When someone is considered smart, that can mean two things. Firstly it could mean: that they excel in school or a certain subject, will get a good degree from a prestigious school, and go on to a professional job. Secondly: they could be a person that picks up information from anything and everything, and has a huge wealth of knowledge. I would like to label these: being book/career smart and being an intellectual.
Everyone, probably, considers one of the "smarts" better than the other, but it varies depending on your goal/path in life. For me, I would prefer to be an intellectual. I would rather be wise and live an average, lower income job and be philosophical at my own times; than spend half of my life in school and compete the rest of my life to remain "smart".
I love knowing random facts about Charles Manson, popcorn and pop culture. And I feel that intelligence derived from culture, living life, philosophy, and libraries is more applicable to life than intelligence gained in a lecture hall. Both are important to living a successful and therefore happy life. So, one really shouldn't be praiseed over the other.
Sadly though, it seems that many people don't deem it necessary to be cultured because their life paths don't require them to know more than what will benefit them professionally. That's no way to live. Spend some time in the library or on the internet acquiring knowledge about the world. Not just your world, but the world that lays outside your classes this semester and the degree you'll receive in a couple years. And you may find that having a larger more cultured intelligence, helps in your studies and profession. Then you'll be able to have interesting conversations with strangers about the parole of Charles Manson.
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