What happened to the smartest kid in your class?

He went to Havard and got a PHD in mathematics. He had a short career as a researcher and professor. Later he bought a piece of land and became a hermit. But he was annoyed with society and sent people bombs, and published an article about contemporary world issues. He was eventually jailed.
- A person distantly affiliated to me called the FBI on Kaczynski back when he was in society, saying this guy is FUCKIN dangerous and you really need to look into him. They said, well, he hasn’t actually done anything, so honestly there’s not much we can do.
  
  Wasn't he part of MK-Ultra so isnt the government is probably to blame for some of his antics
- You went at school with Unabomber?
- Sounds familiar

I scored the highest tertiary entrance rank in my school without studying a day in my life and had my pick of any university course or career. I went to university, and excelled at exams, but because I had undiagnosed ADHD and had never learned time management, I couldn't cope with assignments that couldn't be thrown together at the last minute in my lunch break. I was academically excluded.
So there was that. Basically, my life has continued to look like some variation of that experience since then :P
- I'm in this answer and I don't like it.
- This also happened to me. I dropped out of game art & design school. Now I'm doing art and animation for a game dev company. I took the scenic route, but I got here eventually!

He worked as a chemical engineer until he was killed by police over non-existant drugs. None of the officers involved got into any trouble.
- ACAB

No idea, I moved away and moved on. Have a great life. Don’t care what the others are doing. Hope they’re well.

I'm still here.
Kidding! How do you determine who the smartest kid was?
- Valedictorian is a way, but plenty of valedictorians aren't the smartest kid, just the smart one who had the motivation to become one.
  Can't even use SAT or ACT score to pick, because the smartest kid may not have cared enough to bother or try to do as well as they could.
  
  Plus, there are so many different types of smart; test taking is far from the only one.
- Wait 5 second, they will tell you.

Works in open source charity driven software - he's having a ball.

I gradually, but absolutely fell the fuck apart after middle/high school. I'm working with a therapist and job coaches so I can get my shit reasonably back together. As it turns out, Gifted kids are most likely just neurodivergent kids who would really like someone to see them as something other than test scores and probably are smiling through a bunch of unaddressed problems. I hope the other TAG kids from my year are doing way better.

OD'd
- boredom and depression will get you, that's why there's the saying "ignorance is bliss"
  
  A lot of people aren't impressed. I've seen people who are ten steps ahead while everyone else thinks they are ten steps behind.

it's reading lemmy right now :p

I mean we had a few that were al up there. From what I recall Jamie dropped out and had a couple of kids, Mark still lives at home 'cause he's got no job and Just plays guitar and smokes a lot of pot. Jay committed suicide. Brandon OD'd and died.
- Should’ve known we’d never get far.
- What the hell is going on??
  
  Society doesn't reward intelligence and drive, together or singly. Society rewards mediocrity (make boss look good, not yourself) and undercutting.

It was me. I was the smartest kid in my class for most of school. Then I dropped out of college and now I fix cars for a living.
Not saying that's a bad thing, the world needs mechanics and I'm paid well enough to live, but the sense of lost or wasted potential is overwhelming.
- I wouldn't worry about it. I was one of the gifted kids, got my Bachelors then Masters in Computer Science with good grades. But also I got massively depressed and it took me a while to get a job after graduation. One of the more valuable lessons I learned from that experience was that I was often not seeing the forest thru the trees. After all, going to college is just a means of hopefully ensuring that you have an easier time covering the cost of living long term. So, overall, if you're happy and don't have to constantly worry about your bills there was no real loss of potential.
- Dont feel bad, the smartest kid in our school now pumps gas.

Everyone left. There’s nothing the state can offer to keep the most productive people. Most ended up going to California.
The ones that returned became educators.

From high school: went to an ivy league, coasted with Bs and Cs, has a high paying job in NYC in finance. Saw on insta that he privately booked out a bar in Manhattan for his birthday, so I guess he's doing good. From college: Currently over-employeed, married, owns a house in the inner suburbs, expecting first child. My life is pretty great, could be better, could be worse.

He became addicted to drugs and fell off. Last time i heard anything off him, he lives in south america somewhere as a street performer and found love. So i dunno.

He got a degree in architectural design and now tours the country playing the fiddle. He could have been anything he wanted and that's the life he chose, but I respect him for it. He's happy and that's what really counts.

I got a job as a software engineer and I live in one of the major cities in the US pretty comfortably.
(I was high school valedictorian, objectively average in college, and am maybe the high end of average in my career. My high school set a pretty low bar.)

All of the very smart people I knew from my youth have destroyed or are in the process of destroying themselves with substance abuse.

Honestly don’t know. In grade school we had a classmate who was always at the top of our entire batch. As expected she graduated as valedictorian. We all took the entrance exam for one of the coveted high schools and surprisingly she didn’t pass…and I got in lol. She kinda faded away after that. She’s probably fine though, just didn’t meet expectations going into high school.
- Damn. That's kinda why I'm not a fan of exams. People have test anxiety. In a lot of my math classes, some of the smartest people in there can't take tests for shit because of so much test anxiety they have. This person probably had the qualifications to get in but unfortunate that the exam was too big of a hurdle.

She is currently a doctor, married, has a kid, and is doing quite well for herself.

She was killed in a traffic accident senior year.
- Well, fucking shit man.

I went on to enlist in the military, got out after one enlistment, and eventually became a machinist and shipwright welder. I'm working on my SCUBA & underwater welding qualifications.
In a high-school out in the boondocks of Texas, I was easily the smartest kid. Everyone else was concerned with their parents farm, chores, football, and dating.
Nobody was interested in reading or higher education, and the teachers put no effort into encouraging students to reach higher.

He went on to become an internationally renowned heart surgeon

Looks like he's a Ph.D bridge engineer. Good on him.

Which class? we had different students depending on the subject.

He’s married, three kids, great wife, manages a team of salespeople.

They got a PhD in science from a well-known university and worked on research for a while. Last I heard, they got married and ended up selling real-estate.

I have no idea. I've only kept up with 4 or 5 people from high school.

As far as my knowledge goes, she went to a private school then got pregnant with, like, 20 or 19-ish. Then she did lose a little control of her life. But I think that she might've been successful with her career and may have gotten her life under control.
I don't know if she was the smartest kid, but she definitely got good grades. My class was honestly full of lazy people, including me. I've changed a lot, so I would say that I would now be the smartest kid, because I was one of the first who actually did realize how tough life is.

She was my coworker, but I left her when I moved.

One became a high school teacher and another works in tech. Not too shocking I guess

Went to the US and became a martial arts competitor

GCHQ. Need I say more...

I'm here

In my class/homeroom? I'm sitting on the couch. Just trying not to let life get me down. In my grade? Fuck if I know. I did know like the top 5 in my grade, of 600+ students, but I didn't keep in touch once we went off to college. At least 2 went to Ivy League schools for undergrad. Don't know about the other 3.