Star pupil at school - underachiever adult

[BrainInAJar]

Hello

I saw something on another thread that resonated with me. It said lots of kids are great at school but falter as adults.

My parents came from humble beginnings and they and my grandparents really emphasised education and "Getting A Good Job" as the key to life and doing better than they had (they had few options growing up). They assured me all I would need to do is "Study Hard" and "Pass All of My Exams".

I was one of the star pupils all the way through (private) school and supposedly destined for great things. But when I got to uni (top uni, very popular course) I was average on a good day. I went into a profession but have never set the world alight and am now probably underachieving. I've tried a few roles and am now just coasting in a comfortable one.

I suspect part of it is I never learned about the importance of extra curricular activities (I always focused on exams) and networking. (My profession is a bit "old boys' club") I think I did better in school where there was a structure and set expectations. And you didn't need to "know" anyone to get good (exam) results.

My personality is perhaps much too eccentric and introverted to be ruthlessly networking and ambitious.

I feel like I peaked at age 16! (I'm now early 40s).

Having said all that, I'm long past WANTING to work 80hours a week for a 6 fig salary but it's interesting to see folk who did crap at school now long since passing me in "success".

Anyone similar?

But when I got to uni (top uni, very popular course) I was average on a good day.

Well. Yes. That would have been the case for most people. That's what average means.

And it's also commonly the case that people who were the big fish in a small pond struggle with the adjustment when they find themselves as one of many small fishes in a big pond where coming out top no longer comes easily.

I.e. most people in a cohort at a popular "top uni" that's creamed off all the most capable students from across the country!

It's a shame that you've let what should have been an ordinary adjustment and recalibration process dent your self-esteem and identity.

Maybe it's time to reframe it and stop giving yourself such an undeservedly hard time.

Also a lawyer! Top of the class all the way through. Smashed exams with minimal effort. I reckon I probably picked the wrong uni course and loathed it with a passion (when I say picked I mean ‘got railroaded’) but still did fairly well and was offered a lot of opportunities; weirdly I didn’t feel worthy and took an average job. Felt that was a better fit, am not a public school boy or a great talker of the talk. Also graduated very young and come from a working class background.

In retrospect, I also thought because I wasn’t ‘the best’ anymore I wasn’t worthwhile. Fairly unhealthy.

Brief resurgence of attainment on a Masters in my thirties, which indicates to me I’m good at exams and that’s where I can best focus my efforts. The rest of the time, I sit and wonder where other people get their confidence. Probably need therapy😂

I think a surprising number of people feel like this, and oddly lots of us are solicitors. To me it seems a combination of things-

• Underestimating your adult achievements. I also see myself as having a fairly run of the mill career but that's partly because I take for granted things like the fact that all my colleagues are hugely high achievers, we're all paid very well and have responsible and challenging jobs- that's as a fairly average solicitor working in the City. Everyone I work with was probably the cleverest kid in their school.
• Slightly unrealistic expectations due to being told I was clever a lot- a feeling that I was a bit special and different rather than just a bit better at a narrow range of cognitive tasks than the next kid.
• Over-identifying with cleverness as My Thing rather than seeing it as simply one aspect of myself.
• Possibly, failure to develop adequate internal motivation and a growth mindset due to being called clever a lot- a perception that success is down to what you are, not what you do, and what you are cannot be changed.

My tips- start valuing what you have achieved, start valuing your qualities other than cleverness (the people who love you don't love you just because you're clever), find a hobby that allows you to enjoy your lovely brain without relating its capabilities to your self-worth, do things where there are no rewards without effort, like learning to play an instrument.

I am a lot like this. Another solicitor too. Interesting trend

You sound exactly like me. I went part time as soon as I could!

I like learning for its own sake but have no ambition at work. It's just a means to an end. I do rather envy people who have a passion for their job. I also don't like socialising or networking at work.

The friend at school who did academically the worst, and went to a poor university to do a typically badly thought of subject, is by far the most successful of us all now. Loves their job. And excellent at networking. Very extrovert.

I think the legal profession is particularly unfair and women are held back from the top jobs unless they make significant sacrifices. It's hard to accept not making it to the top rung on the ladder and watching less capable men rise to the top.

I heartily agree! I've no desire to do what's necessary to become senior management at my company - the jobs look boring as hell and you have to network and schmooz unlikeable people. Not for me!

I am very grateful that I had the intelligence and social capital that allowed me to get to this position. I coasted at school and did well, was very talented at writing, but now never write. I don't enjoy it. I do work with writers though, and know that I couldn't manage the level of self-promotion they have to do.

I'm similar I think. I coasted and enjoyed the things I was good at. There were enough of them that I could avoid the things I found difficult/didn't enjoy. I didn't earn the praise I got and never envisaged achieving in adult life. I don't know if I'm scared of trying and failing or if I'm just lazy but I have no ambition.

I was fairly good at school passed exams and got a degree, had several different office jobs where I was bored silly.
Since being a SAHM for a while and doing various part time jobs, I have realised that I prefer the sort of jobs that evolve physical activity, cooking, gardening, childcare. Unfortunately these sorts of things are not very well paid

I don’t think that the point of doing well at school is to fly high as an adult. I think it’s to give yourself as many options as you can. I encourage (maybe push) my kids to do their best at school, do their homework, study for exams, get the highest grades they can etc. But it’s not so they can become top lawyers, doctors, rocket scientists or whatever. It’s so they can have options.

As adults they can then choose to keep pushing themselves and have a high flying careers, or they can work well within their comfort zone and prioritise other things.

Happiness and fulfilment is the most important thing.

The trouble is schools don’t do enough to ‘match make’ students to careers that will suit them.

Schools can’t assess the wider job market or keep up with ever changing economic conditions. When I was a sixth former back in the mid 80s, university was still very much seen as the golden ticket; job market downturns hadn’t yet started to hit graduates as hard as it would in the early 90s. I wasted a lot of time in 1991-2 chasing applications through the Guardian media pages, for the sort of jobs in publishing that were mostly filled by ‘Sloane Ranger’ types working for pocket money.

I did a couple of those questionnaires that were meant to tell you what career you’d be suited to. One came up with no good matches (too many ‘don’t know’ or ‘don’t mind’ answers, I was told) and the other said yes, carry on with library work, writing short stories and trying for jobs in publishing, along with all the other 14078965567 graduates applying, sorry, ‘following the dream’.

I also peaked at 16. I comfort myself with the thought that I did better than DH who claims he peaked at 9.
It's interesting. 11yo DS who is quite bright but not "school shaped" as it were and so struggled at school. I watch him work the room at a kid's bday party or whatever realise he'll go far. He just seems to know everyone. I have no idea how as, until very recently, all socialising was essentially arranged by me.

@BreakfastAtMilliways yes but in this case going into law as someone who is a bookworm and not outgoing, the outcome could have been predicted. This individual should have been directed towards something where being very expert in something obscure would be enough for high level success. Though tbh it sounds like the OP is doing just fine where she is, it’s just she might have been happier/more successful in another area.

This is so very me. I was top of the class at school, good degree, went into one of the big firms and a) hated it b) was very average. I left and changed career and am now middle management/ mediocre at that too. It’s the people and all the bullshit that I can’t / don’t want to deal with. I can’t work out what I really should have done for a living to be successful as all jobs seem to I love people and their bullshit. I also highly suspect I am autistic (my daughter has just been diagnosed so have only very latterly realised and I am mid 40s now).

My bf was a high achiever- A* student, outstanding dancer (considered auditioning for Royal Ballet) talented actress, popular, beautiful. She had it all.

But after school she floundered, didn't know what she wanted to do, she ended up becoming a teacher, struggled massively with her mental health and became a TA instead.

Which is fine but to her felt like a failure because there was always this pressure to be something amazing

I was a high achiever at school (ok, actually some of the top results by subject nationwide - they send you a special letter from the exam board!).

I'm happy with my level of achievement in life, but I'm by no means the most successful post school. So many other things affect that, including drive and work preference.

Which is why I hate people saying that top performers at school don't need celebrating because they'll be successful later. Not in my experience - not to the extent that they don't deserve any credit at school!

Also I think a lot of us are being too hard on ourselves. Structural and institutional sexism very much still exists in the job market and just because direct discrimination is outlawed doesn’t mean we don’t encounter a glass ceiling. Whether it’s because the qualities that make you suitable for promotion also make you unsuitable for being female in some people’s eyes (and hence ‘unemployable’) or because the outside demands of (unstaffed) family life are completely incompatible with high office, it barely matters.

In my case, I have also realised that a hearing loss I have lived with since birth, technically ‘mild to moderate’, has always affected my ability to converse with others easily, and their reactions to me. Phone conversations demand huge reserves of concentration. That’s without including straight discrimination from others. I guess I’m just lucky to be employed.

Yep, also me. I'm not a top 1%er, but I was a probably a top 5%er, got good a-levels and did law at uni. Then tossed it off at uni and got a 2:2. So probs peaked at 18! 🤦🏼‍♀️🤣

Decided law was too much like hard work, and retrained, including doing an MSc, and have a professional job, but after years of stagnation, probably due to going part time and having kids, now am just coasting along again. Have no interest in progressing, am quite happy doing my bit and logging off at the end of every day. I'm lucky in that my DH is probably the opposite and a high earner, and maybe if I was less financially comfortable it'd push me on more. But I have 2 kids to look after as well as working, and a husband with a really demanding job.

I feel like I've found my tribe. 🤣

I really want to burst the bubble here but a lot of these posts sound a bit whiney. I work in education in the state sector. Sometimes when a class is very weak and you have one person that's bright they can then think that they're smarter than they actually are. Also, smartness isn't just about results and exams.

What questions is a child asking? How do they relate to others? Where have they pushed the boundary of their comprehension and understanding? And pushed themselves to be better?

There are less children like this than you think and this is what translates to successful adults. At the end of the day there aren't that many people thar really "set the world on fire".

What shouting out at me here is not the fact that some people think they have 'underachieved' but they have not fulfilled their potential, because they are women. And despite so much progress, we've been banging our heads against the glass ceiling.

All of you that feel you have disappointed themselves need to be a little bit more proud of yourselves. And stop blaming yourselves. Society still doesn't value intelligent women.

Ooh. I don't feel so bad now. I went to uni too young (just turned 17) and enjoyed myself too much being away from home and fairly strict parents. Could have got a better degree if I'd bothered to work harder but wasn't disciplined enough and partied too much. Same when I went to Law College.

I really wanted to study history and politics but felt I would have more chance of a decent job if I did law. Certainly haven't ended up where I imagined but some of that is life circumstances rather than my degree and employment choices.

Interesting that there are so many lawyers amongst us.

I know that a lot of the very high achievers in school struggled a bit when in university, so it probably is a reasonably common thing. I think also the people who do really well in school results can often get routed into a career path too early, so law or medicine or similar. Once you've put in all that work to get your qualification it's very difficult to consider giving up and finding something else because you don't like it.

I don't think that you've underachieved, you have a work/life balance. Just because other people thought you would have a 'brilliant' career doesn't mean that a brilliant career would be a thing that you would want.

I coasted through school doing just enough to get decent exam results (not top level). I went to university, didn't like my choice so changed subject and did first year again and actually went through to graduation with that. Similar in the job market, drifted around trying different things until I found something that suited me really well (statistics/data analysis) and continued to do enough to keep everyone happy but not kill myself with work.

It's not what you know.....its who you know. I've worked for bosses who are thick as a plank.

I don't think I reached my potential at all. That's because I never bought into the rat race mentality and set out to see how much money I could earn. I'm not loaded, but I'm comfortable enough , Im happy with my work life balance and was drawn more to careers where helping others is more important than getting rich. I know school mates ( also a private school ) who weren't especially stand out bright who have gone on to get loaded in business or finance and also prominent in politics , which is quite strange seeing them on TV! I don't regret a thing.

I could have written this post. Except that I don’t have a good job like you (long story but basically DH had an extremely demanding job when the kids were younger and I wanted to be around for them; then had a slight change of financial circumstances a few years ago so could opt to take any job I wanted rather than staying somewhere I was unhappy.)

I just wasn’t that ambitious and wasn’t “gobby” enough when I was younger. Don’t like people blowing their own trumpet so I don’t do it myself And realised quite early on that a lot of workplaces are all about the politics, and to get on it’s about who you know, getting your rep known, bullshit bingo meetings, always being overly positive about new initiatives which bosses introduce (even if inside your head a voice is screaming “that’s shit, we’ve tried it before and it didn’t work that time either.” Etc etc.) I just can’t be bothered with having to fake it basically. Not great at decision-making either cos I dither over what is the right thing to do.

I’ve said that it before on here but if I had to go to a school reunion I think people that knew me in school would get a shock that I’m not with the Diplomatic service or something 😆