Redditor Desperate_Bluejay330 asked about all the about the students who scored all those A's.
"What happened to the smartest kid at your high school?"
I'm not sure about my smarty pants people. Now I have to go look them up.
Physical
Get Out Love GIF by T-SeriesGiphy"He was actually quite overweight. When he left for college, he was studying physics. Couple of years later, I learned that he lost 175 pounds, became super into fitness, dropped out of college and became a gym trainer."
Apprehensive_Bet_438
Into the Sky...
"He's a NASA scientist, while I just come on Reddit."
superdupernumnuts
"I heard that the smartest guy in my class worked at NASA. I just looked up his LinkedIn and he's a mechanical engineer who works in manufacturing. Nothing aerospace related. Still much more impressive than anything I've ever done."
NativeMasshole
A Good Life
"He lives in the same small village he was living in when we were in school, is married with kids and apparently works in an office in the nearest town. He had aspirations of becoming a surgeon when we were in school, it didn't happen, but it sounds like he's living a good life regardless."
zerbey
"Similar. Top in our class went and got a masters in math, then moved back home and became the local librarian, but they have a wonderful family. Didn't change the world but they're happy. That's the real dream."
Futurenazgul
Who Knows?
"I couldn’t tell you what 99% of people from my high school are doing now."
okay11654
"Lol... I got ya beat. I can honestly say that I have zero idea what 100% of the people I went to HS with are up to now. I graduated 22 years ago, the moment I was done… I was done lol."
Regular_Sample_5197
"I guess that shows that my high school friends were truly good friends and we got along because we have a Christmas gathering beer exchange each year since like 2011 or so. There’s like 30 of us."
LordNoodles1
Career Changes
Season 2 Lawyer GIF by MartinGiphy"Became a doctor, decided it wasn't for her and went to law school. Is currently a barrister as far as I know."
Barnaby_Cuckoldsniff
"Sounds like my paternal uncle! He became an electrical engineer, decided it wasn't his thing, then became a patent attorney."
PM_ME_YOUR_WEIRD_PET
Doctor and lawyer? I type. Lord I'm lazy.
Nefarious
Season 9 Phoebe GIF by FriendsGiphy"Completely fell off the radar. I assume he's running some sort of nefarious think-tank for a huge tech company or something."
ckuiper
Friends
"I still talk to him. He's a good friend of mine, still. He's an engineer at Google now. I am not."
Endymian
"Smartest guy in our class (finished Calc BC in 10th grade, ended up going to a local college to take discrete mathematics and linear Algebra, graduated from CalTech, etc.) ended up working at Google and Facebook as a data scientist. I would be shocked if his net worth wasn't in the mid 7 figures at this point just off of equity."
Amyndris
The 3
"There were 3 I would argue were the smartest. They were all neck and neck for the valedictorian and salutatorian title. 2 of them I was never really close to so I have no idea what they're doing exactly. One of them moved out half way across the country and had a child and the other was a Jehovah's witness and there was something about them not being allowed to go to university for what they wanted to do. Other than that I don't know what they're doing."
"The other was actually a good friend I knew since the 3rd grade but we fell in and out of each other's lives. Life changed directions for them as far as aspirations go. Originally he was part way through a master's program for human kinetics but he realized it wasn't going to pan out as expected so he went into teaching. Now he's married, has a kid and overall happy I believe."
wert989
Still call him...
"Valedictorian of my high school is still one of my best friends, I was even the best man at his wedding. He went to the Army after graduating from Yale, became a Ranger then went into JSOC or something. Now he has a wife and two kids and works at the Pentagon. I stayed the nerd route and became a chemical and petroleum engineer."
NinjaGrizzlyBear
Fit as a Fiddle
Working Out GIFGiphy"He's a scientist (something related to nutrition) and a big fitness Youtuber."
"As an interesting anecdote, he might have started go to the gym during the last couple years of grade school but was still unassuming and tiny. I removed him from Facebook shortly after and was pretty dumbfounded when I stumbled upon his channel years later."
"It's not hard to believe he was that successful but didn't expect to see him jacked or on Youtube."
"Also we lived in a relatively small and pretty redneck town. There were social groups and cliques like an 80's movie - Of the popular kids or jocks he was the only one to actively oppose his friends bullying people."
Digrug
Harvard Bound
"She got her Ph.D in Chemistry from Harvard and is now Dean of the Science Department at our local state university, of about 20k students. Went to a high school in a town of about 4,500 people. Still see her occasionally."
PhillyCSteaky
Double Major
He went to college and double majored in business and biomechanical engineering at a very good school. Graduated, and is apparently doing research for some big company. Dude is smart AF.
BrilliantWeight
Flip The Script
"Not my class, like 15 years after I graduated. I visited my hs to see an old teacher who was retiring. While talking to the principle he tells me about this student who was legit one of the most brilliant students the school had had in decades. He wanted to be a chef. (I am one). Cut to the graduation and he is due to give his speech."
"The one they approved was totally dropped. He gave a scathing tirade against all the teachers for not supporting him and kept pushing him to not follow his dreams and to just go to regular college. I heard it was brutal."
"(Kid had a scholarship to several top culinary programs already, his family owned a successful restaurant).
"He is a happy chef. His family doesn’t support the school anymore."
"My years smart folks are all married and grandparents by now."
MissMurderpants
Well it's nice to see that studying pays off... sometimes.
But as adults looking back on the wild activities of our rambunctious classmates in retrospect, what may have been considered funny back then may not have been as hilarious as we once thought.
Curious to explore this notion, Redditor Silent-Zebra asked:
"What's something that a friend/classmate did in high school that was seen as funny at the time, but you now realise was actually not ok?"
Teachers became the victims.
Car On Fire
"Few messed up kids in my primary school lit a teachers car on fire, just because she gave one of them failing grade on midterm. It wasn't one of the mean teachers, she was mostly nice to students."
"Cops got involved but don't think they got punished accordingly, i know one of them was in and out of juvie already, and were all around 13- 14yr old, one was even in nazi sh*t. I know later on those kids got all tangled in dealing and robberies, probably all went to jail at some point."
– spooch001
Into The Cupboard She Goes
"Our religion teacher went into the cupboard for supplies, she was quite strict and not liked but now I’m an adult I realise it doesn’t excuse what happened next. The class clown snuck up and locked her in the cupboard."
"We all thought it was hilarious at the time and we all left the class. She was in there for the rest of the class until another teacher found her in there crying an hour later. She took 2 weeks off after that."
– usernamegenerator98
The Awful Rumor
"I had a Spanish teacher, Ms. G."
"EDIT: This was in Arizona. I found her full name in a yearbook because I had her sign mine in 2008. I’m not sure I should put her name out there, but I’m guessing she’s retired now. She doesn’t have a Facebook either. 😔"
"Students would lock her out of her classroom, unplug her computer, and they spread an awful rumor that she was having sex with another woman teacher in front of a classroom."
"She got locked out because a student came back from the restroom and said her car was hit in the parking lot. She ran out and then a kid locked her out. A few kids unlocked the door for her, but that was really sad."
"This teacher was so kind hearted, soft, and an excellent Spanish teacher. It was really sad what students put the teachers through. 😢"
– cakelover33
Bullying The Teacher
"In our school there was a teacher who had a mole, so of course the kids decided her nickname would now be 'mole.' She must have felt really hurt, as she eventually had the mole removed, leaving a little dent where it used to be. Did everyone then stop calling her names? Nope. They started calling her 'hole' instead."
– bemmu
People didn't know what to believe.
The Kidnapping
"My friend faked her own kidnapping. i was all fun and games until the police started chasing her 'kidnappers' van."
– AvocaDotty
These Low Effort Jobs Have Surprisingly High Salaries | George Takei’s Oh Myyy
Have you ever worked one of those jobs that paid you to kinda sit there? If you have, you know the joy that comes with watching the entirety of Breaking Bad ...Showing The Goods
"Living in the Netherlands. Classmate was showing on his phone a whole online shop he claimed to have with all kinds of drugs and weapons. We thought it was funny because we didn't take it too serious. He dropped out of school early and turned out to be a big drug dealer. Well we could have known I guess."
– Environmental-Cold24
Kids can be so cruel.
Paralyzing A Kid
"Had a kid in my year who'd had a surgery that left a nerve bundle in his neck exposed. If pressed it would paralyse him. From memory it was for spina bifida and for some ungodly reason he told everyone."
"Certain boys took great pleasure in going down stairs behind him and pressing it which completely paralysed him for a few seconds and he'd fall like a brick. Usually onto whoever was in front of him."
"So dangerous. There were a fair few teeth knocked out because of this, his and other people's."
"It happened so much that in his 3rd year the school installed an elevator and you had to have a special key to use it. He got the only permanent issue key at that time."
"Kids are a**holes."
– notalotasleep
The Towel
"A kid took another kids towel after gym class shower. He used the other kids towel to dry his ass. Put a sh*t stain on the towel 3 foot long. Lots of nervous laughter because we were glad it wasn’t our towel. Sick bastard."
– Realitycheck-4u
Bye Bye Bike
"this was in elementary: my dad bought a brand new bike for me and i rode it to the park and these older kids came up to me and asked if one of them could take it for a test drive."
"i said ok and about 10 seconds in, i see the guy riding my bike being pushed off and my bike being stolen right in front of me. the older kids 'helped' me look for my stolen bike but growing up I realized that they plotted this whole thing and yeah i basically gave my brand new bike away."
– SingaporeanSlaw
It's difficult to imagine that some of these incidents were considered remotely humorous when certain people were targeted for their jokes.
What's not shocking however, are that the ones who came up with the most violent schemes wound up having run-ins with the law later in life.
Bullying in any form, whether online or in person, is not acceptable.
If you or someone you know has been a victim of bullying, there are resources online that Stop Bullying that are helpful.
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