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Hello! Math professor in the US here. Maybe, but probably not. What might be easier to do is to audit a university course. Do you live in a city with a decent
by impendia 6y ago
Hello! Math professor in the US here. Maybe, but probably not.
What might be easier to do is to audit a university course. Do you live in a city with a decent university? Find a course that interests you, and for which you think your background would be sufficient. Usually university course schedules are open to the public, and individual professors are easily Googleable. Professors who have personal webpages with lots of recently "cool stuff" tend to be better teachers on average, and also maybe more approachable. (This is, of course, a vague trend, not an ironclad rule.)
Anyway, it's okay to cold-email a professor and ask for permission to audit their course. Keep it brief; introduce yourself, say a sentence or two about your background, a sentence or two about why you find their course interesting. Be prepared to move on to someone else if they say no or don't respond.
If you end up excelling in the course, then this would might further doors for you; the professor might be willing to give you advice as to next steps, or to introduce you to other people who could help you.
Good luck to you!
- tombert 6y agoHow might that be affected with the recent quarantine orders? Do you know if it’s possible to audit a “zoom class”?
- impendia 6y agoGood question. Hard to predict. With in-person classes it would probably be more difficult now, as universities are much more stringent about maximum enrollments and much more concerned about managing risk. With Zoom classes, I doubt it would make too much difference. Professors are perhaps more concerned about their workload, or about maintaining some kind of class "community", and so might be somewhat more likely to say no. But I still think it's worth asking.
- codemonkey-zeta 6y agoIf I was a betting man I would say it will not be possible. The odds of universities publishing zoom links in light of the zoom bombings[0] seems pretty low to me. Most likely students will be contacted directly by their professors/administration with the link(s) for their classes. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoombombing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoombombing
- impendia 6y agoThe odds of universities publishing zoom links are essentially zero. You might find individual faculty posting syllabi with Zoom links somewhere online that anyone can see -- this would likely fly under the radar. To do this, you would definitely want to contact the professor in advance. Email addresses for individual faculty are in general published and very easy to find.