jordan pulse -

Dr. Jamal Al-Dabbas

With every Tawjihi season, the same debate resurfaces: as a student's score rises, so do the voices around them asking, "Medicine or engineering?" It is as if academic excellence has only one path, and as if a student who scores 99% and chooses physics, electrical engineering, or economics has somehow compromised on their potential.
​However, science and real-world experience tell a very different story.
​There are numerous examples worth reflecting upon: high achievers who entered a major only to discover their true path lay elsewhere, or top-ranking students who struggled because they pursued a field chosen by their grades rather than their actual interests, capabilities, and skills. In doing so, society risks losing exceptional talent across other vital fields.
​These are not merely personal impressions.
​One of the world's longest-running longitudinal studies on high achievers, the Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth (SMPY)—launched by Vanderbilt University in 1971—tracked over 5,000 exceptionally gifted children across decades. The critical takeaway was that these students did not all simply become mathematicians.
​On the contrary, their career paths spanned engineering, physical sciences, technology, medicine, law, management, and social sciences. The study demonstrated that specific abilities, interests, educational opportunities, and hard work determine where a top performer excels, rather than intelligence quotient or test scores alone. Four decades later, their achievements were remarkable: professorships at major research universities, leadership roles in global companies, legal and scientific breakthroughs, thousands of published papers, and hundreds of patents.
​Similarly, the Illinois Valedictorian Project followed 81 top high school graduates, finding that while most remained highly successful, their degrees, fields, and professions followed vastly different trajectories.
​Here lies the essential message needed in Jordan: a student scoring 99% may become a great physician—which is wonderful if medicine is their passion—but they could also excel as a physicist, electrical engineer, artificial intelligence expert, chemist, economist, or researcher developing breakthrough technologies.
​Nations do not progress through doctors alone. They advance through a balanced ecosystem of doctors, scientists, engineers, economists, programmers, technicians, and effective administrators who place the right mind where it can deliver its maximum potential.
​It is time to change the question posed to top students: Where is your talent? What do you love? In which field can you become exceptional?
​A high school average reflects past academic performance, but talent, passion, and dedication dictate how far a student can go in life.
​Website: Rum Online