Contra Rowena

 “Wit beyond measure is man’s greatest treasure.”

-Rowena Ravenclaw

When I was a kid, I loved Harry Potter. And when I say “loved,” I mean that one time my parents confiscated my Harry Potter books for six months because I kept rereading them when I was supposed to be getting ready for school in the morning, and I couldn’t possibly survive six months without Harry Potter, so I secretly checked them out of the school library instead.

So the question of “What Hogwarts House are you?” is a very familiar one. You can guess what my short answer is.

But I’ve always had a longer answer to the question, too. I have Ravenclaw hobbies. I fit in with Ravenclaw communities. But the merits I prize most highly aren’t Ravenclaw merits.

As a young teenager, I used to try to keep my academic accomplishments quiet, so my classmates wouldn’t make a big deal about them. It wasn’t that I thought there was anything wrong with being smart. It was that I didn’t want people’s first gloss on who I was as a person to be “that smart girl” (or worse, “that know-it-all”). I wanted to be perceived as kind, or helpful, or hardworking, not to be judged by a metric that had much to do with luck and little to do with my values. 

Of course, there is a middle ground between “arrogant” and “hiding your light under a barrel,” and my teenage self certainly worried an unnecessary amount about other people’s opinions of her. But I still agree with her on the basic point that wit beyond measure is not man’s greatest treasure.

In academic cultures, intelligence is often idolized in unhealthy ways. Perhaps you, too, have heard the cruel little voice in the back of your head telling you that that you’re not smart enough, that you don’t understand things as quickly as such-and-such classmate, that if you don’t solve this homework problem or if you don’t get this fellowship or whatever then you’re not good enough. I can’t tell you whether that voice will ever shut up permanently. Maybe someday. But in the meantime, don’t listen to it! If you constantly compare yourself to others, you will never be satisfied -- or at least, this is true for (100-epsilon)% of mathematicians. Sure, yeah, there is someone smarter than you, or more academically successful than you, or whatever. But who cares? Intelligence is a useful tool, but it isn’t a virtue, the way compassion or perseverance is; and it certainly doesn’t determine your worth as a person.

I want a good academic job so that I can provide for my family and do interesting research. But what I want most from my career isn’t academic success. I care more about teaching cool math to students who wouldn’t otherwise get access to good math education than I do about proving famous theorems. I care more about helping the mathematical community become more diverse than I do about winning fancy awards. Alternatively, I could focus on doing research beneficial to society, or take high-paid jobs so as to be able to donate significant amounts to charity. The thing that matters most is not whether you climb to the very top; it is whether you lift up others as you go.