In my personal opinion, I find being street smart is more beneficial than being book smart. As one helps you in the real world with real life situations that school ignores to teach us, while the other helps you understand the what and the why of a situation.

It is commonly misunderstood that street mart is considered “unintelligent” or “uneducated,” but I believe it is the exact opposite. While book smart is someone who is able to succeed scholastically, and not necessarily in the real world. Being street smart can be as useful as book smart or even more in many circumstances. When being street smart you have a knowledge/wisdom of things that are going around you.

“You are able to make judgments on the scenario, the place, and people around you, and you are able to trust these personal judgments. Let’s call it gut instinct, and yours is on point,” according to medium.com

Many people would think that having the best education and being the smartest is crucial to being successful, which I find false, experiences make you successful.

Website, Scottberkun, states, “…being street smart comes from experience. It means you’ve learned how to take what has happened to you, good or bad, think about it, and learn to improve from it.”

Surviving the real world, you have to have experiences. Without having to learn from your experiences you truly just aren’t ready. You can’t do that by reading a book, a book can’t help you prepare for the real world that is out there.

Being book smart isn’t all bad, there are many benefits of being book smart. But, according to medium.com, “They have the ‘know what’ and the ‘know why.’ But the actual ‘know how’ is non-existent.”

Senior, Christopher Hudson, had a different opinion. He believes that being book smart is crucial to surviving because ” you have to get a job and have a career… they [people who are street smart] are capable of getting a job, they’re better at surviving it but they’re not gonna make nearly as much money which is what you need to have a good live.”

Many students at Northland assume that some people in their grade aren’t smart “academically” but really they are. Just because of their actions, background, and the way they carry themselves, people automatically assume that they are unintelligent. When truly, most of the students are purely street smart and are also smart academically.

So being street smart shouldn’t be seen as a negative thing. It is certainly a crucial thing that everyone should have in order to survive this world.