A few years ago, I read a book by Malcolm Gladwell called “Outliers: The Story of Success.” In his book, Gladwell dives into the world of “outliers”–the best and the brightest, the most famous and the most successful. He asks the question: what makes high-achievers different?

His answer is that we pay too much attention to what successful people are like, and too little attention to where they are from: that is, their culture, their family, their generation, and the idiosyncratic experiences of their upbringing. But everyone’s definition of success is different. Importantly, these definitions change as we change. Recent events related to the COVID-19 pandemic has most likely altered your views on what it means to be “successful.” In this project, you will get to explore these ideas and gather data for analysis. You may be surprised what you uncover.

Part I. In-class brainstorming session Tuesday 4/13/2021

1)  I will form groups of four. In the event that there is an excess number of students, I will decide how to arrange the final group(s).

2)   Your goal as a group is to study what makes people successful and to try to determine if there are certain population parameters which predict success.  Since we all define success differently, you, as a group, will decide on what you consider “markers” of success. For example, some markers of success might be salary, home/car ownership, professional position, degrees, happiness, health, job security, etc.

As a group you will also decide on what could be a “predictor” of success. Some predictors of success might be # years of higher education or education K-12, SAT, IQ or GRE scores, month/year born, profession of parents, salary of parents, whether someone is an only child, whether someone is the oldest/youngest/middle child, if someone is 1^st/2^nd generation in the country they live, if they were educated in a private or public school, etc. 

The lists of examples of markers and predictors of success provided above are by no means comprehensive – there are so many more options!

3) Select two markers of success (one qualitative and one quantitative) and two predictors of success (one qualitative and one quantitative) that you would like to be the focus of your project. An example of a qualitative marker would be professional position and a quantitative marker would be salary.

These choices will help guide your project.

3) Once you have determined the markers of success and predictors of success you intend to focus on, brainstorm the ways your predictors might impact your markers.  For example, you may hypothesize that a person with parents who are professionals (such as doctors and lawyers) will do better on their SAT. Or that a person who has a graduate degree has a higher salary than others.

** Please be sure to exchange contact information with your fellow group mates so that you can continue to work outside of class **