Posted by Rick Denney on September 04, 2003 at 16:11:12:
In Reply to: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Becoming a professional posted by mental... on September 04, 2003 at 13:33:36:
J--er--RA has answered you well, but I can't resist (yet again in this thread) adding to it. A well-rounded person is well-rounded because they are brought up to be well-rounded and live in a well-rounded household. Their parents read widely, and so they are led to read widely, for example. They participate in varied activities and have broad interests because their parents do.
When it comes to savants with no life skills, the best examples of these I can recall were college professors of mine in architecture school, and that was at a conservative university, heh, heh.
Part of the reason these narrow savants get away with it is that their parents let them, because of their special talent. Most folks should know how to take care of their basic needs and interact with people before they get to college. In fact, it is an entrance requirement for most colleges to demonstrate some abilities in many of these areas, even if just going to the trouble of filling out the application and submitting it on time. But they certainly do not receive training in these areas, and colleges are, by my observation, veritable hot-beds of poor hygiene, poor skills of expression, poor thinking skills, and ignorance about a great many subjects, often including the one they are "training" for. I extend this enthusiastically even to engineering school, but at least the engineering faculty knew how to bathe.
I agree with you that education is valuable, but not for the reasons you mention. I know math savants and English savants (and even general academic savants) who have the same problems you mention, who matriculated at high-end liberal-arts colleges with top honors. They gained from their education, to be sure, but they still have BO.
Rick "who recalls no class in 'life skills'" Denney