> I don’t see any inspiration for those of us who really want to learn math, or physics, or chemistry, but just don’t want to focus on it for 4 years. Truth be

> I don’t see any inspiration for those of us who really want to learn math, or physics, or chemistry, but just don’t want to focus on it for 4 years. Truth be told (in physics at least with no prior extensive knowledge beyond school) it takes about minium 1.5 years (3 semesters; 40hrs/week) of practice in order to get really started. The most diffucult part for me was getting used to the pace and regularly attending to the exercises. The first two semesters were the most humiliating ones, I really struggled to translate simple concepts into mathematical sound equations, I've constantly missed a lot of nuance and lacked elegance in solving problems, a lot of my calculations appeared to me just brute-forced. Only in my 2nd year in I realized that I had actually gained some "competence" in mathematical modeling. So, yeah, in order to be able to play along with a band or orchestra one has to invest some time into learning the particularities of a given instrument. You can get some decent results after 3 months of practicing but really only after 1-2 years (without prior experience) it starts to really open up.