im seeing so many comments on here along the lines of if im so smart why am i failing  and as a lecturer  professor i have to say first that intelligence is no guarantee of academic success regardless of adhd   smart kids fail all the time because college grades are based on meeting other peoples expectations and if you are too smart lateral thinking tend to tune out and get oppositional when people tell you what to do and how to do it which are all adhd characteristics chances are your grades will suffer college especially is built around expecting you to manage your time be proactive about managing your needs asking for help etc this is executive function not intelligence   so college isnt set up for us and therefore if you are struggling this does not reflect on your intelligence or your value as a person  but second these comments seem to reflect an understanding of intelligence as fixed and id really like to encourage everyone to try to shift into a growth mindset based on carol ddweck research this has been turned into some lousy self-help pseudo drivel but basically it means  a “fixed mindset” assumes that our character intelligence and creative ability are static givens which we can’t change in any meaningful way and success is the affirmation of that inherent intelligence an assessment of how those givens measure up against an equally fixed standard striving for success and avoiding failure at all costs become a way of maintaining the sense of being smart or skilled a “growth mindset” on the other hand thrives on challenge and sees failure not as evidence of unintelligence but as a heartening springboard for growth  when people say but you are so smart theyre putting a fixed mindset on you if you turn it around and say im constantly learning and growing and changing that opens things up for you   and a couple more things there are multiple forms of intelligence - musical social mathematical i forget the rest howard gardner  and often adhd people are really good at synthesis and making connections but not so good at understanding hidden rules and we might be inconsistent performers - but what is consistency anyway its a fixed mindset combined with some puritan work culture  that says you are an a student therefore any time you get a b is a problem and it must be your fault which is all bollocks anyway because in inherently competitive systems like capitalism someone is being set up to fail   this interdisciplinary rant has been brought to you by a background in psychology a decade of teaching anthropology and critical sociology of education and coffee