sense.
The point about publication take into account the number but not the quality, one paper published by MIT is sometimes more important and amusing to read than 20 papers from other lesser universities.
His point isn't the quality of the publications, he was just using it as a measure of student success in the field of economics. If you're getting published at a "crummy" school then you're succeeding whereas the kid at an elite school that isn't getting published probably isn't doing as well.
