How old are you?
78% percentile of what demographic?
But more importantly, why are you in mathematics in the first place? What’s your motivation for being there? From an effective altruism standpoint I don’t see academic math or physics a very valuable field.
I think it’s much better to take the skills you learned in math and then go into some field like biology, engineering or programming and actually apply the knowledge to important real world problems.
That said when it comes again to math skills I’m not sure whether tests measure the right thing. Contributions to math as a field are not done in a few hours. They are done by working focused on a problem for days, weeks and months. That needs certain skills.
There also the model that advancing the field is basically about knowing a bunch of techniques and a bunch of problems. If you are the only person who knows a certain mathematical technique and a certain mathematical problem that’s solvable with that technique you advance the field.
That means it’s very much about your ability to spend a lot of time learning complex mathematical techniques. It’s more about endurance than about solving a bunch of problems in the time span of a test.
I’ve already “given up” once before and tried programming, but the average actual problem was too easy relative to the intellectual work (memorizing technical fluuf).
Don’t make the mistake of assuming that the work you do when you learn a field is the same as the job in the field.
While university classes on programming might involve memorizing fluuf that’s not about what working as a programmer is about. Trying to understand how baldy documented legacy code or API work is something different than solving mathematical problems but it’s also a highly intellectual challenge. Designing software architecture is also highly intellectual.
I think it’s much better to take the skills you learned in math and then go into some field like biology, engineering or programming and actually apply the knowledge to important real world problems.
+1
For example, psychology is too important to be left to the sort of people who typically become psychologists in my opinion.
How old are you? 78% percentile of what demographic?
But more importantly, why are you in mathematics in the first place? What’s your motivation for being there? From an effective altruism standpoint I don’t see academic math or physics a very valuable field.
I think it’s much better to take the skills you learned in math and then go into some field like biology, engineering or programming and actually apply the knowledge to important real world problems.
That said when it comes again to math skills I’m not sure whether tests measure the right thing. Contributions to math as a field are not done in a few hours. They are done by working focused on a problem for days, weeks and months. That needs certain skills.
There also the model that advancing the field is basically about knowing a bunch of techniques and a bunch of problems. If you are the only person who knows a certain mathematical technique and a certain mathematical problem that’s solvable with that technique you advance the field.
That means it’s very much about your ability to spend a lot of time learning complex mathematical techniques. It’s more about endurance than about solving a bunch of problems in the time span of a test.
Don’t make the mistake of assuming that the work you do when you learn a field is the same as the job in the field.
While university classes on programming might involve memorizing fluuf that’s not about what working as a programmer is about. Trying to understand how baldy documented legacy code or API work is something different than solving mathematical problems but it’s also a highly intellectual challenge. Designing software architecture is also highly intellectual.
+1
For example, psychology is too important to be left to the sort of people who typically become psychologists in my opinion.