Big Mind on Campus

It’s said that “good lawyers know the law; great lawyers know the judge” . . . and then there’s Braden Lauer, second-year UBC law student and now this country’s national know-it-all.

As the winner of the CBC game show of the same title, Lauer beat out seven other finalists to become “Canada’s Smartest Person”.

The widely watched marathon of minds evaluates the contestants’ ‘smarts’ in a comprehensive nontraditional manner. Rather than measure IQ, the contest tests their musical, social, logical, linguistic, visual and–mens sana in corpore sano — physical skills.

Lauer was 22 when the show was filmed earlier in the year. He said he “threw” his “name in the mix” to be a contestant after finishing a particularly tricky first-year constitutional law exam. Now, despite being the winner and the officially recognized ‘big mind on campus’, Lauer says he’s “definitely trying to remain humble and be a good sport about it all.

“It’s not something you ever want to be cocky about,” he muses. “Now my friends can make fun of me anytime I do anything remotely stupid.”