Intelligence

So I had a conversation that revolved around intelligence, how society deem someone as intelligent and the means that our education system measure intelligence.

There is this tendency for individuals to despise the academically inclined, citing them as vomiting out what they mugged and not being really intelligent nor street smart. That they have this uncanny ability to remember better, able to reproduce well-thought answers that were memorised and these abilities do not at all reflect intelligence.

But then again, what is intelligence? Is someone deemed intelligent because he has a first-class honors degree? Or a P.h.D.? Yes we heard about emotional IQ but what is it anyway? Why do we have to label ourselves by classes, and suffer through examinations? 

Its hard to put a finger on intelligence but my guess is, intelligence is subjective. There is no one size fits all checklist. But I believe generally, people see intelligence as someone who can get along well with most people, able to understand others and express himself, and having the ability to interpret given data/information and react accordingly.