Aid to Evaluating Your Accomplishments

part of Career Guide for Engineers and Scientists
Compare yourself to these four ordinary people who were selected at random:

Science Fiction Author L. Ron Hubbard

Created the religion of Scientology in 1950. 1998 membership: more than one million.

(more)

Viennese Pauper W. A. Mozart

Composed his first opera, La finta semplice, at the age of 12.

(more)

Heart Patient Ernest Shackleton

After his ship Endurance was crushed in the Antarctic pack ice, took his crew 600 miles to Elephant Island. Sailed with a small team in an open boat 700 miles to South Georgia Island through waters listed as unnavigable by the United States Navy. Retrieved crew on Elephant Island. One man lost a toe to frostbite. Compare with Scott.

(more)

Hartford Connecticut Insurance Executive Wallace Stevens

Won Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1954; best known for "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird".

(more)

Programmed by Eve Astrid Andersson and Philip Greenspun back in the mid-1990s. If you're a nerd, you might find the source code useful.

Original Inspiration: How to Make Yourself Miserable, by Dan Greenburg


philg@mit.edu