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?

Obviously some jobs require high level qualifications (doctorate, medical degrees, the bar) that need a certain level of ability and intelligence. Having said that, this doesn’t necessarily equate to genius or even interpersonal competence and I have met doctors and lawyers who were not particularly smart on the surface though I admit they must be intelligent to some level.

That's quite tautological reasoning, though - "the top of law" as you define "the top" in that statement literally means the top earners. The most intelligent guy on my law cohort, by miles, went into academia and was a full professor by 40. He'll be earning about £75-80k. On the other hand, his legal advice around torture has been globally praised and has literally saved lives.

To get on the degree courses you need to have the relevant qualifications, so they are clearly not thick as mince ,
You may not agree with the sentences some criminals reccive but the judges have to work within the sentencing guidelines
Also I'm not sure what you mean about Doctors thinking it's OK to use Nurses cloak room ,when I was a nurse there was one changing room with toilets in for all staff to use.

It’s quite strange that you keep talking about how intelligent your PA is. If that is so, do you consider them lacking in drive or other skills that would allow them to forge a successful and highly paid career?
You’ve subsequently stated that your barrister friends do not possess the logic and critical thinking skills of your PA. Odd to even think you’re in a position to assess this, having presumably not watched them all at work. What do you do for a living?

I do not think there is one type of intelligence. Those who do very well at tests, exams may not have any creativity or entrepreneur type skills.
Compare it to 'sorts fitness' so many different types of fitness also. Usain Bolt type fitness may not be comparable to a power weight lifter, rugby player, snooker player, golfer .....
Hard slog to be a Dr it not necessarily they all the most intelligent people however they driven, good at exams, memory and recall.
Often find many students do not like the day to day work involved when get to it and those who just scrape in preform better at those who were top class when get to doing job.

Being intelligent won't get you very far in some professions if you are lazy. That's why Boris Johnson didn't go in for law or medicine. You can't wing them.

However if you work hard and are not academic, you'll hit a ceiling. I've had friends who worked much harder than me and they've been successful in their careers, but they wouldn't have been able to do most degrees, for example. For example, they've gone into retail management because they are good with people and have a lot of practical intelligence and that coupled with hard work has got them a long way.

I am a financial services lawyer and I think the answer is a bit of both depending on the level you want to work at.

If you want to be involved in complex high value deal advisory work you need to be clever enough to understand convoluted multi jurisdictional structures, be able to plough through 100s or 1000s of pages of documentation and make sure they are aligned and whilst managing not to swear at the client who keeps changing their mind when you’ve been up all night working.

You need to be able to grasp things quickly and offer pragmatic solutions.

However, this sort of high intensity pressured work won’t suit everyone so there will be other lawyers who don’t work as hard and aren’t as smart but are still providing a valuable service in conveyancing, duty solicitor work, wills and probate etc.

Like everything, it’s a bell curve. On the whole people in the professions are probably a bit more academically able but some will not be and others will be scarily smart.

Both of my lawyers (one property, one business) defer to me but I need their up to date knowledge and insurance!
I use country lawyers as we live rurally. However my accountant is whipp smart as was my recent surgeon. Both challenged me and I like that.
We have what is considered to be an average hospital locally (some friends won't use it) but they recently saved my life as they did my father's.
Intelligence is one thing application and success another.

Success is usually 10% intelligence and 90% good old fashioned hard work

I feel like you maybe don't quite understand the premise of the job of a defence barrister 😂

@Kjjjhhhgggg agreed.
I found the harder I worked the more successful I became. Funny that.

Well of course home life will always have a huge impact on academic achievement. Generally people will aspire for what they're familiar with for their children. If you've been to university and have a good job then you see the value of it so you encourage this in your children. If you haven't then perhaps you're less likely to. For example I know that academics have served me well so I work hard to ensure that I'm helping my dd as best I can. We read lots every night. We work through Maths together. I try and take the time to tell her about the world and explain things etc etc. It's not to say that somebody who hasn't acheived academically can't and don't do exactly the same things with their kids though. It's just that statistically people who value education are more likely to encourage their children to engage with it. On the contrary though well educated parents are absolutely capable of being neglectful. One of the biggest trouble makers and slowest to pick up maths and reading in my dd's class is the child of 2 people in very high profile careers. Unfortunately I think that as a result they seem to think that actually parenting him is beneath them.....

It’s also interesting and disappointing how many women respond to these threads with comments about their husband or children rather than their own achievements.

Love your PhD friend's speculations - that's fascinating original thinking! Do they know about the Rothschild Natural History Museum in Tring?

"Behind a magnifying glass is a pair of fleas, which isn’t unusual since Walter Rothschild did have a collection of fleas. What is unusual is that these fleas have been dressed up ... Originating in Mexico it was a hobby that may have started by nuns, who were very talented at working with miniatures. Such dressed fleas eventually became valued by the tourist trade."

museummutterings.wordpress.com/2017/09/23/tring-natural-history-museum-tring/

well yes, that article is 5 years old but it says that a quarter already have a training contract before starting the LPC. So that’s already 2 in 8. (Though my experience in the late 90s was that the majority did the LPC with a TC already in place. I think that there was some bad practice later with too many law schools opening up and over-supplying the market, possibly hence some sort of over-correction in their marketing when you applied).

it’s all changed now with the SQE anyway.

Their personal circumstances and choice for their career are not up for discussion, are they? But I do find it interesting you think a PA doesn't have a 'successful' career. That says a lot about you.

I'm a former diplomat and lawyer (did my TC and everything before I chucked it in)😄Now I'm just a bog standard civil servant with a dog breeding hobby.

But please, continue to profile me. I find your grasping at straws to be particularly amusing although your insults about the intelligence of my PA are less amusing.

And they’re also quite incorrect in stating that the pass rate for medical exams is 50%.

This is a choice, though. People prefer different working environments, have different views about work/ life balance, have different levels of ambition and different views on the importance of money.

Your extremely intelligent friend could have chosen a career that earned more money if he had been minded to. Some people are not. That doesn’t make him not capable of doing so whereas some people are simply not capable of doing so even if they wished to do so because they lack the intelligence that is necessary. Some people cannot even pass GCSEs despite multiple attempts so it’s obvious they could never pass professional exams (aside from the other skills required for a successful professional career being present or not).

One of my uncles was extremely bright, very poor background, went to Oxford to study physics in the ‘60s. He was courted by numerous employers who would have made him a lot of money. Instead, he chose to teach children in a rough school and help the bright ones get to good universities.

People make choices, but many of those choices are not available to people who don’t have the ability in the first place.

I am an accountant, the exams are generally hard and have a low pass rate, you have to be academic to pass them easily, my DH isnt particularly academic but had to work extremely hard to scrape through them.

However, there are a lot of people I work with who have passed their exams but are not good accountants, they are academic but have no analytical ability.

On the contrary, you seem to think they are up for discussion - most of your comments have been (oddly) about your PA so presumably you do think they are relevant.
My personal opinion is that you can be successful as a PA and held in high regard, but the very premise of that role is supporting another person to do their job. Of course there are intelligent people in many roles that don’t require a spectacularly high IQ (sometimes because of personal circumstances) but IMO people who possess the ability to be a high flyer in their own right are more likely to do so for obvious reasons.
PP has rightly commented that you’re not really in a position to assess your barrister friends’ skills in order to actually compare these with your PA, but it’s nice that you think so highly of them.

If you need to ask …. You haven’t got it.

Great question, OP.

Apologies if this has been asked upthread, but I couldn't find out how to search a thread for "Howard Gardner". But what do people think about the guy's specific suggestion about the seven (or later eight) different types of intelligence?

I like it - I did relatively well academically with Art History but am useless at maths, and the various physical/musical intelligences. http://astro1.panet.utoledo.edu/~ljc/smarts.htm

Every time David Lammy opens his mouth I have to remind myself that he has a law degree, and is therefore educated. He must also be of average or greater intelligence I suppose. Obviously some of the things he says make me think otherwise.
However Law involves a lot of memorising, and perhaps less processing than some other degrees. It is also quite narrow in subject matter - like most degrees I suppose.
Having a law degree is only the most basic requirement for a career in law, and it is one of the most oversupplied areas of degree level education.

Getting on the first rung of a medical degree is much harder and harder again for the second rung. I suspect the mean IQ of doctors is probably quite a lot higher higher than that of lawyers.

Why do you think solicitors don't have to be intelligent?

I just look across the Atlantic at the current incumbent of the White House and his cabinet and wonder if all some people need is huge wealth, connections and a total lack of principles to get to the absolute top in the western word. I would also say that being male helps

But that is straying from the orginal question, I would say that you need the ablity to absorb, understand and retain information, to be able to think on your feet and to stay calm under pressure. All those qualities are facets of certain types of intelligence. Then add connections, family support, parents who are already in the profession and it is much easier than for someone who has the ability but not the parental examples and the connections. I worked for a while for a young people's project and we had a GP who did several clinics there on a weekly basis. He was the most arrogant, sneering patronisng person who looked down on all these kids who had mainly been through the care system. He honestly thought he was superior becase he was doctor . When he went on holiday and we had to get cover for him we used to get the most lovely GP in who really cared about the service users and saw them as individuals. So while Dr Snobby had the same qualifications as his holiday cover he did not have the same qalities and it was clear who the patients preferred. Emotional intelligence matters too