CPQ > / < / = / ? IQ

PQ: 90
CQ: 14
IQ: 153

According to Friedman, my levels of curiosity and passion put together are less than my intelligence. The way I understood Friedman’s thoughts on the subject of curiosity is that it is more important in life to have high levels of curiosity and passion than to actually be intelligent. I would have to disagree with him. I think that they are equally important qualities of a person, and it would be most desirable to have an equality of all three. If someone was insanely intelligent and was able to recall any fact you asked them, but didn’t have any yearning in life, what’s the point of having all of that intelligence? Along with the idea that if someone was very curious about learning new things and had a high level of passion for a given subject, what use would it be if they couldn’t retain any of the information. To me, society puts intelligence on a pedestal with hopes that everyone will strive to be more intelligent than their neighbor. While Friedman focuses on the fact that intelligence is a waste of time and that it is more important to be curious and passionate in life. I think they are both wrong; or both right, depending on how you look at it. One’s personality and yearning in life should be split equally three ways containing intelligence, curiosity, and passion.

As a liberal arts student, I have an opportunity to try to satisfy my curiosity. During my first semester, when I first looked at my degree audit I thought to myself, “Wow this is going to take foreverrrrr to complete all of these general education credits!” But as I thought about it more, I realized that it is a great opportunity for me to learn about a lot of things that I will probably never have another chance to learn about. Once my nursing degree is met and I graduate from college, I will be out in the real world working. I won’t be concerned with Native American Indian Studies or The Great Religions of the World or The Nazi Era. Instead I’ll be worrying about my job, my family, and things that greatly influence my own life in that specific time. I do think of myself as a curious person. Things that happen to me on a day-to-day basis often make my mind wander and wonder about random things. For example, if I was watching the history channel about Germany in WWII, after its long over and I’m going about my daily routine, I think about things that I would like to further learn about in that given area. That’s why being a liberal arts student, I have an awesome opportunity to think about things that I am interested in that I would be able to learn about now so I don’t stop and think ten years down the road I wish I could have learned about that.

I have always been very interested in history. For some reason, Nazi Germany has always intrigued me. I have already learned about The Holocaust numerous times in numerous high school history classes but I would love to learn more details about it. I also think of myself as a very passionate person. I am a huge science geek. I love everything and anything about medicine and health. Through my education as a nursing major, I will be able to implement my passion for science and helping people, and I can't wait until that happens! :)

If I have an assignment that I am niether curious nor passionate about, I usually just deal with it and complete the assignment. However, sometimes when we are not "all about" a particular subject, we don't put forth our passion. Instead we just produce a product that was required of us and move on to the next assignment. I like when I have to complete an assignment that I am excited about. I usually don't put off doing it and I also usually put a lot more emphasis of myself into the assignment. For example, I am in an anatomy and physiology class right now, and although this sounds really nerdy, I actually get excited to go to it every day because I am so interested in it. I think the fact that I have a high level of passion for that class will also help me do well in it because I am very engaged in it. I also think that the passion and curiosity a student has for a specific class or assignment can be manipulated to a certain degree by the instructor. If the instructor has a high level of passion about their work, that passion can rub off onto their students and therefore also produce better results.