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Ahh, so you assassinated the dean of science, and counterfeited his paperwork! Seriously though, thanks for replying. I did actually take classes at a Communi

by asdflkj 19y ago

Ahh, so you assassinated the dean of science, and counterfeited his paperwork! Seriously though, thanks for replying. I did actually take classes at a Community College at the same time as when I was in high school, and I really hated it. It was academically like high school and socially like a Dilbertesque job (especially the programming classes). Worst of all, it led me to think that I don't like math. After a couple of years, I accidentally came across a textbook on mathematical logic and proofs, and it was like being hit on the head with a brick. I thought, "Why did they hide this stuff from me?". No wonder math had been frustrating--it wasn't really math, any more than using Windows is computer science. Anyway! There are bad things in my Community College transcript. I wonder if that will hinder me, or if I have the option of just pretending it never happened... Is there something special about math departments in universities (less corruption? a lot of influence?), or did you just guess, correctly, that I wanted to study math?

DaniFong 19y ago
You totally have the option of just pretending community college never happened. Just don't mention that you were ever there. I got fairly lucky with community college: there was another really bright student there. He coded a 3d engine in ASM. So I learned a lot from him. I didn't guess that you wanted to study math, though it's not much of a guess that you'd like it. The thing about math departments at research universities is that the field has largely been written by ex-prodigies (each textbook seems to include a mini-bio on galois...), and they don't care much for rules or structure since much of the faculty had to struggle with such artificial things anyway. So I tended to have a lot of luck talking with math departments. I was quite a writer back then too -- better than the pupils of the English department, it seemed, but there I really doubt I would have gained the traction I had gained with the math department. By the way, if you don't read Scott Aaronson or Terry Tao, I strongly suggest that you do -- they're wonderful bloggers, and Scott has a terrific (though unfinished) set of notes called Quantum Computing since Democritus. A book you might really like is "What is mathematics" by Courant -- it's wonderful.

by asdflkj 19y ago

DaniFong 19y ago

You totally have the option of just pretending community college never happened. Just don't mention that you were ever there. I got fairly lucky with community college: there was another really bright student there. He coded a 3d engine in ASM. So I learned a lot from him. I didn't guess that you wanted to study math, though it's not much of a guess that you'd like it. The thing about math departments at research universities is that the field has largely been written by ex-prodigies (each textbook seems to include a mini-bio on galois...), and they don't care much for rules or structure since much of the faculty had to struggle with such artificial things anyway. So I tended to have a lot of luck talking with math departments. I was quite a writer back then too -- better than the pupils of the English department, it seemed, but there I really doubt I would have gained the traction I had gained with the math department. By the way, if you don't read Scott Aaronson or Terry Tao, I strongly suggest that you do -- they're wonderful bloggers, and Scott has a terrific (though unfinished) set of notes called Quantum Computing since Democritus. A book you might really like is "What is mathematics" by Courant -- it's wonderful.