“Smart”

Congratulations! You have been accepted to one of the leading innovative engineering universities in the world! Surely, being the type of person to have gotten into your program, you have been called “smart” at some point in your life. And almost surely, being surrounded by hundreds of other students who have also been called “smart” at some point in their lives, you are bound to start to wonder how “smart” you really are. But have you ever stopped to think what “smart” actually means?

I’m going to take the STV 100 route and try to make you think about all of the connotations you have associated to the word and asking a bunch of almost meaningless theoretical questions without actually defining it. Almost everybody would agree Einstein was “smart”. Almost everybody would agree that Tesla was “smart”. Is intelligence definitively linked to knowledge or innovation? Is that student who has memorized a book on statistical thermodynamics and can respond to rhetorical questions the professor asks without any intent of having a student answer during lecture by regurgitating something in the textbook “smart”? Is a student who has no knowledge of calculus but can experiment with COMSOL and invent a concept for a novel microbot “smart”?

All in all that was probably not a very definitive discussion. We are engineering students. We need to agree on a definition before discussing something. Well, Google defines “smart” as “having or showing a quick-witted intelligence”. So what does intelligence mean? Google defines it as “the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills.” Well, doesn’t almost everybody have this ability? If you’ve ever worked as a tutor I’m sure you have discovered that almost anybody can learn anything if they are taught it in a way they can understand it. Perhaps we can interpret having intelligence as simply the ability to understand knowledge given to us in a more “raw” form and the ability to apply that knowledge and make connections in more unique ways? All in all, I guess we could agree that intelligence is an inherently ambiguous term that is usually associated with a high degree of knowledge and the ability to use it in ways that most people wouldn’t think of using it. Or I guess we can just “leave it as an exercise to the reader”.

Anyways, in university, you’ll learn a lot about smart people and being smart. You will first realize that you will eventually lose some part of your identity. Whether it is being the best piano player or the best person at math at your school, most likely you will find somebody here who is better than you here who will take away that part of your identity. But that is quite normal. You’re surrounded by some of the best people in Canada. You have two options: work hard to try to regain that part of your identity (which might be a bit unrealistic depending on the field), or just move on and try your best without letting it get to you. Also, you will learn that in most engineering programs here, unlike every other faculty, your rank in your program will be released, which may help deflate your ego even more. The faculty justifies it as being helpful for students to see where they stand in comparison to their class, to see whether or not they’ll be on the Honours list, or to add to their resume. On the other hand, I personally don’t see how you would feel anything other than crappy for any rank less than 1, or super pressured to keep it up if you are 1 (and the pressure does start getting to you).

You will also learn that some people try to appear a lot smarter than they actually are and that confidence is extremely important. Imagine if you had to pick between two surgeons to perform a surgery on you and you had very little medical knowledge. One surgeon is extremely confident and gives you a very simple and straightforward explanation of what is going on, while the other one appears to lack confidence and gives very ambiguous answers. Most likely you would choose the confident one, even though if you think a little deeper, medicine in reality is extremely ambiguous and the other surgeon might be more trustworthy as they try to give you a more full explanation of your condition. Confidence is extremely important. It is also important to remember not to be scared of people. Be confident and don’t be scared of approaching profs or upper years. They probably don’t have it together any more than you do and talking to them might impart useful knowledge and opportunities.

That being said, also remember not to be a jerk. No matter how smart you think you are, you will eventually come across something in your program you will need help with. For your own good, don’t try to sacrifice passing a course for your ego. Just go to office hours and get help from a prof or TA. Furthermore, remember not to be a jerk to your classmates, because I can guarantee over the course of these five years you will need something from them, and nobody is going to help you if you’re being a jerk to them.

Don’t be scared of your courses and workload or ever think that “I can’t do this” or “I’m not cut out for this”. I learned in first year that a lot of the barriers I thought were placed on me by others or were there due to the limits of my mental capabilities were really just placed there by myself. I had convinced myself before coming here that I would never be able to learn programming because it was too complicated and syntax was confusing. Now after first year I have umm… let’s just say “exploited loopholes”, designed metasurfaces using programming, and basically use MATLAB almost every single day.

So remember, don’t be scared of university, don’t think you aren’t cut out for your program, don’t be a jerk, and don’t be scared of other people. And remember to always make time for fun. You’re gonna be here for five years, so you might as well enjoy yourself!