You don’t need proofs, but you still need an intuition for why things work the way they do. Otherwise you will be lost as soon as you leave the textbook territ

You don’t need proofs, but you still need an intuition for why things work the way they do. Otherwise you will be lost as soon as you leave the textbook territory. Proofs are just one way to build intuition. The best way to learn applied maths and get intuition is an “Introduction to Maths for Physicists” 101 course.