Main difference is, how i used to view the definition of intelligence has changed.
We didnt meet till last year but growing up, my SO was lower middle class and I was upper middle class. He is a 1st gen college student, I'm a 3rd. As a kid he didn't have cable & didn't really play games online so he spent more time doing crazy shit outside of school and was more outgoing than me as a teen and 20something. He and his friends were less serious about school because they wanted to do music and there was not as much pressure to do well. He was more into drugs when younger bc he had room to experiment, i didn't experiment til college because all I did was hw (often prostrastinated) practice, go online and do extra curriculars.
My family could afford to send me on school trips out of the country, but he has never been out of the country. I was pressured about college from a young age. He did school for a year or 2, but dropped out from stress. Now he is going back though, because he found he wants to study physics.
He is very organized and ready for school now, got straight As his first semester back. He is a better & more consistent student than I have been, actually, despite him getting a low GPA in high school and me getting a 4.2. He is calm and knows how to "get to the point" of things, and works steadily on goals. I am often distractible and have too many irons in the fire. He has more knowledge about how to do business and about specific career/life things, and self care, while I have more book knowledge (he didn't really read as much growing up..but now he does ALL the reading for his classes). I talk a lot more than he does. (Tho that might not have anything to do w/ class). He doesn't read to "look smart" (which I used to do). He reads books related to his goal. He doesn't tell people things to show off status/smarts. He believes that if someone can't state something simply then they don't know what they're talking about.
My parents taught me about financial investments and retirement, and about savings. His parents didn't pass that knowledge so he struggled with it for a long time. We talk about it & learn together. He has experiential knowledge though... About reselling stuff and paying cash. So diff skill sets! We each know a lot of stuff the other doesn't but it makes great conversation.
When I first learned about him dropping out I judged him kind of harshly in my mind. Then I ended up dropping out for a semester myself, ate some humble pie. I used to be kind of vain about things I knew, then I realized the difference was I went to a school where you have to talk to prove yourself, "follow these rules", it looks good to spend no time & get by on smarts etc. He has always just done whatever he was driven to do. He doesn't care about proving himself to anyone or authority, he is 100% authentic. Whereas I am often fearful of judgment so i have different "modes". Growing out of that though.
We are both in poverty now actually, haha!