Engineering News by You :: Do you have what it takes?

Lisa ()

Newbie | 2007-10-22 05:20:34

You know I really don't get the appeal of Mensa. If you're smart and you know you're smart then why do you need to join a club?

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Mark ()

Newbie | 2007-10-22 05:21:34

Well it's not really the being in the club that matters to a lot of people, it's the challenge of passing the exam.

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Rebecca ()

Newbie | 2007-10-22 05:22:57

Mark I would have to agree with you on that. I want to know what those engineering questions are like. 50 in 12 minutes is nuts.

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Steve ()

Newbie | 2007-10-22 05:44:27

Yeah, that sound like quite a nice little challenge to me. I'd love to know what some of those questions are.

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Xue ()

Newbie | 2007-10-22 05:53:31

Well then why don't you go and sign up for an exam?

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Steve ()

Newbie | 2007-10-22 05:54:25

Well one day I might just to that. Never said I wouldn't.

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Norman ()

Newbie | 2007-10-22 05:30:04

You know I reckon intelligence is overrated. Look at the majority of successful people and they're not so much smart as street smart.

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engineering eddie ()

Newbie | 2007-10-22 05:33:01

Have to agree with you on that. Just look at people in the music industry and sports people. Not to mention that yes, the majority of business people I know are def more street smart than smart smart.

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Rahul ()

Newbie | 2007-10-22 05:34:38

You're missing the point Norman. Just because intelligence isn't what does it for you, doesn't mean that everyone is like that.

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Mike ()

Newbie | 2007-10-22 05:36:03

Agree totally. Think of it this way. Without these intelligent people a lot of the gadgets and luxuries that you take for granted possibly wouldn't exist. Like, for eg, the computer you are used to enter your comment.

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Rahul ()

Newbie | 2007-10-22 05:56:31

Yes, so many things we take for granted that these people have achieved for us.

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Maggie ()

Newbie | 2007-10-22 05:48:10

Sorta have to agree with you there. One thing that always bugs me is that you are trying to put a number on a qualitative characteristic so at best it's going to be an estimate.

Two people could be given a set of questions and one will outperform the other. Then you can get another set of questions (judged to be the same difficulty but again how do you tell accurately) and the results could be reversed.

This whole being in the top 2% (which again makes estimates on the intelligence of the population) just seems like a farce to me. Not saying these people aren't intelligent, just saying that a lot of people probably miss out that are just as intelligent.

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Egyptian Engineer ()

Newbie | 2007-10-22 05:50:16

That's true but it's human nature to want to try and assign measurements to the qualitative, it's vague at best but the only way that we can really gauge progress.

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Tony (166)

Newbie | 2007-10-22 05:37:35

I never really hear much about Mensa. Do they ever put this mass of intelligence to good use. You know, do they ever get together and discuss world issues and try to come up with solutions or anything?

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Rahul ()

Newbie | 2007-10-22 05:38:33

I don't know if they do or not but I think that would be awesome if they did.

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Sarah ()

Newbie | 2007-10-22 05:40:22

Personally I wouldn't really like that. Not discounting the abilities of these people but I would prefer if those topics were discussed by experts in those fields instead.

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Toby ()

Newbie | 2007-10-22 05:41:12

How do you know that some of these people aren't experts in those fields?

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Sarah ()

Newbie | 2007-10-22 05:42:58

Well maybe some of them are, what I was saying is that it should be based on profession before Mensa and def not exclude others that aren't a member of Mensa but may still be very knowledgeable/experienced

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