'little professor' in young adults

Post Reply New Topic

Right, I am going to argue here that the being 'a little professor' does not end in childhood, based on my experience today and in the past, and I am wondering if this happened to others as well:

People ofthen seem to think I am younger than my actual age. I am 20 (nearly 21), but often I have been spoken to as I am 18 or even younger. This does not sound like a real difference, but apparently at the age of around 18 it is. When I tlk to people however, especially about my special interest, they seem to think I am academically more advanced; I will give the example of what happened today.

My special interest is at the moment Sherlock Holmes and the late 19th century. As I wanted to know more about late 19th century forensic techniques, I went to the bioscience department of my university and asked to speak someone who could inform me of this. (I am an undergrad in History) Apparently the professor and his PhD students I spoke to seem to think I was writing a MA thesis on it but could not answer my question and send me on to the relevant library people. (I did not correct them as they seem to take me far more serious than they would have otherwise done.) At the library I was assisted by three science librarians who seemed to think I was doing a PhD on the subject, while I just wanted to know more about a pet project. (A PhD is way out of my league because I get extremely distracted by my special interests to be able to get much above my standard lower 2.1, unfortionately)

My question is: does anyone have similar experiences and what do you do whem people make these false assumptions?

actually older than you and I do the same thing still to this day.

Well, I read just about everything I can get my hands on. I spend hours online reading everyday. As a result my knowledge base is very large. I also speak as I read and write, which is formal and articulate. The result is everyone I meet seems to think I'm a super genius and can do anything and figure out anything.
The truth is I am probably just slightly above average in my abilities. This has gotten me in all kinds of problems growing up and now into adulthood. People make assumptions all the time.
I got in over my head in so many situations.
As an adult I often get the "why are you here and not making a lot of money or getting a Ph.D. or something" attitude from people.
Everyone assumes I am an expert in everything I talk about, but I'm really not.

It may sound good, but it is not, everyone thinks I'm some kind of underachiever or worse that I am trying to impress them with my knowledge or fool them or something. The truth is besides AS I have serious life-long mental health issues that have made my life very difficult.

As an example, right now, I have a menial low-wage full-time job (long story--won't explain). I talk to people and they assume I have some sort of professional-level career--typically some science or computer geek job.

The library story is funny. In my 20s I was a library aide, which was just a low-paid job. People would ask me when I was getting my Masters in Library Science all the time! At the time I had no degree. One person thought I was the librarian (high status, professional-level top job)--which was actually embarrassing as the real librarian was standing next to me. It was awkward.

I'm 22 and feel that people view me as someone younger than me who people who as older than they are. It's quite interesting. People forget all the time that I can legally drink, but I still absolutely have the 'little professor' thing going on, even in a field that I have a Bachelor's Degree in.

You must look younger than you are, its actually not uncommon. It must be hard to feel like an adult.
I suppose you get the "what high school do you go to"or "you need to get a parent to co-sign since you're under 18" questions all the time.
I have a friend that looks very young for his age and when he was <25 yo, he says it was tough. Now that's he older, it is not bad.

people all assumed that I was either a grad student or that one day they would see me on national geografic as I would explain everything there was to know about pipefish to anyone foolish enough to ask what I was doing when I was down at the beach.
In truth, I conducted a study that produced data completely contradicting the established research (or demonstrating a gender based difference in location during the time of year that population studies had been carried out prior)
aside from writing to the author of the most authority paper I could find on the subject (her masters dissertation) and told her that she was wrong. Beyond that the research died, it is knowledge that has no value to the rest of the world, just to some guy who was obsessed with sygnathiades (seahorse, pipefish et family) at the time.

it never really goes away, if I become interested in something I feel compelled to learn everything I can about it.