People have been sharing what happened to the smartest person they went to school with – the varying fates of 16 academic high flyers

When you’re at school, it’s easy to feel like academic excellence will translate into success when you enter the real world. Life, however, often has other ideas.

For every nerd that graduated to become a professional boffin, there’s another who took a more sideways career route. To get an insight into how the people who used to be top of the class are getting on, xxibjt put the following question to r/AskReddit:

‘What happened to the smartest person you went to school with?’

And social media snoops were all too ready to give us all an update, including these…

CW: serious illness

1.

‘The smartest person I went to school with married me, which proves that even smart people sometimes make dumb decisions.’
-Opening_Lead_1836

2.

‘One is single with a doctorate traveling when their job allows, the other is married, several kids, strong respectable career. Both really good, kind people.’
-Popcornulogy

3.

‘He’s a super nerd at the PNW National Laboratory.

‘He dropped out in 9th grade due to bullying, went to community college, went to veterinary school and got a BS in animal science, got a MS in Genetics & Cell Biology, then went and got a MS in electrical engineering.’
-mixreality

4.

‘My husband is a PhD physicist, his old college friends are all PhD physicists, and all his coworkers have PhDs. I am absolutely drowning in brain cells that aren’t mine.

‘So when I met his boss, who, by the way, is literally one of the top experts in the world in his field, we were hosting a community event for homeschool kids and adults with special needs. I didn’t know who he was yet, so I just… made assumptions. I cheerfully guided him around like a guest who needed a little extra support, made sure he got cookies and cocoa, and even complimented him on his “great grasp of the topic” while giving him a tour of his own equipment.
Then we ran into my husband, and I realized I had been gently supervising a world-class genius.

‘The next day, his boss went out of his way to tell my husband how kind his wife is. He literally just thinks I’m wholesome.’
-NefariousAloe

5.

‘Wanted to be a Doctor, graduated undergrad with a 4.0, passed the MCAT with basically a perfect score, got into every med school they wanted. Then their dad said “hey, I want to retire from farming and I’ll give you the entire operation as long as your mom and I can live in the second house. I suggest you do the math.” So yeah, they are a chicken farmer now.

‘In Canada, chicken farming is printing money because of the quota system and it’s super easy as far as farming goes. They were straight up handed a massive operation that was already fully paid off.’
-frankyseven

6.

‘We had a girl who was so musically talented, she got a free ride to Juilliard. She wound up not going to take care of her sick father, and within a few years was dead from an aggressive ovarian cancer. It’s never easy to see young people die, but her fate just seemed so extra harsh.’
-SumpthingHappening

7.

‘She’s a board certified pediatric surgeon with more awards than I can even begin to understand and she’s still a mega bitch.’
-hoagieam

8.

‘She’s a veterinarian. It isn’t easy to become a vet, but she aced it. Never married and lives alone with her cats and dogs. She’s a great person.’
-BrainPainn