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Sounds like they didn't pass a high enough filter. It's easy to have a high impression of yourself when you didn't actually compete. I remember having conversat

Sounds like they didn't pass a high enough filter. It's easy to have a high impression of yourself when you didn't actually compete. I remember having conversations with roommates and people in my classes about how hard so and so works, how you would always find them in their office, how we would get emails from this or that professor in the middle of the night, etc. My guess is that most people don't see how competitive academics can be. Without that visibility, people form inflated (egotistical) attitudes.

academictemp 2y ago
I consider myself pretty competitive. I'm in a top 5 CS PhD program, have published several first author conference papers in top-tier conferences in my field, and I consider computer science to be a big part of my identity. That being said, I feel that I have a pretty good grasp on "academic competitiveness" and can distinguish that from what I'm describing above (which I'm calling "computer science personality disorder"). It truly is a behavior that appears unique to our field and I feel that it drives a lot of smart, collaborative, and supportive people to leave.
- zero-sharp 2y ago
  Oh yea, that's another part of it. Seeing your school at the top of some rankings fuels some egos as well. I've met plenty of intelligent people who remain modest for the reason I indicated in my previous post. Wish them success in their career and just move on. No doubt they'll have professional and interpersonal problems down the line.
- lamp_book 2y ago
  Not academia, but my impression is that’s it’s a fragile self image thing - all their eggs are in one basket - “the smartest guy in the room.” Of course being the actual smartest person in the room isn’t possible, and at some level they know that, but they exhibit these behaviors as a way to try to assert it in the world, similar to narcissism. They need to be smart. Why is it some common in CS? I can only guess but it’s a field where an entire individual can have outsized impact without the need for collaboration so it attracts this kind of personality. I think that will change, though, as the field matures. You look at Math, which should be similar, but it seems that collaborators are more successful than the lone wolves as many of the known problems have had many mathematicians try and fail to solve.

academictemp 2y ago

I consider myself pretty competitive. I'm in a top 5 CS PhD program, have published several first author conference papers in top-tier conferences in my field, and I consider computer science to be a big part of my identity. That being said, I feel that I have a pretty good grasp on "academic competitiveness" and can distinguish that from what I'm describing above (which I'm calling "computer science personality disorder"). It truly is a behavior that appears unique to our field and I feel that it drives a lot of smart, collaborative, and supportive people to leave.

zero-sharp 2y ago
Oh yea, that's another part of it. Seeing your school at the top of some rankings fuels some egos as well. I've met plenty of intelligent people who remain modest for the reason I indicated in my previous post. Wish them success in their career and just move on. No doubt they'll have professional and interpersonal problems down the line.
lamp_book 2y ago
Not academia, but my impression is that’s it’s a fragile self image thing - all their eggs are in one basket - “the smartest guy in the room.” Of course being the actual smartest person in the room isn’t possible, and at some level they know that, but they exhibit these behaviors as a way to try to assert it in the world, similar to narcissism. They need to be smart. Why is it some common in CS? I can only guess but it’s a field where an entire individual can have outsized impact without the need for collaboration so it attracts this kind of personality. I think that will change, though, as the field matures. You look at Math, which should be similar, but it seems that collaborators are more successful than the lone wolves as many of the known problems have had many mathematicians try and fail to solve.