Smartness is not an inborn attribute, it must be attained. Unlike intellect, which is inherent and unique per individual, smartness requires oneself to gain experiences through the interactions and events that take place between oneself and society. Those experiences form the basis of an individual’s behavioral process to learn, therefore, smartness grows as more learning takes place. In Karen Ho’s “Biographies of Hegemony”, Wall Street forms an established system where the highly praised and well-institutionalized Ivy Leagues are targets for their recruiting process. Their goal is to persuade college students, no matter their background, to pursue a career that involves finance, thus shifting the societal view of what success is within the …show more content…
Smartness, through Davidson’s concepts, requires people to develop their innate skills in order to pursue their dream career. Davidson states that “to be prepared for jobs that have a real future in the digital economy, one needs an emphasis on creative thinking” (Davidson 60) therefore placing importance on skills such as creativity and critical thinking in order to be at the forefront of the digital economy, and ultimately, change in society. However, Davidson placing importance on skills conflict with Ho’s concept of smartness pertaining to qualifications. “On Wall Street, (smartness) means much more than individual intelligence; it conveys a naturalized and generic sense of (impressiveness) of elite, pinnacle status, and expertise…” (Ho 167) thus proving that rather than valuing skills, Wall Street views smartness as someone who has the proper credentials, steering away from actual skills pertaining to the career. The institution needs to maintain its image of smartness, power, and success over everyone else, and in order to do so, Wall Street recruits individuals from Ivy Leagues. These individuals may not be skilled in finance, but because they have been admitted into one of the country’s greatest universities, their very presence boosts Wall Street’s image. Conflict arises because both authors have preference over how an individual should qualify, but in the end, both skills and credentials are
Does the amount of schooling measure a person’s intelligence level? The essay “Blue Collar Brilliance” written by Mike Rose, argue that the intelligent a person has should not be measure under the amount of schooling, using the example of his uncle, who did not get a formal education, become the head of general motor. As for this, Rose suggest that education should be taken as priority. I agree with Rose point of view because the one who get formal education do not symbolize success. In older generation, many people could not afford the tuition, however they can also succeed. In the other word, having formal education does not grantee us a successful future.
If someone asked you which was more important, street smarts or book smarts, what would be your answer? Gerald Graff, the author of an essay called Hidden Intellectualism, contemplates on what he thinks because there are pros and cons to being street smart and being book smart.
“Technology is nothing. What’s important is that you have faith in the people, that they’re basically good and smart, and if you give them tools, they’ll do wonderful things with them”. This quote perfectly conveys Karen Ho’s perceptive that is present, in her article “Biographies of Hegemony”. In her article, she provides another understanding of intelligence. She uses the case of Wall Street workers and their personal and educational backgrounds to make her case. “Implicit in this transformation from undergraduate to investment banker is Wall Street's notion that if students do not choose Wall street postgraduation, they are somehow “less smart”, as smartness is defined by continued aggressive striving to perpetuate elite status” (Ho 18). Ho’s conception of the educational system has been narrowed down to the social norms that society places. Smartness is merely associated with individuals who go to the best Ivy League Schools, medical schools, law schools, and etc. If a student is attending such institute they
In “Hidden Intellectualism,” Gerald Graff pens an impressive argument wrought from personal experience, wisdom and heart. In his essay, Graff argues that street smarts have intellectual potential. A simple gem of wisdom, yet one that remains hidden beneath a sea of academic tradition. However, Graff navigates the reader through this ponderous sea with near perfection.
whether or not these are the type of people we want working at our company” (180). Through these experiences it is evident that Wall Street neglects to acknowledge the individual smartness and judge a person’s smartness based on the institution they attend. By learning the small particularities of people’s experiences it becomes clear that smallness does not play a role in deciding a person’s fate in Wall Street. The smallness is simply unacknowledged which restricts the most deserved people from a position in investment banking. When Ho dives into the roots of the recruiting process, she finds that the investment bankers choose people by judging a book by its cover. The majority of investment bankers on Wall Street are white males, with a select few minorities and women. Naturally at recruitment events for future employee prospects, they search for the people who have dashing appearances, intimate performances and a “wow” factor. Wall Street's idea of “smartness” is coming off as smart and not actually possessing intelligence. These actions create a bias system where people are not properly interviewed for a position on Wall Street that they deserve but may never have the opportunity to
In “ Blue Collar Brilliance” Mike Rose argues that intelligences can’t be measured by the education we received in school but how we learn them in our everyday lives. He talks about his life growing up and watching his mother waitressing at a restaurant. He described her orders perfectly by who got what, how long each dish takes to make, and how she could read her customers. He also talks about his uncles working at the General Motors factory and showed the amount of intelligence that was need to work at the factory. Rose goes on talking about the different types of blue-collar and how he came up with the idea that a person has skills that takes a lot of mind power to achieve.
Everyone has a different viewpoint on what it is like to go through a hardship in your life. Some people view struggles in life as a strength and that they build character. Others view struggles as a sign of defeat and that they should just give up. For example, the hardest thing that a middle class, 17 year old girl might have had to endure in her life so far is a heart-wrenching breakup with her first boyfriend of three months. While a lower class, 17 year old girl has had to take over the role of mother in her house with 4 young siblings, no father, and a mother who is at work all day, barely breaking even at the end of the month. Both girls are going through a hardship in their lives, but one might view the other as less severe of a struggle
Success. Society tends to correlate “success” with the obtainment of a higher education. But what leads to a higher education? What many are reluctant to admit is that the American dream has fallen. Class division has become nearly impossible to repair. From educations such as Stanford, Harvard, and UCLA to vocational, adult programs, and community, pertaining to one education solely relies on one’s social class. Social class surreptitiously defines your “success”, the hidden curriculum of what your socioeconomic education teaches you to stay with in that social class.
His anecdotes presented in the article are appropriate in terms of his subject and claims. The author responds back to the naysayers by saying that people only look at the test scores earned in school, but not the actual talent. He says, “Our culture- in Cartesian fashion- separates the body from the mind, so that, for example we assume that the use of tool does not involve abstraction. We reinforce this notion by defining intelligence solely on grades in school and number on IQ tests. And we employ social biases pertaining to a person’s place on the occupational ladder” (279). The author says that instead of looking at people’s talent we judge them by their grades in school or their IQ score, and we also employ them based on these numbers. People learn more each time they perform a task. He talks about blue collared individuals developing multi-tasking and creativity skills as they perform the task they are asked to
Is it better to be book smart or street smart? Is it better to be happy and stable or unhappy and ‘rich’? Blue-collar jobs require you to learn skills that college cannot teach you; Rose points this out in his essay, stating: “It was like schooling, where you’re constantly learning” (277). In the essay “Blue Collar Brilliance” written by Mike Rose, he talks about how his mother worked as a waitress and how his uncle Joe dropped out of high school, eventually got a job working on the assembly line for General Motors and was then moved up to supervisor of the paint and body section. Rose suggests that intelligence is not represented by the amount of schooling someone has or the type of job they work. In this essay I will be explaining why Rose
In “Hidden Intellectualism”, author and professor Gerald Graff describes his idea of what book smarts and streets smarts actually are. He details how new ideas can help to teach and build our educational system into something great and that perhaps street smarts students could be the factor that traditional education is missing that could make it great.
It may be disappointing to realize we are the kind of person who we do not like in others; however, it is more disconcerting to realize we are not the kind of person that we believe we should be or are. We think we are smart, optimistic, popular or possess greatness, but later we perceive that we are not that good. Unwittingly, and without rational thought, “Wall Street smartness is, in a sense, ‘generic’ and it is precisely this notion of elitism so pervasive as to be commonplace, smartness so sweeping as to become generic, that reinforces Wall Street’s claims of extraordinariness” (Ho 184). Wall Street does not realize the negative influence of focusing only on credentials. In fact, they do not care. This hiring process has become a tradition for them. Even though they may overlook potentially qualified employees, they do not want to recognize that their system is imperfect; it is easier to blame inadequate candidates, claiming that they should have studied harder to get into a better university. If Wall Street insists their system works, they will continue to lose opportunities to groom talent. Being rejected by Wall Street is not the time to implement a defensive “immune system” to console oneself. It is the chance to recognize our status and to be who we want to be. We face our shortcomings, admit that we still need to work harder or change in order to be the person we want to be. Even though this is
In Louis Menand’s “Live and Learn: Why We Have College” he discusses his three theories about the purpose of higher education. The first theory says “college is, essentially, a four-year intelligence test”(57). This meritocratic theory is saying that “society wants to identify intelligent people early on … to get the most of its human resources” and college is the machine that does the sorting (57). The second theory, the democratic one, claims the point of college is not to pick out the elite. Rather, the point is to “expose future citizens to material that enlightens and empowers them” (58). The third theory explains how “advanced economies demand specialized knowledge and skills, and, since high school is aimed at the general learner, college is where people can be taught what they need in order to enter a vocation” (62). All three theories have their
...s intuition and understanding of his surroundings could handle a CEO position with the added training of a college education. A commonplace is that the person last in his class in medical school is generally called a doctor. It is the experiences one goes through in college that prepares the students for the real world. Common sense and perseverance are more important than book sense. According on one philosopher, “it is a thousand times better to have common sense without an education than to have education without common sense.”
Everyone has an opinion concerning what type of education is most useful. We all know that a college education is important in the competitive world we live in today. For instance, if you want a career in engineering, medicine, chemistry or law, a bachelor's degree or higher is mandatory. We often see people who have made it really big, and yet have little or no formal education. My opinion is, in order to get and keep a good paying job, you need both “street smarts” and “book smarts.” The combination of practical knowledge and explicit knowledge is the key to a successful career. Both types of knowledge have distinct advantages.