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Originally Posted by withchemicals
Sorry, but that's an overly simplistic view of physicians. Most practicing physicians have clinical, laboratory, and lecture hall duties. Although I agree with your general idea (read above), your example isn't representative of actual doctors. A lot of people enter the field with the intent to gain money or sometimes pure love for knowledge, but most of the former gets filtered out in their undergraduate years, anyway.
Short and sweet, you can be an intellectual overachiever or an overachiever who simply wants to "make the grade". Between those two, the former is preferable. Nonetheless, an overachiever always dwarfs an underachiever, even if the underachiever claims to have talent but doesn't bother to use it.
In high school, I noticed a lot of people who always claimed, "I can be smart and bright but I just don't feel like it." Either that or they just said they hated school. They always said that someday, they'll be just like every other hard-working student and earn good grades. It's just that for the time being, they had to indulge themselves in meaningless short-term thrills. They were too busy wasting their precious days over nothing. No matter how old they were, they always continued claiming that they haven't woken up yet or haven't found motivation to succeed. The thing is that they'll always keep continue telling themselves that until they age and later realize that the only thing that could have brought a change was themselves. They were too busy waiting for it to be spoon-fed to their mouths.
However, what's the point if you have no discipline and focus? One of the main purposes of pre-university education is to weed out the students who have no discipline. I'm tired of people claiming to be lazy geniuses; lazy geniuses do exist, but it's no use when there are hard-working geniuses in the pool as well.
Of course, there are also people who don't care for academia at all. They are admirable as they at least know what they want. It's a prettier sight when you see someone who runs his or her own little cute café or restaurant but at least enjoys his or her work. I believe a lot of people feel pressured to forcefully pursue higher education because everyone else is entering universities too. However, school is not the thing for everyone.
And can we please stop referencing to Noam Chomsky? It's as old, jaded, and cliché as using Bill Gates or Albert Einstein (although they were great people).  |
You are right that I oversimplified things, but the point still stands. There are a group of private medical students who go into specialties like Dermatology and Radiology only to make money. If you look at match stats for the last couple of years, these are two of the most desired specialties. They don't want do research or teach, but simply enter those specialties because they pay the most money for relatively less work compared to say becoming a neurosurgeon.
I think becoming a professor with a MD is one of the best jobs you can do. You become embedded in an academic setting, teach others, and do research. Research allows one to create and discover instead of letting others do it for you. You start making an impact in society, instead of just living in it. This is of course the path I am taking, so I am a little biased.
Finally, I agree with the rest of your post. I will just add that doing well in school isn't everything. If anything, school becomes kind of a distraction in someways after you reach a certain level. But people who chose to be lazy aren't looking too far down the road in my opinion. The most valued people in society aren't those who make the most money, but those who contribute the most to society. I think the US has sort of skewed the importance of education in many ways. Sadly, it is contributing to a bad environment for this nation will end up haunting us. This is of course why I am giving people the option to look into other countries in the future.