Intellectuality census

[Suistar]

I don't think we've had one of these in a while, so... (Please correct me if we have.)

This is mostly demographics, but I'm also quite interested in how many people classify themselves as intellectual - I know people with university degrees that wouldn't, and people without degrees that would.

I've tried to keep the educational levels broad and hopefully suitably international, but if you'd like to see more options added, please hit comment before you vote "Other"!

[allrightalready]

i love learning and try to gain something new every day but i never managed a university degree because i simply fit so poorly into systems

[LaMaestra]

Yes, I consider myself intellectual.

My highest qualification is a professional one (RSA in Business Administration and RSA with distinction in Typing).

No, I am not planning to gain another qualification.

I love all things intellectual. The bulk of my personal library is non fiction and I love debate and intellectual conversation. If I was into dating and relationships, my man would have to be my intellectual equal or even my intellectual superior.

[Myssterry]

Don't consider myself an intellectual, but I would like to think I have some creative intelligence.

[Scottthespy]

I call myself a 'pseudo intellectual', something of an armchair philosopher. Deep thinking is a light hobby, not something I'm drawn deeply into. I like a good debate but not enough to join a club. I lack any sort of structure to my learning, and preffer to simply browse around, find an interesting sounding article or paper, and check/ponder the validity of the ideas proposed. My grandma once called me a veritable font of useless information, and the habit just sort of stuck.

[AgentKEW]

I consider myself highly intellectual, and my friends and family tend to agree. I've been reading college-level books since fourth grade, and I spend most of my free time researching things like psychology and philosophy. (I'm not even kidding, that stuff is ridiculously interesting. Humans are so strange, and I'm including myself in that statement.) I have this irritating tendency to use larger words when a small one would do just fine--it's easier to avoid when I'm writing, but it happens anyway sometimes--and I get really impatient when whomever I'm talking to can't keep up, which, come to think of it, is a bad habit that I ought to kick.

Thing is, though, I'm practically failing high school because I'm so bored I quit doing my work. Like, I sit and read all day, though I do the tests and quizzes, but I completely ignore the worksheets and stuff. It's not worth my time.

[Copper]

I have a high school diploma and am in college to get at least a bachelors, though I will probably get a higher degree than that eventually. I don't know if I would consider myself an intellectual though. I do prefer deep conversations to idle chit chat, but those deep conversations can be about almost anything. I love to learn new things, but I'm never serious enough with any topic to take more in depth classes or join clubs.

[Skycaptain]

I'm a bit weird here. As a child I was a member of the "National Association for Gifted Children ", but I had no academic inclination. I went to university but failed at the end of year two. It is possible that I may have a weird genetic condition that meant I had a fourteen year old mind in an eighteen year old body, but that is TBA. At the moment I have no plans for further advancement due to home and mortgage etc.

[LaMaestra]

As I said, earlier, I am intellectual.

I still can't bloody win at chess though!

[deltaX]

Hmmm, this is an interesting survey. I suppose I can be intellectual sometimes, but I don't really consider it to be a major quality of mine. I'm currently in my bachelor's level at college, planing to go on to grad school and get a doctorate in computer science.

[Sally]

I'm an intellectual-without-portfolio: no university degree and never had a "professional" job. I wish I'd done that when I was younger as I'd have more funds for retirement now, but non-professional jobs did allow me more unfettered thinking time, which is what I've always valued most.

[GoosePeelings]

I wouldn't call myself an intellectual, honestly.

[Prairie]

I used to be more intellectual but realized that it was mostly used to avoid deep emotional stuff. Now I approach thinking as one of many responses I can use.

[Frac]

I call myself a 'pseudo intellectual', something of an armchair philosopher. Deep thinking is a light hobby, not something I'm drawn deeply into. I like a good debate but not enough to join a club. I lack any sort of structure to my learning, and preffer to simply browse around, find an interesting sounding article or paper, and check/ponder the validity of the ideas proposed. My grandma once called me a veritable font of useless information, and the habit just sort of stuck.

Fellow wannabe here. I hate school, but like to read and argue about stuff in my free time, because it's fun. I'm officially part of the cancer that is killing internet debates, because I don't really even agree with the opinion that I'm defending half of the time. It's just a game for me, unless I do it in order to form an opinion of my own.

[Grumpy Alien]

I ain't learn good

[kelico]

I would consider myself intellectual, I guess...because I really do love learning, and I did well in school. But I'm certainly not a genius, and I'm not sure if others would describe me as "intellectual." Smart, probably. *shrugs* Lol. I graduated university with a Bachelor's degree, and I'm not pursuing any further qualifications, though I've take some online courses for some improvement. : )

[helana12_03]

Do you consider yourself intellectual?

Sometimes (when needed), but in reality I'm not an intellectual.

What is your highest educational qualification?

University degree (Bachelor's or Master's)

Are you planning to obtain a higher qualification than the one you ticked above?

No

Absolutely not!

[Prairie]

I think of being intellectual as using abstract thinking, logic, reductionism, basically things detached from oneself as a person, the kinds of things that can be described clearly with words. This is distinguished from using intuition, emotions, other unfocused ways of approaching things that involve connection with one's body and experiences. Also separate from perhaps an action-oriented approach of just doing things, seeing how they go, then adjusting.

[DigitalBookDust]

I consider myself an intellectual. B.A. in Classics, M.A. in Philosophy. I regularly read books, articles, and watch documentaries on science, philosophy, math, and history, in addition to reading an enormous amount of fiction. I have a nice collection of geeky t-shirts, including several featuring Shrodinger's cat. :)

[Suistar]

Umm... I didn't answer your question, did I? Please define intellectual and I'll answer your question.

I wanted it to be whatever 'intellectual' means to you :) That is, whatever you mean by intellectual, do you consider yourself to be in that category?

I'm an intellectual-without-portfolio: no university degree and never had a "professional" job. I wish I'd done that when I was younger as I'd have more funds for retirement now, but non-professional jobs did allow me more unfettered thinking time, which is what I've always valued most.

I enjoy intellectual pursuits and by nature I'm a curious person who loves learning, but does that make me "an intellectual"? Seems like the concept is very subjective.

As far as formal education... that's a tough subject for me to discuss, and one about which I find it shameful to be honest sometimes. As a child, I breezed through school with minimal effort and was part of a special class for "gifted" kids at one point. From a young age, I'd had mental health issues, but they didn't really begin to interfere with my functionality until my mid-teens. I was the stereotypical overachiever in many ways, and extremely perfectionistic, and around the age of 15, school and social stress began overwhelming me (I never connected with my peers very well and my teen years were particularly unhappy), and I let myself slip completely into my depression and eating disorder. First I dropped activities like sports and music, I wouldn't go to school at all for one semester and was home-schooled, and then I attempted to go back... but it was awful. I started cutting classes that I didn't like or that really stressed me out (and spent the time walking around town on my own), I kept completely to myself, all my marks started dropping drastically, and at some point I just decided that if I wasn't giving it my all anymore, there was no point in being there. I preferred the idea of dropping out over letting my 90s become 50s and 60s, so that's what I did. I was too depressed to care, the atmosphere at school literally frightened me, and having an eating disorder was like a full-time occupation by that point. And that's where my education ended pretty much, other than I took a couple courses through an adult education centre, where my aunt worked, a few years later. I feel like the family failure; everyone on my dad's side at least has done pretty well for themselves and they're all smart and I'm like, "Yay, I got out of bed and showered today..." I've been on disability assistance for a decade.

I once had so many ideas about what I wanted to do with my life and what my educational goals were. I intended to study journalism (and maybe do a double major) and wanted to work in public radio... but life didn't work out that way. I don't really know what lies in my future; I'm 30 now and my mental health is still terrible and so is my physical health now as well. I'd like to do more, to achieve something... but I guess we'll see.

It's something I've seen often enough but I still find it impressive how little intelligence / being intellectual / ... correlates with school grades and achievement. (Yet somehow we still think it should.) School is basically a system which you can do well at, or game, or not bother to do, or fail at completely, regardless of your IQ / intellect / interest / ability to grasp things / ...

Let alone when you factor learning disorders and mental health into the whole equation.

[Jockey]

I am an intellectual because I like to understand things.

College did not much help with that, and I consider my time in college to have mostly hindered my pursuit of knowledge, although as many as half may have furthered my education in a more useful way.

[Unwitnessed]

I got my first Bachelor of Science in Mathematics and Statistics, after which I got a second B.Sc. in Earth and Environmental Science in the year following. I'm currently getting my post-graduate certificate in Geospatial Analysis and will be finished in about a month. While education might be the socially accepted measure of intellect, I think you might have expanded the accuracy of your results by taking into account other measure of intellect as well such as IQ and EQ. There are many people who simply test poorly in standardized testing environments that will fall through the cracks with your current questionnaire.

[Corretto]

I used to think I was pretty smart. But the only thing I can remember from my school days was "he's got it, but never uses it".

My BPD diagnosis only confirms I'm a bit 'thick'.

[Sally]

Being an intellectual has nothing to do with either education or intelligence. I think it could be briefly described as being interested in ideas.

[Suistar]

While education might be the socially accepted measure of intellect, I think you might have expanded the accuracy of your results by taking into account other measure of intellect as well such as IQ and EQ. There are many people who simply test poorly in standardized testing environments that will fall through the cracks with your current questionnaire.

Hm, I don't know how many people know their own IQ and EQ. I for one did have my IQ tested as a child, as it happens, but it tends to change between childhood and adulthood anyway so that's not very accurate. And I've never had my EQ tested, personally...

Also, I'd be inclined to say that IQ is another standardized testing environment where some people will fall through the cracks ;)

Besides gathering data on how many people consider themselves intellectual / how many have what qualification, I'm also thinking this questionnaire might highlight that the two don't correlate :) A third questionnaire could maybe establish whether school grades and IQ correlate or not!

[Literary X]

I consider myself an intellectual, and I am currently pursuing a Bachelor's degree in Early Childhood Education.

My grandma calls me a walking encyclopedia, but I believe my knowledge has less to do with intelligence and more to do with my freakish memorization ability.

[Suistar]

Also, I'd be inclined to say that IQ is another standardized testing environment where some people will fall through the cracks ;)

I fully agree. I've always thought that IQ tests catered to a very specific type of intelligence. I don't think they're totally useless, but they're not very inclusive.

If I recall correctly, there's a rational, a simple mathematical, and a linguistic part in it, but I think the rational part dominates, so perhaps it should be renamed RIQ (Rational Intelligence Quotient) :)

[SecondMoon]

I can't quite answer with the options, so I'll write in:

1. I can't say I'm certain of what intellectual means. I do think I get the spirit of the word, though, and I can come up with some ideas for defining points. Hence, I sort of think about myself that way sometimes. Other times I feel pretty confident that I'm the world's biggest idiot and though it may be possible for an idiot to also be an intellectual (depending on how you define it...), I'm not comfortable putting the two together.

2. High/secondary school

3. I might be right now (?), but I think I may have dropped out. Not sure yet. So, yes and no--I'm in a kind of education limbo.

[Happy Kitty]

I love learning, so I'm definitely an intellectual.

I have a bachelor's degree (in international studies) and a master's degree (in computer science). In the fall, I'll be taking my first course to get my PhD (in computer science).

[noparlpf]

I don't really consider myself "intellectual," maybe because it sounds kinda pretentious or maybe because I spend most of my time wasting my time on cartoons or games.

I finished a BSci in biology with a minor in chemistry when I was 19. I'm working on getting into vet school now.