/sci/ - Science & Math

What have you tried?

How do I get emotionless like Newton? Should I fuck bitches? Smoking?

I really feel like math competitions harmed my life trajectory. I'm currently in a PhD program (although in a different field), so it didn't end up that badly, but it still makes me angry.
I finished high school at 17, and had finished Calc 1-3 (single variable, series-y stuff, and multivariable) + linear algebra and differential equations at a local community college by the time I graduated high school, and so if I had gone on to major in math, I could have taken an "Intro to Proofs" class first semester, then jumped into actual upper level theory classes from my second semester onwards. So overall it would have been a good trajectory.

Instead... I discovered math competitions. Looking at the IMO problems made me realize how vastly behind the best 18 yos in math I was, and that this difference was only likely to widen in undergrad, and that if I found the high school competition this hard, that I definitely wasn't in the ballpark of ability to be a good PhD student at a good school in math.

...so I bailed and went into a less technical field.
Now I'm making the effort of climbing the technical hill to do more quantitative stuff, and it makes me angry at how much I could have learned in college if I had just... majored in math instead of biology.
I feel like I did develop some valuable skills from contests, but overall the effect on my life was extremely negative.
Wasn't sure if I was the only one.