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How can you tell if a person is smart? Do you judge them based on their level of education or the impressive vocabulary they use in conversation? Maybe you decide that someone’s intelligent after watching them solve a seemingly impossible problem. Or perhaps you’re blown away after watching them recall exactly what day of the week March 14, 2012, was.
One thing’s for sure: there are plenty of ways to be a genius. Redditors have recently been sharing stories about the “uneducated geniuses” in their own lives, so we’ve gathered their most fascinating tales below. These stories just go to show that anyone can be brilliant, regardless of the opportunities (or lack thereof) that they’ve had in life. Enjoy reading through this list, and be sure to upvote the replies that inspire you!
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#1
I've met brilliant uneducated homeless people. Mental health is an issue for many top minds.
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#2
My mother. Born in 1930, did get some secretarial schooling after high school. Was somehow one of the first computer specialists in existence for the Air Force among other brilliant characteristics.
#3
Nikola Tesla praised his mother Djuka as true genius. She was illiterate peasant, married to an Orthodox priest in 19th century, in a rugged remote area. She was a weaver and was famous for being able to make super complex patterns without any plan or draft. She was also making water mills and various useful devices powered by her water mills. It seems that Tesla got his phenomenal visualisation and inventiveness from his mother and brought it many levels up. She was also very supportive of him studying engineering, while his father wanted him to become a priest. Makes you wonder what mark would she make on the world if she had more opportunities.
#4
When I was a kid in the 50s-60s the neighbor across the street was a genius. He had an eidetic memory. Whatever he read, saw or heard he vividly remembered. He was like a living Wikipedia.
He was self taught in electronics and mechanical engineering. He worked on the development of control systems in helicopters during the war. He worked on the guidance system for the Nautilus Submarine that traveled under the north pole. He worked on the development of the original hard drive memory. He developed machinery that created synthetic gemstones. His last job was creating plotters for computers and CNC for machinery.
His workshop was something from Mr. Wizard's workshop. He was an incredible metal and woodworker. He was curious about everything. He was amazingly generous with his time. If I had a project as a kid he was always willing to help but never take over and do it. I was a lucky kid to know him.
#5
I’ve met a few. They don’t always sound educated, but they think in ways that surprise you. They learn fast just by watching, solve problems instantly, and make connections others miss.
One guy I knew never finished school but could diagnose and fix any machine just by looking at it. The trained engineers argued with him, and he was right every time.
Genius doesn’t always come from classrooms. Sometimes it comes from life.
#6
My father, he dropped out of high school and worked construction. Absolutely the smartest person I knew, he read all the time and complicated math so fast. When he got sick with a rare disease, he worked with his doctors on treatment plans, studied medical journals and research papers. He went from 6 months to live to surviving over 10 years. He was also extremely charismatic, made friends where ever he went. I wish I could be half the father he was to me.
#7
I had a Sgt in the Marine Corps who was a Mechanic and that guy was brilliant. Could fix aaannytthhiinngg. Trace down wires into circuit boards and find it was a singular loose pin in a connector or something. The guy was just on another level next to all of us mouth breathing crayon eaters.
One time he came up with a way to patch bullet holes in the side of a fuel truck on the fly. Pounding a bolt wrapped in a mechanic rag with some silicone into the hole to stop the spill.
He also was a hell of a leader and knew what buttons to push to get the best outa his guys. Lucky to have known that guy.
#8
My dad. Finished school in grade 8. Worked to contribute to the family. Was in Europe for 3 years during WW2. Learned 5 languages fluently. Could figure out any problem and had dizzying critical thinking skills. Always had a passion for curiousity and always, always asked great questions, and was able to sum things up with brilliant, nuanced insight.
He was and always will be, the genius I look up to.
#9
I did customer service management at a grocery store. There was a job coach named Nichole. She worked with the mentally disabled coworkers we had. She had never been to college and had to quit high school due to her family’s hard living. We all talked and she often talked to customers/bosses/higher up bosses that would come in.
She is one of the most intelligent people on the planet. She could listen to any situation, carefully consider it, and approach it not only in a wildly efficient way but also with consideration on how people would react, the potential issues that would arise, and situations that would make it better or worse. But she would do this in like 10 seconds. And she would relay this information in the most understanding, kind, calm, and clear way. It was just astounding.
She could effortlessly navigate issues with kids or parents or coworkers or bosses, literally anyone, while somehow finding the most rational and compassionate answers. She can take someone at a 10 on the angry scale and take it to a zero without them even noticing.
I don’t work there anymore but I see her sometimes. And to this day even her presence is calming and secure.
Her emotional intelligence is almost frightening.
And it spills into her personal life. She got married super young and had been married 40 years. They have 6 kids who are all awesome, polite, smart, and successful and they love each other. Her husband and her are relationship goals. Her great grandma lives near me and you can tell Nichole is keeping everyone connected.
Listening to her is like listening to a self-help podcast but even more effortless. Knowing her is a gift.
It’s a different kind of genius but wild to experience.
#10
I know a senior reactor operator who is one of the smartest guys I’ve ever known but couldn’t get through college. The number of people who are smart enough to become senior reactor operators is incredibly small. I am close with someone who is a pediatric neurosurgeon, a professor at duke with a phd in physics, several people with phds in microbiology, a vet, am surrounded by engineers, and my best friend works for the UN. This describes my inner circle and seriously this guy is so much smarter. We have been friends since I was in High school and he was one of the “gifted kids” but even being one you can tell some of them are significantly more brilliant than others. All that to say education isn’t something I’d use to measure intelligence. Intuitive types are often penalized by formal schooling where sensors tend to be rewarded.
#11
My late boyfriend of 12 years. He passed away in 2022 at age 61. He says he barely graduated high school - according to him, his teachers liked him, he was a popular jock in a popular band, and he got away with not doing much schoolwork at his small-town high school (it was the '70s, and apparently it was easier to get away with stuff back then). After graduating, he became a semi-successful hair metal singer in the '80s in L.A. I can state with a good deal of certainty that you've never heard of him, but he made enough money to get a house and pay his bandmates and road crew. He was a fantastic singer and songwriter, but he readily admits that he got to where he did because he was good-looking.
He liked to claim that he was a dumb uneducated hillbilly. But he was like Rain Man with remembering sports statistics, players, teams, records - if it happened in the NBA or Ohio State football in the '60s through the '90s, he could rattle off astonishing data dumps of facts. He claimed that the only book he'd ever read was Ric Flair's autobiography, so I bought him the autobiography of one of his favorite NBA players, Celtics great Bill Russell. He devoured it in two days. So I bought him another, and another - once I ran out of Celtics books, I moved on to his favorite musicians, other sports figures. Anything he expressed interest in, I bought him the book if there was one. Slowly, our library shelves became lined with books, and 90% of them were his. He didn't like fiction, and it had to be subjects he was interested in, but within those parameters, he was frighteningly well-read. I'd often find him in the evenings with his "dumb hillbilly" nose buried in a book.
He could do math in his head - I'm good at math, but if I needed to calculate a tip, or ask how much the sale price of something was, asking him was quicker than getting out my phone calculator. He never took algebra, so that's where his knowledge stopped, but it was crazy how fast he could calculate simple math problems.
I work with the English language for a living, and I'm a really good speller. He claimed he was a terrible speller - but whenever he made spelling mistakes, the mistakes made sense. Often the English language doesn't make much sense, and I had to convince him that it's the English language that's wrong, not him. He had an intuitive sense for phonetics that I rarely see.
His songwriting showed his brilliance. His lyrics didn't always make sense; he put the words where he thought they sounded good. It was like he was sculpting a soundscape using words. He had a knack for writing catchy melodies - I've met a lot of musicians, but never one who could write songs that were that good, let alone write them so effortlessly.
One thing I noticed was his curiosity. He'd ask questions if he didn't know about something. He'd never voted til I came along; our first election together, I helped him register, and he asked tons of questions about each candidate.
He was truly one of the most fascinating, entertaining, intelligent people I've ever met, and I miss him every day. I told him he was one of the smartest people I've ever met, and he'd laugh, but it's true.
#12
A mechanic I worked with when I was 19. Guy looked like he hadn’t read a book since primary school. Never went to high school. He could barely spell half of the tools he used. But his mind worked like a forensic computer.
Once, a customer brought in a car that 3 CERTIFIED technicians had already failed to diagnose. He didn’t touch anything, just listened to the engine for less than 10s, tapped the hood twice and said “this thing has maybe 48 hours before something in the timing system tears itself apart.”
Everyone laughed at him. 2 days later, the customer called: the chain snapped in the highway, exactly like he predicted.
His education was 0, but his pattern-recognition was TERRIFYING. He could predict failure, spot lies, read people’s intentions and build things that no hone taught him.
He went from not knowing a word of Spanish to be a fluent Spanish speaker in 1 month.
Never met someone like that again.
#13
An uneducated genius is someone who can solve problems you didn't even know existed - but can't explain how they did it in academic language.
They think in connections instead of rules.
They learn by observation instead of instruction.
They understand before being taught.
#14
I worked with a man who could calculate stress fractures in concrete beams faster than our $20,000 engineering software.
He was a foreman on a major bridge construction project, about 60 years old, and hadn't finished high school. Let's call him Frank.
Frank couldn't read a blueprint in the technical sense- he'd look at the symbols and dimensions and translate them into a sort of mental 3D model. Our team had several structural engineers with advanced degrees.
The moment of genius came when we were pouring a new approach ramp. The computer models were indicating a slight, almost negligible, risk of shear failure at a specific joint. The engineers started arguing about which variables to re-input for several hours.
Frank walked over, didn't touch the computer, and just looked at the rebar cages. He took a piece of chalk, scribbled maybe four or five quick, messy calculations on a nearby pile of plywood, and said: "The distribution on that lower cage is off by 1.8 degrees on the main line. You've got an asymmetrical load path. You need three more stirrups here," and he tapped a spot.
We re-ran the *entire* complex model using his suggestion- not just his fix, but his initial assessment of the error. He was exactly right. The software confirmed the asymmetry, and his quick chalk fix stabilized the structure perfectly.
He didn't know the names of the formulas he was using. He didn't know about tensors or eigenvalues. He just intuitively saw the physics in a way the highly educated people couldn't. It wasn't math for him; it was vision.
It taught me that formal education gives you the language to describe the universe, but genius gives you the native fluency to speak it.
#15
In a career of teaching I have met several who could extrapolate given knowledge and come up with creative solutions way above what they had been trained in.
One boy learned to calculate math problems like multiplication by tapping his fingers in ways he understood to get complex answers. Way above any other children in his grade. It was like Chisanbop but he was never taught that and his teacher did not know what that was. It was similar but different. He also started talking and walking way before other kids and was speaking his own language he made up before he learned English. I remember in 2nd grade we did simple construction paper masks. He did a wolf and on his own made dimensional muzzle and ears. The muzzle opened and shut as he walked around. No clue how he did that. In second he also was reading a college textbook on Huckleberry Finn. Mark Twain written in Southern slang. He understood it no problem. For his high school graduation he asked for Stephen Hawking’s trilogy. Because he was interested in reading it. Like for causal reading.
He was not the only child like this. We did a bulletin board of a large map of their neighborhood at the beginning of the year. Each was supposed to make a house like theirs’ out of construction paper to add to the map. One child made their’s very elaborate and 3-d. I taught PreK-6th at that school. I asked the 6th grade students who they thought made it? They named off their best artists. No I explained-it belonged to a first grader.
Another assignment was a painting in kinder. They were experimenting to learn how. We put a body segment pattern on it, cut it out and joined it together all the way down the hall to make a huge anaconda. Like Ka in the jungle book. One little boy used red and yellow. It was a perfect Lion cubs face in a swirl of red clouds. All completely freehand and out of his imagination. He was 5. He showed his amazing skills throughout the year. His parents had no idea he was talented.
What was amazing was that my lowest students who needed help with a direction at a time to complete anything would turn on like a light completely when put on a computer to create digital art.
And a couple of students created grades above where they should be turned out to have stage 4 brain cancer. Not the ones previously mentioned.
And the most detailed to a Where’s Waldo level were very introverted kids. Put their walls up and completely immersed in what they were doing.
#16
Yep. I knew a guy in high school who was insanely smart. He was bored in school so he didnt ever apply himself and his grades were awful. But he was incredibly quick and excellent at problem solving. He was also the funniest person I've ever met. Even the teachers saw how intelligent he was but knew he would never pay attention in class so they used to negotiate deals with him to ensure he still passed while doing minimal work. He once took a class where he only had to show up 6 times in a year (1st day of both semesters, midterms, and finals) and so long as he handed in his homework the teacher agreed to give him a C.
He ended up dropping out of college (he only went to appease his parents) and got a job as a bartender. From there he worked his way up and now he owns multiple restaurants. Dude finally found a place where he could use his brains and wasn't bored.
#17
My grandfather stopped going to school in the 6th grade bc he had to work tobacco fields in Mississippi but he became a master mechanic. I don’t mean a backyard alternator replacer. I’m talking about rebuilding airplane engines, massive diesel engines, he built huge steam engines for river boats plus everything else in between and beyond. And he was a firefighter. When I was around 10 or 11 we went to a farm and he spent hours fixing this old crop duster engine. When he was done he climbed in and flew it around for like half an hour. I couldn’t believe he knew how to fly a plane! I got in trouble bc I got home so excited to tell my granny but she got super upset at him lol.
#18
My wife. She grew up really, really poor. She spent most of her childhood in the woods. And I mean that literally. She’s reluctant to speak of how she grew up, but over the course of 20 years I’ve managed to piece together how it was. And hell was it bleak.
She’s an actual genius. Not only is she incredibly intelligent (she’s been tested several times), but she is a one of a kind artist. She can pick up anything and then improve on the process. I’ve seen this so many times. Music, art, mechanics, carpentry, metalworking. She knows more about nature than any other person I’ve met. Also the funniest person I’ve ever met. Adored by all.
Most people don’t really understand just how absurdly smart she is because she doesn’t have any of the usual “smart” interests. She is wholly focused on arts and nature. Nor does she ever show it off.
This fantastic being simply wants to stay in her house in the woods, crafting wonderful things while being surrounded by animals.
#19
My brother! I’m always thought of as the one who has it together. I have a bachelors degree (which given how we grew up is no small feat), a corporate job, etc. But he is smarter than me by a country mile, school was just never his thing. He barely finished high school. I just don’t think he learns things the way they want kids to in school. The way his mind works astonishes me every time. He is so insightful and makes leaps in his thinking that I would never think of, not in a million years.
I’m in awe of him, I really am. My little brother is amazing.
#20
My father. He worked as a mechanical engineer and worked with trained engineers who depended on him. He worked at Boeing on engines before that. He can play instruments and built his own house. On the side he is a sharpshooter and is an artist. His brain just runs on algorithms and I’m sure happy to have some of his his genetics.
#21
I have a friend named Shawn.
Shawn grew up in a tiny redneck town with a redneck family and went to a redneck school. Nobody in his immediate circle saw how smart he was, so his innate problem solving and intuition and curiosity went to waste.
He's like a one-man Mythbusters team. One of his friends got a fishing boat stuck in mud after leaving it out for a week in a dried pond. They tried everything to dislodge it. And these are not dumb people, they're pretty smart, but he came along and grabbed a piece of paper and was able to design a pulley and winch system that allowed three cars to pull it out. I had never seen anything like it, but it worked, and it was super efficient.
He likes to fish. He collected publicly available data from the local fish and wildlife website and designed a python script to figure out where on his calendar to put certain rivers and lakes. Thing is, he doesn't know python. He basically sketched out the formula and then asked me to make it "into an app or something" but it was already done. It was incredible.
Talking to him you'd think he went to Harvard or at least UCLA — he's informed on the world, has a great sense of how things connect that are surprising but is usually right, and just talking to him you can tell his youth was wasted on dirt bikes and firecrackers.
He's a high school dropout but runs a very successful drywalling business where he has a staff of 14 and does it all in his head. We've tried to get him at least to use Quickbooks, but he says it slows him down.
If he had gone to school and learned how to use better critical thinking and how to harness his intellectual curiosity he'd be an industry giant. But he lives in a tiny one-bedroom apartment, fixes dirt bikes as a hobby, and prospects gold.
#22
I knew a mechanic who could barely read a manual, but he could diagnose an engine problem just by listening to it for 10 seconds. He said engines have a 'rhythm' and he could hear when a single beat was off. It was like watching a musician tune an instrument.
#23
Uncredentialed doesn't mean uneducated. A few of the smartest people I know have no diplomas or degrees - no credentials - but education? Yes, they are educated. Every public library or smart device is a top rated university if you treat it so. The knowledge is there.
#24
My grandmother. She's currently very ill, most likely hours to days away from [the end], so I've been thinking about this a lot lately... She's so much smarter than anyone gave her credit for.
Born during the Great Depression and growing up during WWII, she was pretty interested in science, particularly X-rays, and wanted to go to college to become a radiologist or adjacent. She was one of 15 kids, and she quietly stopped pursuing college when she learned her brother wanted to go. Since he was a boy, it was believed that he would get more use out of it than her. She went on to marry my grandfather and have 9 children of her own, never pursuing further education or working outside the home. But I swear this woman is *insanely* smart. Her memory is incredible, and she can recall the tiniest details about *anything*. She always paid careful attention to the news and TV programs, and had amassed a surprising amount of knowledge.
I'm a geologist and recall being completely surprised about how much she knew about groundwater and wells. She was always very sharp, quick-witted, and a very good storyteller. Raising 9 kids kept her able to keep track of many trains of thought at once, and always seemed to know things she had no business knowing, like subtle details no one told her about random events an aunt or uncle were going to that *she wasn't even attending*. I think if she felt she could attend college, she would have done *very* well. That's part of what motivates me through my PhD - I'm doing what she never got to do. I wish she could have seen me graduate, but I promised her I'd finish and dedicate my dissertation to her. Best part? My dissertation coincidentally makes heavy use of X-rays.
#25
Farmers, this is not unusual. At least the area where it's easiest to see. Basically guys that figure out ways to get [things] done. Clever ways to solve problems.
I think clever is more appropriate than smart, in terms of common usage. An uneducated genius is likely to be good at solving their own problems, and due to lack of education likely solves them on their own in novel ways with the resources available. Farmers are kind of the peak version of that in some cases.
#26
My grandfather, actually. Dropped out of elementary school, lived his whole life on the farm. He knew every trick, every single thing about the land he grew on, the animals he tended to.
In my opinion, and I've always held it, a good teacher is someone who can explain things in layman's terms. You can word-vomit as much information as you want, but a real intellectual can put incredibly difficult things into regular terms, and teach people about it.
That's the sort of smart he was. God knows he didn't learn much from school, but people lined up around the block to attend his funeral. Incredibly intelligent in my eyes and everyone around.
nottheactualphoto 1 hour ago
"If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough." - Attributed to Albert Einstein
#27
The ones I’ve known were not educated (Formally) but did not remain unknowledgeable. They were autodidacts with innate drive who taught themselves either because they didn’t have access to more formal education or just didn’t see a need for it.
#28
I have a buddy that’s basically illiterate. He calls me to write emails for him because he can’t even quote people on paper. If you met him you’d probably think he was mentally challenged because he just struggles with things like reading, writing and math. My favorite texts from him are the “wife n me at restrnt, how much bill? Tip$$$??” With a picture of the receipt and I’ll literally respond with a picture of what to write so he can copy it.
But I will tell you this guy is a genius. If you call him with an issue with a car you can hold the phone up to the sound and he will rattle off exactly what’s wrong, call the auto parts store for you and order everything you need then come fix it. He also taught himself to weld, and he literally builds extravagant trailers from scratch. Literally anything that I’ve ever seen broken this guy can fix back to better condition than it was new. It’s truly amazing.
Just recently this guy bought a busted up boat, completely repaired it, rebuilt the engine and we went out on it. He had never done fiberglass work before, never worked on a boats components before and it was perfect.
#29
My grandfather did not have a formal education, but he could do very complicated math in his head. He could also do surveys just by looking at the land, verified by actual surveyors. He was brilliant but grew up dirt poor in the Depression and went straight to work and started his family when he got home from WWII. He was even VP of an oil/gas company at one point before the crash in the 80s.
He wanted to be a lawyer and could have been a great one if he had been able to go to school. His wife, my grandma, could also do crazy math and was also uneducated.
I have a PhD and I still think they were smarter than I am.
#30
I run a school in Sierra Leone and there's a kid in year 6 I can tell is very smart. I can see it in the way he seeks out knowledge. I was explaining a word's meaning ("biology") and parsing out the Latin and I could see his delight as I went through other "ology"-s. I see it in how he sped through the *Where the Red Fern Grows* I gave him despite it being his second language and that Sierra Leone teaches sight reading and not phonics. I see it in our discussions of JW vs protestant theology. I love all my students and support them, but I must admit he's my lil protege. I paid for him to stay in my village when his hosts moved and I fully intend to see him through as much college as he wants. Sierra Leone needs kids like him to get a chance. If there are enough resources for those kids, in 30 years Sierra Leone won't need mission workers anymore.
#31
There are the back woods country types you run across occasionally who had zero chance at an educated lifestyle that will shock you at how good they are at so many things their environment gives them.
“I built this machine from spare cans. It runs on diesel and cleans all the weeds out my catfish pond all on its own.”
“I knew it was you when you drove up because the third spark plug in your engine has a little corrosion on it, and it makes that sound. You can’t hear it? I can hear you comin’ a mile away.”
“I tapped into the radio signal comin’ from way over yonder about 150 miles away and used my car antenna bent into the shape of a half crescent, tied up on the highest tree over there to capture and bounce it down to my deer stand so I can listen to the nascar race. Signal is too weak elsewise.”.
#32
My mom. She grew up under war and didn't have access to formal education for most of her life. Her mom taught her to read, the villagers made impromptu classes under the shade of clothing that they tied together to make shelter. Even so she understands and extrapolates SO QUICKLY even with a massive language and culture gap. Logical concepts, emotional intelligence, synthesis, all of it. It's incredible. I wonder what she could have been and done if she had even the tiniest bit of education and formal support.
#33
2015, Russia. I was a young lawyer. Saw a woman, maybe 45, crying in a courthouse hallway. No family. No money. She was an accountant at a major company — they fired her and bankrupted her, blamed years of losses on her.
She couldn't pay me. Every $ went to survival and vet bills for her dog, a lot of debts. We talked a lot. Zero formal education. Started working after the USSR fell and just "figured things out" because she had to. Smartest financial mind I've ever met.
I moved to the EU, we lost touch for 5 years. 3 months ago she sent me a job offer. Senior role. Global company + relocation package.
Still the sharpest person I've ever met.
#34
My (step) dad dropped out of school at the beginning of 9th grade. For the last 30 years of his life he built houses and he was a math whiz. He could figure concrete for a job in just a few seconds, he could sit with a couple and give them an estimate for them to take to the bank, he could use fractions on a tape measure easily. He kept his business accounting accurate with scribbles on a sheet of paper.
I don't know that he was a genius or if math came easy to him because he used it every day, but I was always impressed with his skill in numbers.
#35
My Dad left school at 14 but knows about politics a lot more than lots of professional analysts and College/University professors. He’s 92 now but has a better memory than I have. (He also knows a lot about history)
Unfortunately, he never had any confidence in himself so he stayed at his lame factory job for 44 years. What a waste of an incredible mind.
#36
I don't know if this counts, but my daughter.
I know every mother thinks their children are geniuses, but I also have a son 15 months younger, and he's clever of course — but hear me out.
We first noticed our daughter was gifted when she started to mimic people. At about 7 months old, she met my father for the first time, who was living in a nursing home. We took him outside so he could have a cigarette. Later that evening, I noticed her holding a spoon to her mouth, drawing in a breath, pulling it away and exhaling mimicking smoking exactly as she’d seen. I was fascinated and honestly thought I was imagining it.
As she grew, her capabilities kept surprising us. When she began crawling and walking, she started climbing out of her cot in the early hours of the morning, turning on the TV by herself. Most mornings we would find her watching Chinese news. If we changed it to cartoons, she cried until we changed it back. It became very clear she was choosing that channel deliberately.
She toilet-trained herself as soon as she started walking, around 13 months old. No bribing, no charts, just watched me a few times and did it herself from there on out.The mimicking continued, she'd settle up next to her nan, pulling her pen out and circling things in papers before she could even read.
At 2, she asked for a stethoscope. I didn’t know what one was at the time, I mean I had idea but she had to explain it was what doctors use to listen to heartbeats (she insisted she wanted one like the one she used to have - but thats a whole different story). We assumed she must have heard the word somewhere, but she insisted she needed one. Most children her age were watching Peppa Pig and The Wiggles but she preferred documentaries about surgery and was fascinated by the human body. At 3 she could beat anyone she encountered at checkers.
When she was 4, she told me preschool was “for babies” and she wanted to go to big school. Out of curiosity, I had her assessed at a private school. They confirmed she was ready and already ahead of most children her age for reading and writing. She started school, and before we knew it she was entering and winning state public speaking competitions.
When she entered Year One at 5 years old she was already a year younger than her classmates but topping the class. They placed her on Year 3 work, and she was outperforming even them in maths and English.
Her teacher at parent teacher interviews what we did for a living. anf said other staff had asked if we were rocket scientists. Neither of us even finished school. My husband left after Year 10, and I grew up in an environment where girls were not encouraged to pursue education. I attended just enough days to avoid failing and was kept home the rest to cook and clean.
She’s now 6, and the school genuinely doesn’t know what to do with her. She has taught herself the local Aboriginal language using school resources, and speaks it fluently. She is learning French, and once she’s done, she wants to learn Japanese. In our last parent-teacher interview, it was suggested we let her use AI to explore her questions further because her thinking is already beyond what teachers can answer without researching. I’ve been Googling for years; she outgrew everything I know a long time ago.
The school has considered moving her up grades, but we’ve tried to prioritise her childhood. She reads chapter books for fun and is so far ahead academically that they won’t assign her homework. When she borrows books from the library, she always borrows the one the library teacher reads to the class, after she did this a few times in a row, I asked why she borrows the same books they've already read, and she told me that when the teacher reads it, she doesn't get the expression right, so she likes to borrow the book so she can read it with the expression its supposed to have.
She has this ability to be shown something once and then she can do it herself. I don’t know what her future holds, but I suspect she has a photographic memory or very close to it. In memory games she never misses. Once I watched her kind of look above my head as if she was looking at a board behind me for answers, I asked her what she was doing and she said she was looking at the pictures in her brain.
And emotionally, she is more mature than most adults I know.
#37
Worked in film production for 20 years. Some of the smartest problem-solvers I've met were grips and gaffers who never finished high school. They could engineer solutions on set that university graduates couldn't figure out. Different kind of intelligence - practical, spatial, immediate.
#38
I had a friend J, that I worked with some time back. He was about 24 at the time I was in my very early 30's. We worked overnight stock in a store and would hang at my apartment and smoke a blunt or two after work. He and his mom had kinda a personal grow op out in the sticks where she lived. I made breakfast, he provided the green.
This kid was an absolute prodigy when it came to engineering. No schooling as of yet, but this kid could design, and build near anything. The first time I experienced this, he asked me for help getting wood from Lowe's. We got home, unloaded all this wood and I asked him finally, "What the hell are you going to do with this?".
He showed me some scratch paper that had some really crude sketching and said, "Trebuchet."
I helped him build this pretty large machine and spent the next week launching [things][ over the little lake on his moms land. Kid went on to get an engineering degree, and then as cannabis started getting more legalized as he was completing his degree, he designed and started his own large grow op.
Dude makes a very nice living.
#39
I had a coworker who was sub 60 iq, he was a giant (no lie) -- 400+lbs and 6'x+ who spent most of his life on Mississippi River barges lashing them together and such. His arithmetic was flawed but his goat sense/ basic logic was SO SOLID that despite our differences i would run most of my basic choices off of him because he was so gifted.. Guy (his name) knew the cheapest gas in town and he could list the ten local places on any-day. loved that man. despite "no math skills" he could calculate the lengths needed to tie on each angled iron rope to the barges. rip guy.
#40
Yeah many, You work with enough day laborers and blue collar guys and you'll run into a few. Their ability to learn a concept with out instruction is noticeable and impressive.
#41
I had a friend like this. He'd dropped out of high school with his sophomore year in progress. He was absurdly smart but had very little motivation. My friends and I were all pretty smart, well rounded, curious, and precocious. We didn't have much direction, but we generally did well enough in school and then thrived while in college. My drop out friend didn't go to college, and instead did what he'd always done, which was stay in his room and watch Comedy Central. Nonetheless, there was never a subject I could discuss with him where it didn't ultimately become evident that he knew infinitely more than me. One of my favorite qualities about him was the fact that there was no reasonable explanation for how much stuff he knew or how he'd absorbed so much information on such a wide range of subjects. It was simply absurd. It also helped that he was impeccably modest and humble. I lost touch with him over the years, so I can't say what he's up to now, but I'm guessing it isn't much. He was a literal fountain of potential, but his absence of drive and boredom with routine made him unsuitable for the type of employment that translates to society's definition of success. I wish him the best wherever he is.
#42
Generally they turn out to be people that dropped out of prestigious philisophy phd programs, but yes.
I worked in academic bookstores in NYC in the early aughts, though.
i have a cousin that was supposed to be a bmw repairman but got too many points on his license and couldn't work at a dealership. randomly took up carpentry, mastered it, worked on a bunch of lloyd wright houses because he was good with curved wood but otherwise just sits in a cabin in the woods reading books like crazy. smart people are weird.
he can't walk into a room without telling you everything wrong about it's construction, but I don't think he ever had any formal training and is still isn't in a union (although our grandfather was a union electrician).
#43
My dad had a guy from his small hometown of 4,000 people drive down to our city to do handyman work and landscaping.
Guy lived in his parents’ basement in his 30s, couldn’t hold down steady work. He never went to college. He studied languages and physics on his own. Self-taught plumber, electrician, mechanic, carpenter. Built computers and had general tech knowledge, self-taught programming, etc. He wasn’t a Good Will Hunting genius that could’ve shocked you. He was just an intelligent autodidact who read and understood everything.
He was diagnosed bipolar later in life. It really ruined his life. He certainly had the aptitude to be an engineer or physician. His brain and body got in his way.
#44
My father's family has several people who are very high IQ, but also high poverty and neurodivergent (ADHD and autism is pretty common on that side). They all live in WV, so access to higher ed and a lot of other things hasn't been a given. One thing I've noticed is a very, very strong tendency to be swept up in conspiracy theories, sometimes extreme ones. The more educated someone is on that side of the family, the more they fall into the "voice of reason" role with the rest them, trying to debunk the insanity. I think the intellect gives them a high level of curiosity and mistrust, while the lack of education takes away the best tools of skepticism.
#45
They come in all shapes and personalities, but most unschoolers I’ve known — kids who learn through self-direction rather than institutional schooling — fit this criteria, imo. Informally educated people develop a deep, natural curiosity about the world and an unusually clear understanding of themselves: what they enjoy, what they don’t, and what feels meaningful to pursue.
Because they’ve been allowed to follow their intrinsic interests, they’re often confident in setting boundaries, like saying no without feeling like it threatens their worth. People notice something “different” about them, even if they can’t quite name it; interacting with them can feel more like talking to a peer or an adult, rather than a traditionally educated kid.
So if you’re wondering what an “uneducated genius” might look like, it’s not someone lacking knowledge — it’s someone whose intelligence grows freely, guided by curiosity instead of curriculum.
peace!
#46
I grew up on a farm. Ingenuity and problem solving skills are common there. But true genius? Yeah I've been to college and work in cutting edge scientific research. And this past year I met an honest to god genius and it made me realize I had never before actually met a genius. What this man understands and is able to create is beyond anything I have ever witnessed. I've always considered myself very smart, but this guy could wipe the table with me. Or anyone. He will probably win a McArthur genius grant or a Nobel prize with what he is doing.
#47
My great grandpa didn't graduate highschool and worked his way up to being a design engineer at lockheed martin. Even when he was in his late 80s with severe dementia, he was a math wiz. He could calculate the taxes on anything in about a second.
#48
My granddad. He was an apprentice for a global brand aged 16 and they put him in a room and gave him a piece of metal and told him to break it. They didn’t tell him what it was and left him to it. He was the first person to break titanium. I learned this from his eulogy earlier this year.
Alzheimer’s took his words, his body and his memories. But it never took the engineer from him. He was problem solving right til the end with anything he could get his hands on.
#49
In the Army, there was a guy in the motor pool who had a weird symbiotic relationship with anything that had a combustion engine — diesel-powered trains in particular. He was otherwise really dense, rude, and lazy. But if something broke down, you could reliably bring the guy into the garage, leave him alone for a few hours, and presto! Problem fixed.
#51
Very clever people can see a simple solution.
I don't know about genius, but certainly very smart. I grew up in a small, outback town in Australia. Basically people become farmers. There was one, actually the whole family was smart, that could not be schooled beyond 12 years old (had to work the farm). I worked with him on his family farm and it was the constant little things. Twist the fuel drum cause if rain water gets in, it will float and won't get into the engine. Constant stuff like that that had never been taught.
#52
I'm in OK, I've seen my share. Their thought-processes are all experience-based. Observation followed by consideration, until they reach a level of understanding that's good enough.
#54
I had an electrical engineer who worked for me at one company. He had dropped out of high school and worked his way up as an electrician apprentice, electrical drafter, electrical designer, and finally engineer. Without any formal schooling. And he was good. Couldn't do a lot of complicated math, but the MF'er had an eidetic memory. He could read a 40-page manual for something like a heat exchanger or valve actuator and remember everything about it 6 years later. I'd be like "Roger we need a valve actuator for this valve that can do this and this and this" and he'd rattle off the manufacturer and a 14-digit model number and I'd believe him because he would be right.
He also had a brilliantly stupid-sounding southern redneck accent which was doubly hilarious when he was describing complicated electrical engineering concepts to people. He sounded like George Bush mixing up syllables "Now you see here you got the Rectimifaction of that there Electrolyzin' current done wut's outta phase angulars with them Reactances, gon' cuz u a mite bit o' trouble wit' Capacitivating Couplin'.".
#55
I know a couple of geniuses who finished high school ( home schooled) but not college. They analyze everything- comic books, books, movies, etc. They take very deep dives into the interest of the moment ranging. Both are writing fiction, and building complex worlds. One had a chapter in textbook published at age 23. On the spectrum, but not the hand flapping, can't talk to anyone level.
#56
Some are hilarious and have a quick wit. Their sense of humor might be a bit off-beat, even a little dark, and it's usually pretty original. Other than that, they come across as pretty normal. They might be trying to blend-in because high intelligence is sometimes punished by the insecure. This is especially true if their social circle is also less educated.
#57
Met a few too. They're intentionally wise on their decision and can easily decipher or understand any complex situation.
#58
I teach music, so I've seen a fair amount of kids who are quite naturally gifted. Not necessarily genius levels (well, maybe one), but some kids just have naturally good ears for pitch and rhythm.
As for what these kids are like? The ones that put in hard work to improve tend to become great musicians. The ones that skate by on their talents tend to hit a wall where they have to either learn to work hard or stagnate.
So to answer your question more directly, kind of. It's just that the real geniuses are the ones that practice a lot, rather than the most naturally gifted kids.
#59
4 of the smartest men that I know don't have any (or very little) formal education beyond high school.
my dad: incredibly bright. Went to college for a semester or two. Probably partied himself out as he was finally out from under his parents' roof. Enlisted in the USAF ~Vietnam era. I think he was eitehr Top Graduate of his boot camp class or he was very close to it. Then they selected him to go to language school for a highly intensive immersive Russian language program.
He was a handsome dude who could learn anything he set his mind to. During my lifetime, he was a lubricant salesman for a petroleum company as well as a travel-trailer salesman. Fairly successful at both; but overall turn-downs saw him laid off. Then it was factory work - where he excelled at running the things he was assigned to run. Even tapped him to visit another country to learn how to operate a new machine they were buying / was going to be "his" machine. But he was never a "DIYer" as far as being handy.
My step dad: Grew up poor. 1 of 5 kids. They, at least he and the next brother, *HAD* to learn how to DIY things. He also enlisted in the USAF towards the very end of the Vietnam era. He kind of stumbled his way in to being the manager of 2 of the 4 grocery stores in our hometown (by way of being married to the owner's daughter) and excelled at it. He was even still the manager of those stores for several years after their divorce until she basically asked daddy for the job. Those stores didn't last much longer after they let him go. He then poured himself into being an insurance agent. He did great at that but it wasn't fulfilling. Didn't allow any time for any of his hobbies.
One of those hobbies turned into wood working. He can now make absolutely stunning furniture and kitchen cabinets. And all manner of other things. He and my mom bought a small farm ~15 years ago. When they *should* have been planning retirement. They taught themselves organic farming techniques. They ran a pretty successful organic produce farm for many years; selling ~100 different varieties of vegetables at local farmer's markets. Even had a few local restaurants as volume produce customers.
He basically rebuilt an entire house with his own two hands (plus help from a brother and a friend). Learned wiring... Learned plumbing... That house was absolutely stunning.
He is so incredibly smart when it comes to learning how to DIY things... AND he is/was book smart enough to manage payroll and buying and accounting for those stores he used to manage.
There are others - but I WISH i was half as smart as my dads are/were.
#60
My brother in law (married to my husband's sister) would have been unstoppable had he not come from a poor and broken home. Their son is level 1 autistic and they all believe my BIL is somewhere on the spectrum and I agree, his capacity for knowledge and information retention is impressive. His information recall and random trivia knowlege is really spectacular.
#61
High school drop out who learned coding and several foreign languages on his own for his own entertainment. Also was a musical savant who could listen just once to a song and play it back on several different instruments.
#62
My dad wasn't a genius but he only finished the 7th grade in a one room school house. He could read and write and do basic math. But he was the the foreman of the city electric company and could do everything - he built an entire house, put on several additions, plumbing, electric, masonry, cement, roofing, carpentry - fix anything mechanical, car (pre computer). weld, grew up on a farm and raised animals, built silos, barns, fixed tractors, horse tack... put in a couple boat docks - built a pontoon one summer, built a go-cart from scratch for us. Was in the Marines in 1950/51, drove semis' worked road construction...
I asked him if he ever had an education on any of the stuff. He said he was a mason's apprentice once. He said it all started when he was 7 or so. He wanted a bicycle but they couldn't afford one - hog farm in the 1930s/great depression - so found a bicycle in a trash dump and fixed it up.
Men back in the day - tons of em like this. I wished I could somehow download his brain.
#63
Yeah, my dad and his brother gre up greasers, uncle built a tv from scratch around 15 years old, went to war did two tour and became an engineer and did some crazy projects invented tools and stuff like that. My dad did not go to school, he could rebuild engines,, carburetors, weld, electrical, plumbing basically anything you need using hands he could do it and do it with precision. My sister was in AP calculus in high school my dad maybe took 8th grade algebra but she needed help. He read the math book? Figured it out and then would tutor her. Wish some of that brushed on me. Oh he ran a small business not related to anything working with your hands lol. Way cooler generation, had to know more.
#64
My therapist told be about the smartest person she ever met. He was legit MENSA and he spent most of his life working as a bouncer. He just wasn't interested in education and would rather have fun, and being a bouncer was a good job for that I guess.
#65
My ex-fianceé has an uncle, her mom's older brother, that lives alone in the woods in a house built a tree he made himself. All of his food and water comes from the land and the river next to his house. His education ended at 16 as soon as he could leave school. Of the few times I met him the dude could hold a conversation about anything for hours. Politics? He's spot on. US or World history? He has it down pat? Science? Music hisotry? Literature? The guy was like if MacGyver and a collection of Oxford professors had a baby.
#66
My father.
He doesn't have much education, but if he tries to learn something he masters it quickly and then comes up with new ways of working with it and connections to other problems. He's a practical jack-of-all-Trades (but still master of some). He was always a whizz with engines and could knock up his own tools to solve problems. He is also one of those musicians who can hear a piece once then play it — on several different instruments. But all self taught and by ear, can't read music at all.
He should have been born middle class or wealthy in the Renaissance, not poor in the 1940s.
#67
My dad.
He left school early to do a trade apprenticeship.
He can't spell to save his life, continues to say "Pacific" when he means "specific" (even though I pointed it out to him many times over the past 30 years, and he uses the word "specification" correctly), and has to get my mum to write all his emails for him because he can't find the right words to get his point across.
BUT he's a MacGyver level genius when it comes to building/making things. Stuff like you'll say, "I wish there was a tool to do X", and he has the solution instantly and can make said tool in 10 minutes. There's nothing he can't fix or build or sew or just create in general.
#68
I don't like to ever say anything positive about myself but I think I meet the criteria for this. I don't think I would quite call myself a genius but there is at least a distinct gap between my education and my intelligence.
I started getting bad grades in the 7th grade and my fathers response essentially stunted me and I pretty much stopped doing any work or learning after that. I almost had to repeat the 8th grade and I failed a bunch of classes in high school and got kicked out and sent to a continuation school - basically a high school full of kids with criminal records and/or other issues. I did not fit in.
At this school our schedules were incredibly relaxed and what they taught was much more foundational - like Math class focused on things like balancing a checkbook and English class was focused on basic reading and writing. My grades were off the charts and the teachers could tell that I didn't fit in so they didn't even make me do much work - in English class I played Scrabble with my teacher and assisted in grading other kids papers and that was it - no further work required. This school allowed you to earn credits faster than a traditional school and, as a result, I wound up graduating almost a year early.
If I recall correctly we were supposed to earn 60 credits a year and we needed 230 credits to graduate (so there was some wriggle room). I went into my junior year with something like 90 credits (so 30 years behind) and got to 230 ten days into my senior year. I remember asking my teacher, in the middle of class, "Does that assignment get me a half credit?" and when she said yes I said "Peace" and just walked home.
My ASVAB scores were such that I could choose any career in the Air Force I wanted. I knew that I would fail out of college and was aware that if I took a job working in a gas station or grocery store I would never accomplish more than that - so I signed up to be a programmer for the military.
You get college credit hours for going through basic and tech school. Between that and a few CLEP tests I was able to get an associates degree without ever setting foot inside of a classroom. A few years later I returned to college to get my bachelors. I took a bunch of CLEP tests until I found some I could pass using pattern recognition alone - I didn't understand the formulas or half the questions but used context from some questions to figure out the answers to others and was able to guess enough correct answers that I passed - usually with the minimum required scores. After that all I needed were electives.
As I reached the point of graduating everything had been incredibly easy so I decided to look into getting a minor in business - but had to take a Math class. Over the first two weeks I spent over a hundred hours trying and failing to make progress on the assignments but I understood *zero* of the foundations it required. I asked the teacher if it was normal to struggle this much and she told me that the first two weeks were essentially all review of stuff we learned in high school. I dropped the class, dropped the minor, took my bachelors and ran.
I had separated from the military after 6 years and gotten myself into a pretty good position as a programmer for a smaller company. It was supposed to be a temporary position with busy work but I spent my first few months identifying places were work was not optimized and started optimizing and automating workloads. It created an odd environment because I didn't understand the work that was being done - but I understood the patterns enough that I could reduce someone's workload to less than 1% of what it had been.
This got me a promotion, the bachelors degree got me a promotion, and my 'communication' skills got me recognition that kept me relevant and important. When I say communication what I mean is that I could translate between levels of tech literacy - you put me into a meeting with Engineers and management and I could explain the problems that the Engineers were having in a way that Management understood and I could translate Managements batshit insane requests into actual work items for the Engineers.
Outside of work I've had several friend groups (usually for things like D&D and other TTRPGs) and have generally wound up as a core me member of the groups because I'm good at planning and coordinating things. We would decide to try out a new system and I would show up the following week with handouts including a seven page condensed rule document I'd created, cheat sheets for specific mechanics, and guides for various things (character creation, leveling, etc.).
As a husband and a father I've made mistakes, recognized my mistakes, and strived to correct them. I think a big part of being good at these things is about recognizing your faults and working to improve them. While I don't think you have to be a genius to do this I often find it shocking how often people seem to not hear themselves - people identify problems in their relationships and will plainly state the places in which they are the problem but then utterly fail to recognize that.
To several of my friends and my employees I'm treated as their therapist. They know that when they want me to stop being a goof and help them I can do so - I've helped people with all manner of problem and am generally considered by everyone to be good at listening and providing honest, helpful, feedback and insights. My favorite quote comes from a 22 year old employee who had thought I was about 30 when I was about 40. She said, "Oh, ok, that makes sense. Because you're generally just silly and unserious but every now and then you come out of nowhere with that old man wisdom."
There's other examples I could give but I'm already feeling bile build in my throat from this amount of praising myself. One thing I do want to be clear about is that I truly don't consider myself to be a genius - I think that I have three specific skills that cause me to excel despite my lack education.
1. I know that I'm uneducated and so I always assume that I'm the stupidest person in the room. Because this is my perspective I'm constantly aiming to learn from the people around me.
2. I understand that there can be a distinction between what someone says and what they mean. I don't always know what it is but I can usually sense when a miscommunication is occurring - sometimes it's me, sometimes it's someone else - and I attempt to hone in on that so that it gets resolved. Because I focus more on resolving miscommunication than 'winning' my disagreements with people are usually more productive.
3. I put effort into the things I care about. This one might seem asinine but I'm consistently shocked by people who say things like, "I don't have time to do XYZ," and then they spend their free time watching YouTube or playing video games. When something is important I turn it into a priority - it doesn't matter if it's something minor or something major. If the kitchen is dirty I don't give myself a choice in regards to cleaning it - it has to get cleaned so I clean it. If I want to learn a new TTRPG then all of my free time is spent learning it.
#69
A friend of my Mother knew 16 languages. We were all military dependents.
The woman only needed a few weeks at any new base and she was conversationally fluent. She never forgot a word or local idiom.
She gave up her chance to go to college. She could have been an interpreter or teacher or even a spy. She chose to support her husband's career instead.
My own Mother only knew 4 or 5 languages (it depends on how fluent one thinks knowing a language should be). I only know 3.
#70
Yes Amazingly I've met a couple people in my lifetime who had criminal records and were ex-cons who were two of the most ingenious, clever, MacGyver, well read, philosopher, guinesses I've ever spoken to. Unfortunately they made bad choices, and ended up going to prison. They never finished school but highly intelligent.
#71
The son of the hired man at a farm up the road. He was very smart, but they always needed him to work on the farm. He could barely read, but was the first person I knew of to take up computers, when they mechanized the milking. He was very charming, but desperate with lack of opportunities, set fire to every place he ever lived, that kind of thing.
#72
My father is extremely good at his career, used as a consultant for complex issues. Hasn’t got any formal education to his name and barely went to school. Was offered a degree if he just wrote a thesis.
He basically is whip smart, but had to create his opportunities. I wonder what he’d have achieved if he didn’t have the first 2 decades he had, and actually went to school.
#73
I knew a hillbilly folklore genius, a former moonshiner who my grandpa let live in the old two-story house built way before the War. His job was to count the cows in each of the pastures every day, which he did not feel was actually necessary because he just had a feel for the situation. And he
also provided weather prophecy. When he wanted to cut hay grandpa would ask old John whether it was going to be all right for the time needed to cut it and let it dry long enough to get baled without being rained on. More than once I questioned my grandpa about if John was really good with his predictions or was Paw a nut for relying on this living relic. But he said the old guy was basically never wrong on his hay forecasts. When I grew up I would go visit John bringing a pint for his wisdom when I wanted to know if it was going to be a bad winter.
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