To wonder how smart do you actually have to be for some professions?

[Jigaliga]

Inspired by a comment on another thread...

Do you really have to be genuinely intelligent to be a doctor, lawyer, etc? Or is it just putting in the grind and a good education?

I guess to be an academic you would have to be intelligent. To be a barrister too, but maybe not to be a solicitor? What about accountants?

of course you have to have a modicum of intelligence op

you also have to have the ability to see things thru ie training - education at uni - more work place training - the ability to listen and not make a drama out of something ordinary

I’m confused about your question about accountants, solicitors and barristers

Have you seen our government? Not very intellectual at all apparently.

Depends what you mean by smart. You can't pass school, university and professional exams by hard work alone. You need a good memory, quick brain and the ability to understand increasingly complex concepts. In professional life you also need good written and interpersonal communication skills, common sense and a good work ethic. These qualities are not that common.

R u sure they are unintelligent or just so up their own bottoms they have lost all sense of reality

I am intelligent but academically lazy. My sister is intelligent with a thirst for learning and she is the lawyer in the family. Am sure you need to be intelligent to do well at that kind of job, let alone qualify in the first place. Could I have studied for a job like that? Potentially, but would I have tried? Never.

I’m not sure why you think an academic needs to be any smarter than a doctor or a lawyer?

I also don’t know why you think a barrister needs to be any smarter than a solicitor?

Why do you think these things?

In my experience of these professions, if you’ve had a privileged upbringing (private school or very good state school, private tutoring, wealthy parents, etc), it’s very easy to do these things with roughly average intelligence. It’s very easy to buy the ability to do exams, and very easy to buy the ability to do applications and interviews.

If you’ve not had a remotely privileged upbringing (care leaver, poor state school, etc) then you need to be extremely intelligent to overcome the huge gap in advantage.

It’s also worth considering that there’s huge difference within these roles - a partner at a magic circle firm is likely to be far more intelligent than one at a local high street firm, and a more recently qualified solicitor is likely to more intelligent than one who qualified 40 years ago because the profession has become more competitive and, 40 years ago, it was easier for dumb people to buy their way in. The same applies to all the other professions you’ve mentioned - an Oxford academic isn’t the same as one from the University of Hull, a local accountant isn’t the same as someone at the Big 4, a top London chambers isn’t the same as your local…

Basically, yes you need to be intelligent but also prepared to work hard. I do think though that as a pp said, we've come to think "intelligent" must only mean absolute top drawer, straight As people, but actually solid grades at each stage is more than enough for most jobs....the issue is at the other end if some of the illiterate, frankly terrifying FB posts I sometimes read are anything to go by. Absolutely zero comprehension skills, critical thinking, awareness of nuance or bias, two dimensional, limited interest in understanding. And a large proportion of those will be in work, making decisions and probably voting. Sound bites and scrolling have doomed a large proportion of people to never develop an attention span long enough to really think and absorb anything. A level students I teach now can't imagine reading a 3-4 side article. They scan it for the answers and frequently struggle to find them.

Within those professionals you mention there are excellent people and those who scraped through after failing and resitting many exams.

Privilege and connections are more important that smart.

Ha! I did not have a privileged background but because I went through schooling in the early 00s there was the ability to support me and so I got to university despite significant unrecognised learning differences. Once there I worked my socks off and I've never looked back. Its only in my 40s that I look that the people I graduated with and realise (despite being top 5% apparently) they are absolutely thick. I would not consider myself clever previously but now I am realising I actually am. Doesn't mean I can't also be very very stupid mind .
I get very annoyed now when people who are supposed to be clever can't learn or keep up with me but I also suspect that's perimenopause.
Unfortunately my children are also very clever but very very behind in a system that is working against them. I suspect they won't fly until they are in their 20s.

Depends on what exactly your job is.

I’d argue that some PAs are more intelligent than the average solicitor. Most people in those professions aren’t actually intelligent in the sense of critical thinking or logic but book smart - which still makes them intelligent, just not the sort of intelligence I would necessarily hold in high regard.

One of the best Ambassadors I’ve work with doesn’t have a degree and is not academic. But they are the best at what they do - because they can read a work, understand people and make logical conclusions from limited information.

You can teach yourself to be academic (very often anyway), but the sort of intelligence that ambassador has, or a good PA has, can’t be taught.

DS is a lawyer. State school education. Comp, not grammer. Earning six figures and still in his 20s.Me and DH both went to our local comprehensive schools, then into work. DS got to where he is by being basically intelligent, but mainly by working very hard at school and uni. He also loved learning, still does. I would say that dd is inherently more intelligent. Super clever, just "gets stuff" really quickly. She got the same grades at A levels as DS, but didn't have to work as hard as DS to do so. She's also doing really well in her chosen career. She'll really fly when she decides she wants to.

You have to be hard working, intelligent, a problem solver, tenacious, have business acumen and be good with people to be a self employed electrician or plumber. Or to do well self employed in any of the trades.

I have meant many many doctors over the years and while some are obviously very intelligent many really don’t seem to be. You obviously have to be good at passing exams at school and uni but you don’t have to have an awful lot of sense. I’ve met many and thought, how did you end up here?

Strongly disagree. Connections get you through the door, but once in you've got to back it up!

I’m an academic and wouldn’t consider myself super intelligent.
I’ve always worked hard and I obviously know my subject very well but I’m certainly no genius!!

I’ve progressed and been promoted over my more intelligent colleagues due to my work ethic, people skills and ability to see the bigger picture.

I also possess a decent amount of common sense which some of my super intelligent academic colleagues sometimes lack!

I think you are agreeing in part. If you don't get through the door in the first place you have no hope in hell of proceeding.

Interesting how many people on quiz shows with vast amounts of general knowledge give their profession as taxi driver.

Meanwhile I once heard my friend with PhD ponder the methods used to train fleas for flea circuses.

Those people mostly aren’t qualified professionals.

Of course but it’s not that hard is my point

Fewer have been to private schools- Boris studied the classics at school and then at university - didn’t make him an ideal PM

Honestly I've come across some people so fucking incompetent my complaint stated if I did my minimum wage job this poorly I wouldn't have one

Examples would include getting a sen setting for ds
Requirements are for a non aggressive (important!) Autistic child with a learning delay local school is a must due to other issues
Offered a school thirty miles away specifically coded for violent and aggressive children (I said no)
Offered a school 20 miles away for children who cannot access education (ones that don't have much of a chance in education farm based play no real education) (I said no)
Ignored for 6 months (I complained)
Offered mainstream (we all said no)
Another complaint (she went on holiday)
Upon her return we all got very specific LOCAL sen school education based she proceeds to consult with education based sen schools 30 miles away 20 miles away fuck knows how far away I said no I literally have one down the road his friends are all going too perfect for him she came back with another thirty miles away FUCKS SAKE more complaints she went on holiday ds has no school place still and she is just fucking around she then comes back and names a school presents it too me job done.....im looking at it before I approve anything I drive up the school is great they said she should have consulted with them 12 months prior because they had spaces however they can squeeze him in and think he will be a good fit he was and is getting on great it's not local though so they have to pay for transport

Just one example of many on how the fuck do you get and KEEP your very well paid job

I strongly, strongly disagree with you - and so do the numbers. The single most correlating factor with income is connections to high earners.

I work in one of the jobs that OP is talking about and all the least intelligent people I work with have connections. It’s not about getting you in the door, it’s about getting you ahead on what to say so it sounds like you know what you’re doing.

Consider a plumber who knows everything about how your plumbing works. Everything. Can figure out a problem in an instant, can fix it just as quick. But, he was completely self-taught due to a lack of connections so called pipes “tubes” and calls taps “dribblers”. No one would hire this guy over the plumber who is pretty shit but sounds the part. And, even once hired, pretty shit isn’t bad enough to sack or kick off about (especially when 90% of the others on the team are also pretty shit). Tubes and Dribblers plumber doesn’t even get the chance to prove he’s a better plumber. It doesn’t take any intelligence to use the right words in an interview - it takes having a connection and an upbringing where that happened. This is how 99% of barristers, solicitors, doctors, accountants, etc are chosen - on sounding the part regardless of substance.

On top of that, people hire people like themselves, they retain people like themselves and they give the benefit of the doubt to people like themselves. They say they’re prioritising “people skills” when they mean they’re prioritising people they like talking to. So, if you don’t know how to ski or what chateau neuf du pape is then you’ll struggle to get into certain fields. The whole “he’s the kind of guy we could put in front of a client” is a huge part of the process for any professional services role - and they assume the client is a wealthy, white, privately educated, straight man.

I know doctors who lack some common sense & emotional intelligence. You definitely have to be academic though.

Have you seen our government? Not very intellectual at all apparently.

And there's that!

A combination of a few things- privilege, hard work and connections combined with calm supportive home life can also get some people top jobs.

My DH didn't get his A level grade to get into his chosen uni. His private school teacher called up the uni, told them about him and voila he got his place. My state school teacher wouldn't not have done that. This was over 30 years ago but even now connections gets you places. It happens all the time for everything!