45 ms·

Levels of Excellence

182 points by martian 13y ago

basicallydan 13y ago
Nice article. One part in particular stood out to me: > 7) The best swimmers don’t spend a lot of time dreaming about big goals like winning the Olympics. They concentrate on “small wins”: clearly defined minor achievements that can be rather easily done, but produce real effects. Recently, I've found my own attitude changing towards focusing on the smaller wins, too, and found myself both happier and more successful in the work that I do. When you're putting together a large puzzle, it's quite difficult to think of it as a picture which is made up of hundreds of little pieces. It's easier to focus on a few large, more manageable chunks of the puzzle, each of which is made up of several small pieces rather than hundreds. This can be applied to many types of challenge. This isn't new advice, but it's an important reminder not to let the bigger picture cloud your view if you're trying to achieve something.
- nyrina 13y ago
  But my boss keeps telling me to go look down from the helicopter, like it's some magical answer. "Hey, iPads aren't showing some of our websites at all, I've tracked it down to IIS, I think, as every time I recycle the app pool, it shows our website perfectly, but then fucks up every time you refresh it after that." "Ohh, that's easy, just look at the bigger picture, take a trip in the helicopter and look down" Argh!
  - unlikelymordant 13y ago
    your boss sounds like he is at least 2 levels higher than you :p
    - ansimionescu 13y ago
      Pointy-haired boss is so yesterday. I vote for [10] boss http://i.imgur.com/uKcUCHd.png http://i.imgur.com/uKcUCHd.png
  - pgeorgi 13y ago
    You must have a generous helicopter budget :-)
  - ChristianMarks 13y ago
    I love platitudinous bosses. They never level up.
  - kaybe 13y ago
    Does he provide the helicopter? (You probably are talking about a meta helicopter, but it sounds like you should take the company helicopter for a ride to think about it. I like the idea.)
    - aaronem 13y ago
      I think the metaphorical sort might be preferable in this case. Real ones are awfully noisy.
- neverminder 13y ago
  I can relate to the puzzle analogy. Take my profession - IT engineering as an example. When you are just starting out, you know nothing and you're completely overwhelmed - you feel like you're sitting in front of a shuffled million piece puzzle. The only thing you can do is slowly start piecing the puzzle together bit by bit. Eventually (after a long time) you have enough pieces in place to start seeing "the big picture".
- weego 13y ago
  David Brailsford (Performance Director of the GB cycling team) implemented a very similar strategy. The general gist is that anyone who already excels at something is unlikely to manage to improve on that thing by any measurable amount by just focusing on being better at it. If instead you break down everything that intersects with it and improve those by 1% then you get an 'aggregation of marginal gains'. This can be things directly related, or something really as simple as, I believe I remember hearing, making sure that the athletes own pillows are packed for them when staying at hotels for events rather than relying on people getting used to the bedding provided.
JackMorgan 13y ago
I'm reminded of pg's essay on the power continuum of languages. http://paulgraham.com/avg.html http://paulgraham.com/avg.html The power continuum of the developers wielding those languages isn't mentioned as much, but clearly is an important issue. I've worked in blub languages with developers who are so many levels above me they are not even speaking the same language anymore. The problems they are trying to solve take for granted all I know, all I struggle with, and all I still haven't even learned yet. The more I "level up" in development, the more I'm convinced there is not enough attention paid to how to really advance through those levels. Right now I'm three languages into "Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years", http://norvig.com/21-days.html http://norvig.com/21-days.html but what about after that? And that is just one man's brief and not well-explained suggestions. I'd love to see other developer's suggestions for how they advanced past that. The biggest issue though is it's almost impossible to know your skill relative to the rest of the development world. We can't just time ourselves writing a script, like in the olympics, so almost all of us have a hugely overinflated or underinflated sense of our own skill. Everyone has hundreds of anecdotes proving their value over those who by any metric would be our betters (years of experience, languages mastered, formal education, etc). I'm reminded of when I was a brand new developer in my first job, how pleased with myself I was at my commit messages, compared to my officemate. Sure, he worked on patching a financial aid system written in three languages, two of which I'd never even seen, and I only wrote sql queries to be run by hand, but I knew what made me better: commit messages. This confirmation bias is one reason I like pair programming, especially between two partners of different levels. Suddenly the lower gets to be faced with someone who gets done ask the same things and avoids this problem and that problem. They see their relative place, and can aspire for levels greater, which before would never have occurred to them even existed.
- arthurjj 13y ago
  "The more I "level up" in development, the more I'm convinced there is not enough attention paid to how to really advance through those levels." This for me is the major takeaway from the article. Trying to learn material 2 levels up is unhelpful. It's especially bad since most of us are used to formal schooling where level progression is determined for you
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
bradleyjg 13y ago
I guess I'm not the only one in the intersection of HN readers and MR readers.
- anusinha 13y ago
  What is MR?
  - bradleyjg 13y ago
    marginalrevolution.com a blog by two Econ professors where I saw this linked two days ago.
gaius 13y ago
In his Culture novels, Iain M Banks likens technological progression to a rockface rather than a ladder. There are many routes to get up.
- npsimons 13y ago
  As a rock climber, this seems so apropos: I've seen so many different people bouldering and rock climbing, that were different not just in physically obvious ways (ie, height, arm reach, etc), but in how they approached problems (skill versus strength, etc), that it really resonates that there's no one perfect way for anyone to learn.
jdmitch 13y ago
Thanks - really helpful for me as I am "finishing up" my PhD. It never occurred to me that I need to see it as a more mundane task than I do currently! (Probably also wouldn't hurt to stop reading HN :)
Xophmeister 13y ago
What advice does anyone have for someone who wants to go up levels, in anything, but lacks the self-motivation to actually get started? It's convenient that the OP is about higher maths education: I flunked my maths degree for various reasons. I managed to graduate, but not at the level I am capable of. In the intervening years, I've been tempted to get back in to it, however real life (and various other excuses) get in the way. It's a big mountain and climbing for the sake of it isn't overly inspirational... Small, achievable goals seem like a potential solution, but I'm at a loss when it comes to setting any and am blinded by lofty (futile?) ambition.
- pizza234 13y ago
  > What advice does anyone have for someone who wants to go up levels, in anything, but lacks the self-motivation to actually get started? I'd first think about why I'd want "to go up in anything". Looks to me (I may be wrong of course), that you don't know what you really want/would like to do, so you're heading for the easy route(1), which is, to be successful in something for the sake of being successful. If this is the case, if you'd find something you really wanted, plenty of motivation would come by itself (of course, that wouldn't be everything, but it would be a good starting point). (1)=from an awareness perspective.
- kerkeslager 13y ago
  > What advice does anyone have for someone who wants to go up levels, in anything, but lacks the self-motivation to actually get started? I was in a similar situation to you a few years ago; I actually still haven't graduated. However, I feel like I'm working hard and leveling up a lot over the past few years. This perception is validated by advancements in my career and social standing within the teams I've worked with. What it took for me was to to find a goal that I was intrinsically motivated to achieve. See here for info on intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motivation#Intrinsic_and_extrinsic_motivation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motivation#Intrinsic_and_extrin... It's easy to judge yourself for not being motivated, but that doesn't actually fix the problem in any way. And it also fundamentally misunderstands the nature of motivation: you have no control over what motivates you. If you try to coerce your motivation into some arbitrary activity, it's not likely to work, and if it does work, it could work a lot better, and it's going to be very stressful in any case. So, a good place to start is by trying different things until you find something that intrinsically motivates you. Once you find that thing, a lot of things will fall into place (at least, this has been my experience). Tasks which were tedious when they were only extrinsically motivated become something you rush home to work on when they're intrinsically motivated.
wslh 13y ago
I think the answer is: infinite levels and it works like a fractal. Let me explain: i) Your father teaches you how to play chess, because he just know the rules. Then you beat your father because of some simple chess tricks and can see two moves ahead. ii) You play chess in your school, work hard and at the end of the year are the best there. You are a genius! iii) Then move to regional contests and things start to sound different and the level of skills required is high. iv) Fastforward a few years and you are the national champion. A genius^3!. Moving to the international scene you realize that you need more skills to beat your opponents. v) Another fastforward and the best computer chess game beats you. An extra hint: if there were 10000x more chess players in the world the path would be longer.
osteele 13y ago
In my own experience, some optimizations seem to come along on their own accord if I repeat a task (constructing and refactoring a code base using a known language and platform, keeping a meeting on track, getting the timing and finger angle pressure and muting right while playing a guitar piece), so long as I'm well-rested and attentive during the task, and repeat it enough times. Other improvements only occur if I consciously decide to try something different (trying a different programming paradigm, changing the cadence or invitation of meetings, using a different voicing or fingering or replacing picked notes by legato or vice versa). The optimizations that take care of themselves feel more analog. I suspect that they're more susceptible to local optimization. In the case of music (and running, and juggling), I suspect there's some involvement from the cerebellum. The ones I have to direct feel more quantized; more digital. Optimizing them seems like simulated annealing. Sometimes I learn by knocking myself out of my comfort zone, or copying someone I admire or whose artifacts or performance I admire, or trying out gratuitous variations on approaches to something I already know how to do (I'll write in it Haskell! I'll avoid using my left index finger for a week!) to see what they lead me to. I don't know if this is the same distinction as the one between progressing within a level versus going to the next level, but that's what I was reminded of when I read this. The things that I've felt have taken me to the next level are those where I kick myself out of my comfort zone; often in a toy or side project where I've given myself the permission to take huge risks that I don't feel responsible with on a paying gig and/or when other people are depending on me; and often by re-working, in a medium I'm uncomfortable with, an application or problem domain that I've mastered with my old skill set
hawkharris 13y ago
This conclusion from the linked-to study [0] resonated with me as a programmer: "Excellence is a qualitative phenomenon. Doing more does not equal doing better." And in another section: "Excellence is mundane. [It] is accomplished through the doing of actions, ordinary in themselves, performed consistently and carefully, compounded together..." Programming can be a solitary practice. Even if you're working with a team and using GitHub, there's a lot of quiet, introspective time, during which you draw on your own skills and judgement to make small decisions about code. Because of this autonomy, it's easy to revert to the programming languages, frameworks and workflow that you find most familiar. Many programmers answer to managers who are outcome-oriented; they tend to care more about the end result than the minute technical decisions made along the way. But minute decisions, whether they concern optimization or design patterns or frameworks, are compounded. Taken as a whole, they can affect the look, feel and performance of a software product. For this reason, I'm inspired by the swimmer's commitment to slow, persistent improvement — approaching small decisions deliberately and thoughtfully, with the realization that they add up over time. I think the take-away for programmers is that we should focus not only on the quantity of problems solved ("Show HN: I made 101 apps this year!"), but on approaching small decisions with a fresh, qualitative perspective ("I tried switching up my workflow and experimenting with new techniques"). [0]: http://www.lillyfellows.org/Portals/0/Chambliss-Mundanity%20of%20Excellence.pdf http://www.lillyfellows.org/Portals/0/Chambliss-Mundanity%20...
- noelherrick 13y ago
  You're right about focusing on quality over quantity, but if someone builds 101 apps in a year and uses each app to hone skills and improve methods, it's a great way of doing exactly that. You have to practice, even if you want to stay on the same level. The people who level up use practice to learn the best way of doing something.
benched 13y ago
There are a lot of very well-expressed ideas in here, likely to resonate with people who practice things, or climb towers of abstractions. The LessWrong culture has a related term, which I've found useful, called inferential distance: http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Inferential_distance http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Inferential_distance
thelogos 13y ago
Even though this article is about math. It reminds me of my chemistry education. 1st year, you only learn about the basic concepts of general chemistry. For most science and engineering majors, this is the only time that they'll be exposed to chemistry. 2nd year, you learn about organic chemistry. It is only at this point that you start to catch a glimpse of what chemistry is really about. It forces you to really understand electrons and how they behave in reactions and as part of a structure. This is where many pre-med, and chemistry students hit the wall and decide to change their major. Those that do survive through it with actual understanding instead of rote memorization can now look at chemical structures and reactions and know the exact number of electrons, charges and understand the flow like 2nd nature. Then comes quantitative analysis and physical chemistry. Now you're really forced to understand and analyze the external enviroment and the myriad of physical conditions because reactions rarely take place in ideal isolation. Next comes biochemistry, and it finally dawns on you that living beings are nothing more than complex machines put together by chemistry. Extremely complex machines, but still machine nonetheless. I had a sort of existential crisis after being through biochemistry. But with that knowledge, it is now possible to read neuroscience text and catch a small glimpse of meaning. Then finally, we come to advanced organic reaction mechanism. A course that is only offered every other year at my uni, taught by a guy older than Gandalf and Dumbledore put together. Total # of people in that class? 3. Now, we go deep, to the darkest pit of insanity. You realize that everything before was only a small preparation. Minding-bending subjects like orbital theory which makes no intuitive sense. The worse part was the professor and the book offered no consolation. "Learn to deal with it." "It is the best model that we have at the moment." "It just works." They say.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

182 points by martian 13y ago

Nice article. One part in particular stood out to me: > 7) The best swimmers don’t spend a lot of time dreaming about big goals like winning the Olympics. They concentrate on “small wins”: clearly defined minor achievements that can be rather easily done, but produce real effects. Recently, I've found my own attitude changing towards focusing on the smaller wins, too, and found myself both happier and more successful in the work that I do. When you're putting together a large puzzle, it's quite difficult to think of it as a picture which is made up of hundreds of little pieces. It's easier to focus on a few large, more manageable chunks of the puzzle, each of which is made up of several small pieces rather than hundreds. This can be applied to many types of challenge. This isn't new advice, but it's an important reminder not to let the bigger picture cloud your view if you're trying to achieve something.

nyrina 13y ago
But my boss keeps telling me to go look down from the helicopter, like it's some magical answer. "Hey, iPads aren't showing some of our websites at all, I've tracked it down to IIS, I think, as every time I recycle the app pool, it shows our website perfectly, but then fucks up every time you refresh it after that." "Ohh, that's easy, just look at the bigger picture, take a trip in the helicopter and look down" Argh!
- unlikelymordant 13y ago
  your boss sounds like he is at least 2 levels higher than you :p
  - ansimionescu 13y ago
    Pointy-haired boss is so yesterday. I vote for [10] boss http://i.imgur.com/uKcUCHd.png http://i.imgur.com/uKcUCHd.png
- pgeorgi 13y ago
  You must have a generous helicopter budget :-)
- ChristianMarks 13y ago
  I love platitudinous bosses. They never level up.
- kaybe 13y ago
  Does he provide the helicopter? (You probably are talking about a meta helicopter, but it sounds like you should take the company helicopter for a ride to think about it. I like the idea.)
  - aaronem 13y ago
    I think the metaphorical sort might be preferable in this case. Real ones are awfully noisy.
neverminder 13y ago
I can relate to the puzzle analogy. Take my profession - IT engineering as an example. When you are just starting out, you know nothing and you're completely overwhelmed - you feel like you're sitting in front of a shuffled million piece puzzle. The only thing you can do is slowly start piecing the puzzle together bit by bit. Eventually (after a long time) you have enough pieces in place to start seeing "the big picture".
weego 13y ago
David Brailsford (Performance Director of the GB cycling team) implemented a very similar strategy. The general gist is that anyone who already excels at something is unlikely to manage to improve on that thing by any measurable amount by just focusing on being better at it. If instead you break down everything that intersects with it and improve those by 1% then you get an 'aggregation of marginal gains'. This can be things directly related, or something really as simple as, I believe I remember hearing, making sure that the athletes own pillows are packed for them when staying at hotels for events rather than relying on people getting used to the bedding provided.

JackMorgan 13y ago

I'm reminded of pg's essay on the power continuum of languages. http://paulgraham.com/avg.html http://paulgraham.com/avg.html The power continuum of the developers wielding those languages isn't mentioned as much, but clearly is an important issue. I've worked in blub languages with developers who are so many levels above me they are not even speaking the same language anymore. The problems they are trying to solve take for granted all I know, all I struggle with, and all I still haven't even learned yet. The more I "level up" in development, the more I'm convinced there is not enough attention paid to how to really advance through those levels. Right now I'm three languages into "Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years", http://norvig.com/21-days.html http://norvig.com/21-days.html but what about after that? And that is just one man's brief and not well-explained suggestions. I'd love to see other developer's suggestions for how they advanced past that. The biggest issue though is it's almost impossible to know your skill relative to the rest of the development world. We can't just time ourselves writing a script, like in the olympics, so almost all of us have a hugely overinflated or underinflated sense of our own skill. Everyone has hundreds of anecdotes proving their value over those who by any metric would be our betters (years of experience, languages mastered, formal education, etc). I'm reminded of when I was a brand new developer in my first job, how pleased with myself I was at my commit messages, compared to my officemate. Sure, he worked on patching a financial aid system written in three languages, two of which I'd never even seen, and I only wrote sql queries to be run by hand, but I knew what made me better: commit messages. This confirmation bias is one reason I like pair programming, especially between two partners of different levels. Suddenly the lower gets to be faced with someone who gets done ask the same things and avoids this problem and that problem. They see their relative place, and can aspire for levels greater, which before would never have occurred to them even existed.

arthurjj 13y ago
"The more I "level up" in development, the more I'm convinced there is not enough attention paid to how to really advance through those levels." This for me is the major takeaway from the article. Trying to learn material 2 levels up is unhelpful. It's especially bad since most of us are used to formal schooling where level progression is determined for you

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

bradleyjg 13y ago

I guess I'm not the only one in the intersection of HN readers and MR readers.

anusinha 13y ago
What is MR?
- bradleyjg 13y ago
  marginalrevolution.com a blog by two Econ professors where I saw this linked two days ago.

gaius 13y ago

In his Culture novels, Iain M Banks likens technological progression to a rockface rather than a ladder. There are many routes to get up.

npsimons 13y ago
As a rock climber, this seems so apropos: I've seen so many different people bouldering and rock climbing, that were different not just in physically obvious ways (ie, height, arm reach, etc), but in how they approached problems (skill versus strength, etc), that it really resonates that there's no one perfect way for anyone to learn.

jdmitch 13y ago

Thanks - really helpful for me as I am "finishing up" my PhD. It never occurred to me that I need to see it as a more mundane task than I do currently! (Probably also wouldn't hurt to stop reading HN :)

Xophmeister 13y ago

What advice does anyone have for someone who wants to go up levels, in anything, but lacks the self-motivation to actually get started? It's convenient that the OP is about higher maths education: I flunked my maths degree for various reasons. I managed to graduate, but not at the level I am capable of. In the intervening years, I've been tempted to get back in to it, however real life (and various other excuses) get in the way. It's a big mountain and climbing for the sake of it isn't overly inspirational... Small, achievable goals seem like a potential solution, but I'm at a loss when it comes to setting any and am blinded by lofty (futile?) ambition.

pizza234 13y ago
> What advice does anyone have for someone who wants to go up levels, in anything, but lacks the self-motivation to actually get started? I'd first think about why I'd want "to go up in anything". Looks to me (I may be wrong of course), that you don't know what you really want/would like to do, so you're heading for the easy route(1), which is, to be successful in something for the sake of being successful. If this is the case, if you'd find something you really wanted, plenty of motivation would come by itself (of course, that wouldn't be everything, but it would be a good starting point). (1)=from an awareness perspective.
kerkeslager 13y ago
> What advice does anyone have for someone who wants to go up levels, in anything, but lacks the self-motivation to actually get started? I was in a similar situation to you a few years ago; I actually still haven't graduated. However, I feel like I'm working hard and leveling up a lot over the past few years. This perception is validated by advancements in my career and social standing within the teams I've worked with. What it took for me was to to find a goal that I was intrinsically motivated to achieve. See here for info on intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motivation#Intrinsic_and_extrinsic_motivation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motivation#Intrinsic_and_extrin... It's easy to judge yourself for not being motivated, but that doesn't actually fix the problem in any way. And it also fundamentally misunderstands the nature of motivation: you have no control over what motivates you. If you try to coerce your motivation into some arbitrary activity, it's not likely to work, and if it does work, it could work a lot better, and it's going to be very stressful in any case. So, a good place to start is by trying different things until you find something that intrinsically motivates you. Once you find that thing, a lot of things will fall into place (at least, this has been my experience). Tasks which were tedious when they were only extrinsically motivated become something you rush home to work on when they're intrinsically motivated.

wslh 13y ago

I think the answer is: infinite levels and it works like a fractal. Let me explain: i) Your father teaches you how to play chess, because he just know the rules. Then you beat your father because of some simple chess tricks and can see two moves ahead. ii) You play chess in your school, work hard and at the end of the year are the best there. You are a genius! iii) Then move to regional contests and things start to sound different and the level of skills required is high. iv) Fastforward a few years and you are the national champion. A genius^3!. Moving to the international scene you realize that you need more skills to beat your opponents. v) Another fastforward and the best computer chess game beats you. An extra hint: if there were 10000x more chess players in the world the path would be longer.

osteele 13y ago

In my own experience, some optimizations seem to come along on their own accord if I repeat a task (constructing and refactoring a code base using a known language and platform, keeping a meeting on track, getting the timing and finger angle pressure and muting right while playing a guitar piece), so long as I'm well-rested and attentive during the task, and repeat it enough times. Other improvements only occur if I consciously decide to try something different (trying a different programming paradigm, changing the cadence or invitation of meetings, using a different voicing or fingering or replacing picked notes by legato or vice versa). The optimizations that take care of themselves feel more analog. I suspect that they're more susceptible to local optimization. In the case of music (and running, and juggling), I suspect there's some involvement from the cerebellum. The ones I have to direct feel more quantized; more digital. Optimizing them seems like simulated annealing. Sometimes I learn by knocking myself out of my comfort zone, or copying someone I admire or whose artifacts or performance I admire, or trying out gratuitous variations on approaches to something I already know how to do (I'll write in it Haskell! I'll avoid using my left index finger for a week!) to see what they lead me to. I don't know if this is the same distinction as the one between progressing within a level versus going to the next level, but that's what I was reminded of when I read this. The things that I've felt have taken me to the next level are those where I kick myself out of my comfort zone; often in a toy or side project where I've given myself the permission to take huge risks that I don't feel responsible with on a paying gig and/or when other people are depending on me; and often by re-working, in a medium I'm uncomfortable with, an application or problem domain that I've mastered with my old skill set

hawkharris 13y ago

This conclusion from the linked-to study [0] resonated with me as a programmer: "Excellence is a qualitative phenomenon. Doing more does not equal doing better." And in another section: "Excellence is mundane. [It] is accomplished through the doing of actions, ordinary in themselves, performed consistently and carefully, compounded together..." Programming can be a solitary practice. Even if you're working with a team and using GitHub, there's a lot of quiet, introspective time, during which you draw on your own skills and judgement to make small decisions about code. Because of this autonomy, it's easy to revert to the programming languages, frameworks and workflow that you find most familiar. Many programmers answer to managers who are outcome-oriented; they tend to care more about the end result than the minute technical decisions made along the way. But minute decisions, whether they concern optimization or design patterns or frameworks, are compounded. Taken as a whole, they can affect the look, feel and performance of a software product. For this reason, I'm inspired by the swimmer's commitment to slow, persistent improvement — approaching small decisions deliberately and thoughtfully, with the realization that they add up over time. I think the take-away for programmers is that we should focus not only on the quantity of problems solved ("Show HN: I made 101 apps this year!"), but on approaching small decisions with a fresh, qualitative perspective ("I tried switching up my workflow and experimenting with new techniques"). [0]: http://www.lillyfellows.org/Portals/0/Chambliss-Mundanity%20of%20Excellence.pdf http://www.lillyfellows.org/Portals/0/Chambliss-Mundanity%20...

noelherrick 13y ago
You're right about focusing on quality over quantity, but if someone builds 101 apps in a year and uses each app to hone skills and improve methods, it's a great way of doing exactly that. You have to practice, even if you want to stay on the same level. The people who level up use practice to learn the best way of doing something.

benched 13y ago

There are a lot of very well-expressed ideas in here, likely to resonate with people who practice things, or climb towers of abstractions. The LessWrong culture has a related term, which I've found useful, called inferential distance: http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Inferential_distance http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Inferential_distance

thelogos 13y ago

Even though this article is about math. It reminds me of my chemistry education. 1st year, you only learn about the basic concepts of general chemistry. For most science and engineering majors, this is the only time that they'll be exposed to chemistry. 2nd year, you learn about organic chemistry. It is only at this point that you start to catch a glimpse of what chemistry is really about. It forces you to really understand electrons and how they behave in reactions and as part of a structure. This is where many pre-med, and chemistry students hit the wall and decide to change their major. Those that do survive through it with actual understanding instead of rote memorization can now look at chemical structures and reactions and know the exact number of electrons, charges and understand the flow like 2nd nature. Then comes quantitative analysis and physical chemistry. Now you're really forced to understand and analyze the external enviroment and the myriad of physical conditions because reactions rarely take place in ideal isolation. Next comes biochemistry, and it finally dawns on you that living beings are nothing more than complex machines put together by chemistry. Extremely complex machines, but still machine nonetheless. I had a sort of existential crisis after being through biochemistry. But with that knowledge, it is now possible to read neuroscience text and catch a small glimpse of meaning. Then finally, we come to advanced organic reaction mechanism. A course that is only offered every other year at my uni, taught by a guy older than Gandalf and Dumbledore put together. Total # of people in that class? 3. Now, we go deep, to the darkest pit of insanity. You realize that everything before was only a small preparation. Minding-bending subjects like orbital theory which makes no intuitive sense. The worse part was the professor and the book offered no consolation. "Learn to deal with it." "It is the best model that we have at the moment." "It just works." They say.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]