Craig Rusbult - Life on a Road Less Traveled

The bio-page summarizes...

my academic history:
Intellectually, I've been productive due to inherited intelligence, and developing this potential through education (formal & informal) plus hard work.*
..... {ideas omitted} As a chemistry major, I enjoyed learning and did well, getting two American Chemical Society “best student” awards (for all high schools of Orange County CA, then for UC Irvine) and received a fellowship for graduate study from the National Science Foundation. .....
* This combination (of genetics, education, work) has led to getting academic awards & fellowships, 800s (highest possible scores) in GRE Exams (for college graduates applying to grad school) in Math & Verbal, and having high intellectual productivity by writing about a wide range of topics in many web-pages; a few of these are linked to at the end of this page, and many more are in my home-page. { some reasons for why the awards & scores are less impressive than they might seem to be. }

Here are some reasons for appropriate humility:

iou – during February 7-12, I will develop-and-revise this section.
"The awards & scores are less impressive than they might seem to be," because...

For the major chemistry award, 70 students (from 35 high schools) took an ACS Chemistry Exam. But if all of us did 10 exams, my score might have been highest only once (as in reality) or twice, but certainly not 10 times. And the exam had an unusual ending, and (as I'll explain later) probably I skillfully "coped with the surprise" but the twist may have dropped another student out of the top position if they didn't cope well. In Orange County CA there have been major changes in population (increasing from 1.2 million in 1965 to 3.2 million now) and demographics (with Asians, highly skilled & competitive, increasing from 1% then to 22% now).
Then for a minor chemistry award, I earned the highest grades in our small graduating class (only about a dozen students) because UC Irvine began only a few years earlier, and it had far fewer undergrad students than it does now.

For my three GRE Exams, my Math Scores always were 800. But my Verbal Scores steadily increased (from 640 in 1966, to 760 in 1988, then 800 in 1990) partly due to just getting more experience (in reading & writing); and for the final two times (1988, 1990) I prepared by practicing (with 3 previous Exams, sold by GRE) and memorizing a list of “GRE words” (photocopied from a how-to-prepare book in the library) that often were used for two parts of the exam (A & B), and designing a time-strategies to effectively use the limited exam time by changing my order-of-doing from A-B-C-A-B-C to A-A-B-B-C-C (where A was Sentence Completion, B was Word-Analogies, C was Reading Comprehension & Answering Questions) so I could “do all A's while in that mode of thinking,” then all B's, and all C's); and I did “mass production” filling of the multiple-choice bubbles (filling all A-bubbles after finishing both A's, then all B-bubbles after finishing both B's, then for C (the Reading-and-Answering) I filled all bubbles immediately after finishing each section, for "safety" to avoid a disaster); and I used a watch to time myself for each set of sections (I was very fast for A & B, much slower for C) during the practice exams (to estimate "when I should finish A, and B" based on this experience) and then to "stay on schedule" during the real exam, to ensure finishing in the time allowed. Also, getting 800 didn't require perfection, and for the Math Exam I missed 2 answers (it's the limit for getting 800), and 3 answers (the limit for 800) in the Verbal Exam, so my errors were "at the maximum limit" for each Exam.

general reasons for humility and gratitude: Although... [[ iou – I'll write this in mid-February 2026, to describe the "good luck" of being born with genes that allow intelligence, and having a good family situation, plus other opportunities in life; for all of these, I'm grateful for Mom & Dad, and God. / A general principle is that being "proud" of inherited genetics is not warranted, similar to why an NBA player should not be proud of being 6'10" tall. ]]

functional intelligence and wisdom: [[ iou – in March, I'll comment on the "mixed results" of my "road less traveled" and my wisdom in traveling it; and I'll compare my using-of-opportunities with those of my younger sister who chose a "road well traveled" and did it extremely well, achieving much more professional success (as an elite social scientist, one of the best in the world) compared with me... to be continued. ]]

This is an appendix-page to supplement a bio-page (for Craig Rusbult) about my life on a road less traveled.

This is an appendix-page to supplement
a bio-page (for Craig Rusbult) about
my life on a road less traveled.