Some INTP-related questions...

[sadprofessor909]

I'm a junior at a pretty competitive high school. I know I'm smart, but I'm having a lot of problems applying myself, particularly when I'm not that interested in the subject. I also make a lot of careless mistakes during pretty basic math problems just because I'm focusing on deciding whether or not I screwed something up or not.

Did/does anybody here have these kinds of problems? It's getting very frustrating when I'm getting low B's on these kinds of things when I know I'm capable of doing much better...

 

[RubberDucky451]

Intelligence is poorly utilized without discipline. That's how i articulate it.

Honestly, i do the same thing. With my math and Spanish tests i find myself missing a simple step which will ruin the entire thing. Welcome to the club i guess

 

[Dormouse]

This is exactly my problem, so I can't offer you any advice on how to fix it. Best of luck, I guess.

 

[Inappropriate Behavior]

Grades are arbitrary. Just pass and go on with your life

 

[shoeless]

i'm also a junior in high school... it's gotten to the point where i just don't give a damn anymore.

the only class in which i really try to apply myself is my AP english class, but even then, i have a major project due next week and i haven't even started it. everything else, it just doesn't matter to me, so i've resigned to not stressing myself out over it and just sort of going with the flow. as much as i can, anyway. much easier on my poor, overworked brain that way.

 

[Ombat]

I force myself to get good grades so I can go to the college of my choice.

I can relate to your math problem, though. I completely understand the concepts and how to apply them, but I make careless errors on tests. I'm just not very methodical.

 

[Kuu]

I'm a junior at a pretty competitive high school. I know I'm smart, but I'm having a lot of problems applying myself, particularly when I'm not that interested in the subject. I also make a lot of careless mistakes during pretty basic math problems just because I'm focusing on deciding whether or not I screwed something up or not.

Did/does anybody here have these kinds of problems? It's getting very frustrating when I'm getting low B's on these kinds of things when I know I'm capable of doing much better...

I was always (perhaps still am) the smartest guy in my classes. (I know this sounds arrogant, but well, you guys know how this is). Nevertheless, I was always the B, or sometimes even C student. School structure and testing doesn't favor P types, or is too watered down, segmented, and simplistic to provoke interest in N types...


In college, this has gotten much worse. Half of my classes I love and excell at. The rest I loathe and am borderline failing, cause I'm really tired of so many years of the boring, repetitive crap that education tosses at you since you're young.

 

[Ran]

Well I'd LIKE to say I've maintained good grades throughout the education system from the motivation that there is no other way to spend my time more productively other than studying if I want to get into the college I want -> get the job I want -> make the (loads of) money I want -> so I can sit around and think in peace. Delayed gratification, if you will.

I don't exactly know if it works for lazy INTPs such as me since secretly I've always believed that the only reason I got A's was because I get SCREAMED at if I get B's and spanked if I get less than B-'s ever since I was 6. Childhood brainwashing can be really effective...

Brave New World comes to mind.

Another solution is to go get hypnotized. Our Academic Decathlon coach did it to us once and it actually worked for about a week. I would study when usually I should be wasting my time staring at a bump on the wall. We asked him to "renew" the hypnotism but he refused :P Saying we should want to study to win without needing to be "tricked" into doing it. I guess you would have to overcome the fear of loosing control for this.

 

[ProxyAmenRa]

I sat on my ass and did nothing through high school and got the highest grades in every subject I took. Subsequently, I had the highest overall grades at the place. Received the dux award but they did not let me do the valedictorian speech. Bastards. They had good reasons not to. Now I am university and I am realizing that I can't get perfect grades with minimal effort.

I am surrounded by extremely hard working FJ,TJ and SJ types. I really don't like them because they get better grades than I. I put in one tenth the effort and get on average 6% less than them on assessment pieces.

Towards the end of high school providing that a magical disorder called bipolar doesn't hit you, you should do quite well as you mature.

Motivation will always be a problem. Find something your interested in and do it.

 

[Polaris]

I sat on my ass and did nothing through high school and got the highest grades in every subject I took. Subsequently, I had the highest overall grades at the place. Received the dux award but they did not let me do the valedictorian speech. Bastards. They had good reasons not to. Now I am university and I am realizing that I can't get perfect grades with minimal effort.

I am surrounded by extremely hard working FJ,TJ and SJ types. I really don't like them because they get better grades than I. I put in one tenth the effort and get on average 6% less than them on assessment pieces.

Towards the end of high school providing that a magical disorder called bipolar doesn't hit you, you should do quite well as you mature.

Motivation will always be a problem. Find something your interested in and do it.

I can relate to this. I had no challenges at high school, and was bored to tears. I wasn't top of the class, but I made no effort and had good marks overall. I don't think I even studied for exams, they never worried me.

I later regretted my lack of effort as it became a problem when applying for uni. The courses I wanted to get into were out of reach as they had impossibly high entry requirements. I wished someone had pushed me harder at high school, but my mother did not believe in pushing her children to study. She later explained it would probably had the opposite effect, and she may have been right. My brother was declared a genius, and he has never cared to use it for anything other than designing virtual flight simulator landscapes as a hobby........nerd. He became a shipping electrician, like my father. He says that he would have liked to study geology, but he was such a f..k-up at school, he never got that far. I guess if he really wanted it, he would have done it by now.

I completed a lame associate degree, which again proved to be too unchallenging. Fifteen years later I found myself at uni again, this time doing science subjects I had not even touched upon at high school. I had a rude shock. Having a decent head on your shoulders means nothing if you cannot be bothered to put the effort in.

Make the most of it now. You never know when you may need it.

 

[Nicholas A. A. E.]

I was always (perhaps still am) the smartest guy in my classes. (I know this sounds arrogant, but well, you guys know how this is). Nevertheless, I was always the B, or sometimes even C student. School structure and testing doesn't favor P types, or is too watered down, segmented, and simplistic to provoke interest in N types...


In college, this has gotten much worse. Half of my classes I love and excell at. The rest I loathe and am borderline failing, cause I'm really tired of so many years of the boring, repetitive crap that education tosses at you since you're young.

I relate.

 

[ckm]

Every post here resonated. I know I'm intelligent, but if something doesn't interest me I don't lift a finger to help myself. In Maths, for instance, I get an A regardless of study, but today I went to school with 1/6 of my homework done and no study for an upcoming test under my belt, even though I was out of school while the topic was being covered and I still haven't made an effort to catch up. The test was cancelled, luckily. But I'm not always going to be lucky. I need to experience failure. It terrifies me.

 

[Darby]

i am much the same, no special uniqueness here, although i do very good on tests, but do almost no work, it has gotten better as the requirements to pass have required more work, but i regularly have above 95% overall on tests, and a 40-50% in homework, it's nice to know that i'm not the only completely unmotivated person on the planet, although when i get frustrated, i can become obsessed which i can't stand, but can't help, and even then no WORK gets done

i enjoy the sciences, and math, they just kind of.....make sense to me, and i don't need to look at it in so much detail, because i create shortcuts often, tying old concepts to new, so that relearning everything as a new concept is not something i require. i would assume most of us here do something to this extent, but possibly not, i wouldn't really know, i've never met another INTP knowingly, and the only person i have ever competed with so far intellectually whose type i know is my INTJ friend

 

[Reyo]

I'm a junior at a pretty competitive high school. I know I'm smart, but I'm having a lot of problems applying myself, particularly when I'm not that interested in the subject. I also make a lot of careless mistakes during pretty basic math problems just because I'm focusing on deciding whether or not I screwed something up or not.

Did/does anybody here have these kinds of problems? It's getting very frustrating when I'm getting low B's on these kinds of things when I know I'm capable of doing much better...

For your Math situation, invest in a graphing calculator. I've had instances where I'm like "lolwut?" when looking at a Math problem, and plugging it in where the answer is now staring me in the face seems to help with that.

As for the other, the instance I can think of is History and Biology. I hate History...I love Biology. I would always do horrible in my History class and couldn't figure out why. I could learn the concepts, but applying them was difficult. Once I realized "Wow...I REALLY hate History" all of that anxiety went away...I forgot why I mentioned that I loved Biology.

Maybe you just really hate Math?

 

[Yodon]

my teachers always told me i was a A* pottential student but i used to get Cs all the time because according to my favorte physics techer i am bone idle , i never revise , leave everything to the last minute and generally dont worry about tests in the slighest and dont see how they have any relevance so i never do well at them,

im so bad i spent 3k on an MCSA course as i like computers and im still dong it like 4 years later i have all the course mats but i will prolly never get qualified coz i cant be arsed with the exams , although i know all the stuff arrrrrr i love the freedom of being me but i hate my obvios limitations and am still yet to find a way to surpass them

 

[fenrisulf]

Ya, same basic deal here.

About the math stuff, personally, I find I tend to get the answer right the first time, and if I check them I end up changing them (the answers) to be wrong.

Just don't check your work!! You'll lose some to human error, but I find that I lose less marks that way than if I check them.

About the other stuff, just have to grin and bear it, I suppose.

 

[Scourgexlvii]

Basically, INTPs are most suited for classes with a small amount of difficult problems, so as to challenge us, and not give busy work, and decrease work in general. Those basic mistakes come in when you are so used to something that it's simply the aspect of putting it through a formula, which is so monotonous, that mistakes like that are bound to happen. Pretty much INTPs are just not 'school' thinkers, we're the philosophers and mathematicians, who think beyond the curve, which is generally discouraged... Just grin, bear it, and hope you can get placed in a class with less monotony next semester.

 

[Branden]

I had the same problem in High School. As a junior, and even more so as a senior, i lost interest. I was easily one of the smartest in the class, but i just didn't care anymore. Miraculously I still graduated valedictorian. I think that it is because i was able to capture the the hearts of my teachers with my intellectual babbles and nose in the rear antics. lol But honestly i think i stopped caring because it felt damning that it wasn't my choice to be there. Encroaching on my freedom really.
Now that i am in college i care a lot more. I think it is because i feel as though it is my choice to be there. I know i could leave at any time, and strangely that motivates me. I still procrastinate, but i feel like i apply myself more. So far i am still doing well. Just fight through it, i know it sucks, but college is the reward, trust me. It is easier too for some reason.......

I agree with Scourge, give me a few difficult problems, i don't want calculus busy work to do all night, its completely pointless..........and makes me lose motivation. Its why i always got A's on the first two tests of the semester(they were weekly) and then basically began to fail the rest.......

As said somewhere above, think of the eventual payoff of it all, I do believe that is the only thing that gave me even the slightest inkling of motivation to graduate. There are greener pastures ahead my friend.

 

[Radioactive_Springtime]

I got the "Apply yourself" lectures starting in the 5th grade. Throughout high school I was a D student. I graduated around 350th of a 600 person class. I cared little for homework and tests and routinely outsmarted most of the people in my class. I'm paying for it now since I'm stuck in community college in classes structured almost exactly like high school. I'd like to go to a university for all the obvious reasons; a career, the idea of actually learning firsthand knowledge instead of some of the BS Ive already had disproved from a community college. Apathy is a bitch.

Especially since two of my best friends (one an INTP, and the other an INTJ) routinely make me feel like a failure. Mostly the INTJ because he refuses to take any knowledge I might have at whatever he fancies seriously because I'm not in a University class about it. I'm surprised that any of you could make valedictorian not trying, but I guess I should just take that as a humbling gesture to my own wildly rampent ego.

And I managed to get hit the bipolarity in 9th grade (can't say for sure because I refuse to go to a doctor about it).

 

[Nicholas A. A. E.]

I've always secretly wanted to be manic-depressive. I'm sure some of you guys can relate.