As I sit here struggling to prepare for my arduous subject matter for my engineering classes, I am somewhat frustrated by my inability to grasp simple concepts that others seemed to easily relate to. Has our generation declined to the point where we have no hope of obtaining jobs in professions that hire the most gifted minds attainable? As an aspiring neurologists, I seek to understand everything about human intelligence, and how we learn most efficiently. The fact of the matter is, there is soemthing missing in our educational system, it is up to the students to discover the missing variable, and fix it before we fall to far behind in world innovation.  Being a scholar is not tied to being a good student by any stretch of the imagination! Scholars read books , analyze them, ask teachers and others to aid them in their quest for knowledge, do personal research about topics they are truly interested in, and ask thoughtful questions about the world around them. Excellent students tend to pay attention in class, understand the taught subject matter, and ace the tests, right? In my opinion, I think students are striving to be the latter more so than the former, and it is ruining our educational system. We have seen perceptiveness and speed of brilliant students like Jeremy Jones, and Christina Hwang, who seemed to pull out A's without much effort. If we strive to be like those gifted "students" we have neglected to build prowess in a field of our own: curiosity. The effects of becoming a scholar rather than just a gifted student will not see to make a gargantuous difference within the first year of schooling, but your academic performance should improve substantially in future courses just by thinking like a "scholar". Think about it.