Burned Out Gifted Kid Rediscovers the Meaning of Life by Joining FSU Honors Program
Besides all of the chaos happening in the world right now, school is already tough, and nobody knows this more than a burnt out gifted kid. Endless NHS Meetings, AP Classes, National Merit Finalist sessions and Quiz Bowl competitions can really overwork a student. One burnt out gifted kid, craving the academic praise that once was, has found a solution to their social life sized void: joining the FSU Honors Program
“I’ve been a gifted kid since first grade, and it seriously became like a drug to me. I’m like Pavlov’s dog: every time I turn in an assignment I crave praise,” said Jack Bluth, former gifted student and lost soul in search of meaning, who has been struggling to find the same motivation to excel. “I felt like all hope was lost until I applied to the Honors Program and got accepted, and now I feel reborn! It's almost as if I’ve turned back the clock and I’m thirteen again. The honors sections of classes even feel like my old high school AP classes--tons of gunners who have grown up “gifted” but never been told to shut up. It’s so comforting. Every day I get to chase that feeling of sweet validation from my professors, who are proxies for my parents.”
“I was in the same exact headspace as Jack when I started college. I was a gifted kid from age seven, I won the National Spelling Bee and Science Fair at age nine, and I founded a company that uses microorganisms to eat the plastic in the oceans at age fifteen. Then I came to college, hit a wall, and joined the Honors Program to fill the void,” said Anna Delgato, a fellow burnt out gifted child turned Honors Program student, who says joining the Honors Program is a temporary fix. “I started grad school in the Fall, and it’s a literal nightmare. You think you’re going to be the smartest kid in the room as usual, get praised all the time, and finally feel fulfilled. Then you realize that you aren’t gifted at all, you just have rich parents with too much time on their hands and have no understanding of your self-worth outside of academic achievement.”
Whether students are labeled as “special,” “gifted,” “honors” or just “annoying,” everyone has something to be proud of. Even if academics aren’t your thing, you still have so much value to add to this world, no matter what that bitchy school psychologist said about you back in 2010. Cheers to the gifted and non-gifted kid burnout--we’re all in this hellscape together.