Difference between book smart and street smart?

[Treylakes]

What is it to you?

[IBOPM]

This is a fallible dichotomy by those who wish to make themselves sound smarter. As you research further, you will realize that people don't just have two sides to their intelligence like this. I personally believe that the reality is better reflected in Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_multiple_intelligences

[Treylakes]

The hardcore nerds don't go too far in the Business world that's for sure.

[IBOPM]

The hardcore nerds don't go too far in the Business world that's for sure.

That is a bit of a generalization. Who do you mean by "the hardcore nerds"?

[AirplaneKing]

The hardcore nerds don't go too far in the Business world that's for sure.


Yeah man, those Bill Gates types just fall flat on their backs when it comes to REAL business.




Wait...what?

[the_fm]

street smart is basically common sense and book smart is higher education (?)

anyway, you cannot have only one. you need both (to a certain degree) to truly succeed unless you live off of connections only (think Paris Hilton *sigh* :o )

[tomotomo]

sounds like book smarts = iq & street smarts = eq
i heard that eq is a better predictor of success in terms of money

[IBOPM]

sounds like book smarts = iq & street smarts = eq
i heard that eq is a better predictor of success in terms of money

It's still the same dichotomy. Which is complete nonsense. If one were to find out which of these were a better predictor of success, a classical statistical analysis needs to be conducted. I suspect the results will not favour one or the other after a confidence level is determined with respect to the results. This is because these two factors alone (these two numbers: IQ & EQ) barely tell you much about an individual. Not to mention that the standards for testing these are always based on shaky assumptions. As a professor of mine once said "To criticize a theory, one must criticize the assumptions that the theory makes use of"

People, let's not break down this discussion into a binary dichotomy because we won't get anywhere (in terms of discussion).

[Rishi]

This is a fallible dichotomy by those who wish to make themselves sound smarter. As you research further, you will realize that people don't just have two sides to their intelligence like this. I personally believe that the reality is better reflected in Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_multiple_intelligences
You win the thread.

[DeltasInTheSky]

Chris Rock had something funny to say about street-smarts, it was an old HBO special (not Never Scared). I wish I could find it, it was soo funny.

[BadDrafter]

Yeah man, those Bill Gates types just fall flat on their backs when it comes to REAL business.




Wait...what?

I think he's referring to middle management, not top brass or founders.

[Khrak]

Street smart is a phrase the less intelligent use to make themselves feel better.

A better phrase is "common knowledge". Having this knowledge does not indicate intelligence whatsoever as intelligence is not measured in knowledge. Intelligence is a measure of ability to comprehend and learn. Had the "nerd" been exposed to the same situations they would likely learn faster and have better "street smarts". The reality is that they simply don't know what they're not exposed to.

In fact, the term "common knowledge" accurately describes exactly what the name indicates, that the knowledge is common amoung people, and that the common person has this knowledge. Last time I checked, "coomon" and "smart" were different.

In the ends, the intelligent on average have a different knowledge set, consisting of vastly more volumous and complicated information. It takes an uncommon level of intelligence to obtain much of this knowledge and as such, these people are labelled as "smart".

As for "hardcore nerds" not going far. This is true. (As always, there are exceptions to the generalization) The "hardcore nerd" doesn't spend his days interacting with people in person and fails to collect the knowledge required to do so in the future. ("Social Skills" are in the end, just knowledge related to human interaction)

[alv077]

Street smart is a phrase the less intelligent use to make themselves feel better.


QFT

Every time I hear someone say, "Oh, he's not very booksmart... but he's street smart!", it always ends up meaning, "He knows a guy that can hook him up with drugs!"

In any case, most people that are booksmart are not complete idiots when it comes to common sense - a few are... but they are in the minority.

[adehbone]

I see this as, having soft skills to backup your analytical and technical skills.

Some people were born leaders and dominate the boardroom, even at the intern level, at various firms there is some people who can already present to top exec's with ease.

Most of my friends at top CA firms, F100 companies and even banks, have seen this in certain people. Most other people develop these skills over time with practice and experience.

Funny thing is today's world, top positions are extemely competitive, so street smarts is only looked after academics. Good example is CA firms, some require to have a B+ to get an interview. Then the interview is all about soft skills.

[Treylakes]

I'm pretty sure Street Smart does not= Common Sense. Everyone that's not ******** should have some Common Sense. Street Smart has to do with your drive, hunger and hustle. Getting there and making there by any means necessary...the end justifies the means. Those that use the "book smart" folks to get ahead.

[gman]

You need to have both. They are not mutual exclusive.