/sci/ - Science & Math

[Anonymous No.4859138]

Did you enter college expecting to be "brilliant"?

Was it a humbling experience in that regard?

[Anonymous No.4859143]

I expected to be shit. I was mediocre.

[Tim No.4859145]

Yes. Period. Absolutely. Without a doubt. But I'm pretty sure that's how one begins the journey down the long road to excellence. That's been the object lesson for me for the past six months. I'm at Purdue right now studying math, and let me tell you, before now, I had no clue what this was all about. Today, I'm not much closer, but I have a greater respect for the work it's going to take to become elite. And that's a fact.

[Anonymous No.4859148]

i used to be number 1 all the time
then i became number 2
but that's cool, i always knew i wasn't that good

[Anonymous No.4859151]

>see lifeless fat dorks on engineering
>expect to be the cool kid with innate gif for maths
>two years later
>become lifeless fat dork

[Anonymous No.4859153]

I came expecting to learn what I had always wanted, and to get onto the path I desire. I think it might happen, but my marks are very low. I now feel directionless, and I have never felt stupider in my entire life. I feel unworthy of society. I have never been more depressed.

[Anonymous No.4859162]

I came in expecting to coast through. I failed at first. Then I tried studying and graduated with first class honours.

[Tim No.4859164]

Yeah, I feel pretty retarded too. But, if I'm honest with myself, that's because I left high school and didn't do jack. The essence of the four or so years after I left get high school was to, in fact, get high by smoking hella weed and dropping a LOT of acid. Like, a lot. I'm just now getting back into school, but I'm only auditing because I can't afford anything. Musta spent too much frying my balls off. But that, as anything, gets old after a while, so here I am, nursing my brain back to health.

[Anonymous No.4859166]

>>4859164
do you feel like your drug use has made you dumber somehow or just less focused and unaccustomed to study?

[Anonymous No.4859168]

But I am brilliant. I am yet to meet someone more inetlligent than me. Even graduates get impressed.

[Anonymous No.4859169]

>>4859166
Not poster but... nope. I mean It kind of slowed me down to get MORE focused and study every time I get high... Win Win...

[Tim No.4859172]

Yes that's it exactly. I don't feel like I've done any damage to my brain, just defocused. And in all honesty, I'd be averse to saying I'm lucky, and point out that I used only certain drugs excessively (weed, LSD, mushrooms), things that aren't really terribly known for causing permanent damage, all of our DARE classes aside. Scientifically, substances such as crack and meth and all manner of other bullshit don't have the know safety profiles of weed and psychedelics. While I did basically shut down there for a while, and just now starting to reboot, I kept in mind that, you know, I did have some sort of talent in the intelligence area, and so I'm going to kinda need that a little later on, when I've decided to stop laughing at myself in the bathroom mirror.

[Anonymous No.4859489]

I was disappointed about how easy all my math classes in university were. Then I took Honors Abstract Algebra and Honors Real Analysis. New math now scares the shit out of me.

[Anonymous No.4859507]

>>4859138

I'm wondering what university will be like. I've spent the past 12 years as the smartest person in a year of 240 people. No idea how it'll work out when I go somewhere where there are people smarter than me.

[Anonymous No.4859540]

>enter with ambition to major both in physics AND mathematics
>not sure how american system works, but let's just use the word major, although that's incorrect
>struggle through first years of physics
>fell like the bottom of the shit barrel

[Anonymous No.4860135]

I was a smart kid but didn't apply myself much in high school. I managed a B average with a minimal amount of effort and went to college for a liberal arts degree. Skip ahead six years, I got my worthless degree, just like high school I coasted through largely on shit I already knew and barely broke a sweat getting a B average. But, my degree was worthless and I was going nowhere so I decided to get my shit in order, go back, and get a second degree in something worthwhile.

I started a physics degree and day one I walked in still under the impression that I was god's gift to the world and would coast through it like everything else.


... by the end of the first week of exams I was failing every one of my classes.


To say "it was a humbling experience" doesn't do it justice. It was a wake up, a slap in the face, a kick in the balls, if the semester was a picnic I'd have been on my fourth slice of humble-fucking-pie. That Friday, after sitting through my Physics I class and getting handed my third failed exam of the week, my professor asked to talk with me after class and flat out told me that I needed to think about whether or not I belonged in that program.

That could have been the end. I could have thrown in the towel, given up and walked away. But I didn't. Monday morning I was there, I redoubled efforts and redoubled them again and by the end of the first semester I pulled my way up to C's or better in every class. The next semester I made straight Bs. And every semester since I've had a B+ average or better.

[Anonymous No.4860152]

I thought exactly that, was humbled, and am now working hard so that I actually can be brilliant.

[Anonymous No.4860174]

>>4859153
this

[Anonymous No.4860177]

Yes and no, respectively.

[Anonymous No.4860182]

So far I have not had a humbling experience. Though, I came into college knowing what I had to do to succeed, since I didn't do so in High School.

[Anonymous No.4860187]

I always got low grades in high school because I didn't apply myself, so I figured that I'd get low grades in college due to lack of motivation, and that there would probably be a whole mess of people smarter than me who actually applied themselves.

>tfw i'm in the top 5% and have been for four years with only minimal effort

[Anonymous No.4860188]

I am brilliant. I'm just lazy and have trouble concentrating.

That's all.

[Anonymous No.4860208]

.

[Anonymous No.4860209]

>>4860188

Does that make you someone who has ADD?

[Anonymous No.4860216]

Nope, I'm pretty stupid. I'm 24 and entering community college. I don't even know why I bother, since I'm pretty much too old.

[Anonymous No.4860214]

i'm fairly clever, but i'm at a mid-tier university now.

i was at a very good, reputable uni before i dropped out with health problems (not mental, physical). i'm now just a slacker, content with just doing enough. i guess i'm one of the smarter ones in my classes but I know of 3 people that are probably more intelligent.

[bored anon No.4860229]

I'm entering UTA as a freshmen this fall, and while I don't expect to be some unique snowflake, I've seen too many people expect to coast through college (the kids I'm rooming with who went to my high school) now sitting on their asses making below 3.0s. I learned my lesson about being a lazy bitch in high school and I plan on working in college so I don't end up like that.

[Anonymous No.4860242]

I love how fucking everyone is either brilliant or "brilliant but not putting in enough effort so grades suffer".
What a coincidence!

[Anonymous No.4860247]

Quite the opposite, actually. I expected it to be incredibly difficult, and I might claw my way to mediocrity if I was lucky.

As it turns out, white people's schoolwork habits are abysmal, and my classes were all full of white people. Simply doing the bare minimum of exactly what was asked of me already puts me above most of the class. Actually putting in some effort, diligence, and brain power skyrocketed me right through my undergrad. Straight A's, personal letters from the Dean and professors, academic awards, honours, scholarships that I never even applied for. mfw

p.s. Asian

[Anonymous No.4860254]

Nope

Whole class was fucking retarded.
Disagreed with profs on social issues and got penalised.
Transfered to a better uni and got straight B/As

[Anonymous No.4860262]

>>4860209
Yes. Diagnosed with ADHD-PI when I was a kid.

[Anonymous No.4860268]

ITT: a highschool circle-jerk where kids are genuinely more concerned with how they compare than how they will contribute

[Tim No.4860303]

Some people on here, sheesh...

"Oh, I'm perfect, I'm Gauss reincarnate, math bends to my will, and everyone else who is making an effort is just wasting their time because I've already done it before you, and if I haven't already done it, then at least I'm going to figure it out before you and therefore you may as well bow down and then kill yourself, you're wasting air that could be mine. OH PS I'M ASIAN so that means blow my cock so I can calculate the trajectory of my semen emission"

Jesus Christ. Well, the only thing you've proven is that you're actually too retarded to go to the right class. You're not challenged? Everyone else retarded? You're in the wrong class, dipshit. Try something harder and let all us "whites" figure it out ourselves, because, by the very nature of being mathematicians-in-training, we things we know the best are the things we understand least. We are fully aware that we're going to have to do more work before we get our grips on the subject material; that's what being a good mathematician is all about.

This is just a personal view, but as you're definitely in the wrong class, you've failed to identify appropriate material for you to study. That means you're never going to be a first-rate mathematician, especially since you can't even pick the right class while you're still in school. Okay. You go and be your little Gauss for the time being. The rest of us will pave our way to success with hard work.

[Anonymous No.4860337]

>>4860135
>>4859145
>>4860152
>>4860229
These are probably the only honest people in this thread. I don't know why everyone always insists on pretending they were a fucking genius success story from day one... on an anonymous discussion board no less.

[Anonymous No.4860359]

Well I suck at math so I will have to work hard

[Anonymous No.4860376]

>>4860337
Unlikely. Though it's quite likely that some or even most people in this thread are pretending, some people actually are that good.

[Anonymous No.4860561]

Grew up being told I was "gifted".
Managed to be good at without even trying.
Had an over inflated ego.
Always made excuses for why I failed.
And I never studied.

In life, you're always the protagonist. You're the witty guy with confidence in his abilities who shines when he applies himself, instead the annoying douchebag who's full of himself and doesn't realize when he's wrong.

I guess I got what I had coming to me.
I just wish I had known it back then.

[Anonymous No.4860710]

>>4860216

>24
>too old

You are so wrong bro. 5-6 years after the usual (19) is not that big of a deal.

[Anonymous No.4860719]

I'm not sure what I expected, but my first year was pretty easy, like so easy I probably figured that college was a cinch. Then came the real classes and I got my ass handed to me. I'm pretty low on the totem pole these days, but I'm making it...

[Anonymous No.4860738]

>double major in math and philosophy

>take grad classes on occasion and get straight As.

i've never actually been challenged. teach me how to set sail on the burdensome voyage of self-pity: fending off the forlorn, crushing waves of melancholy and awaiting the impending mutinous revolt of self.

[M No.4860996]

I didn't enter thinking I was brilliant. I left high school ranked 33/215, which was fine for someone who cared a bit about grades but never studied after school for more than a couple hours. I thought I was smart like everyone else does, but nothing more. I entered a university for my BS ranked somewhere in the top 50-70 for engineering and felt comfortable there, seeing myself neither better nor worse than others. I did well gradewise ending with a 3.5 but I had 3.7 and 3.9 my last two years because that's when I really started taking things seriously.

I went back to the same university for my masters degree because it was nearby my girlfriend, and because the graduate programs were more well-regarded than others in the area. Engineering wasn't top 20, but was significantly better at the graduate level than at the undergraduate level. I didn't have much confidence in my ability so I worked extra hard and managed a 3.8 GPA at the end of two years. I felt that I was an excellent researcher, and although I got all A's I felt it was quite a struggle.

[M No.4860999]

Now I'm working towards a PhD at a much better university. It seems that the better the university is, and the better the students are supposed to be, the less confident I feel. However, I've learned to make good use of that. I always enter a class thinking that I'm the dumbest person in the room. It motivates me to study very hard, and use all the resources at my disposal to do well. I feel inadequate when I see other students working in the lab while I'm not, and this also helps me to work harder. So, to go back to the question...I was not so humbled because I never thought of myself as being great. Sure, I have pride in my achievements and abilities but I don't remember entering university at any level and feeling superior.

[Anonymous No.4861022]

>>4859138
I didn't get into Ivy's with my perfect math SAT so I went to the best school I could go to for free(large but well ranked state school). I met some smart people, but for the most part, I had to put in a lot less effort to learn what everyone else did. I expect my masters to be a similar experience.
I recently scored well on the MCAT(14,10,9) and LSAT(172). I expect either of those paths to be a humbling experience.

[Anonymous No.4861026]

Used to not have to do anything to succeed.
Then I went into a hard science.

[Anonymous No.4861054]

Does anyone care enough make a summary of the whole american educational system ?

[Anonymous No.4861061]

>>4861022
What university?

[Anonymous No.4861098]

I felt this way. I did well in math in high school. I would go to local and state math competitions and always at very least place top 10. I was a bit ahead of others in math requirements as well, so I thought I was hot stuff.

Math I still found pretty easy but I noticed I didn't find it as easy as I expected. I'm not sure if I became stupider or the math got harder, but there was something off about how challenging it was. I don't think I stood out very much compared to other students.

[Anonymous No.4861219]

>>4860561

Amen

[Anonymous No.4861224]

can anyone tell me what leonardo is drawing in OP's pic? I saw a hot girl with a tattoo on her wrist similar to those graphs yesterday - prop just a coincidence since I doubt she was into math, but still I would like to know.

[Anonymous No.4861229]

>>4861224

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=811LbompjPg

[Anonymous No.4861231]

>>4860303
Everyone who skipped this post, go re-read.

As to the OP: I did not expect to be brilliant, just really good. I got my brain caved in and my ego crushed about half a dozen times a year, and I've seen some students break down and cry out of sheer frustration. That may seem excessive or ridiculous when you're looking at it from an outsiders perspective, but you'd understand if you were in the same situation. And no, they weren't asian.

Mathematical physics is not for the faint of heart.

[Anonymous No.4861232]

>enter college wildly insecure
>actually realize that I am eons ahead of these intellectual plebians
>DGAF

[Anonymous No.4861323]

I work soul crushingly hard just for a shot at being mediocre. I am the stereo typical practice for the test type of math student. I also take the hardest classes available(the I am interested in). Starts to suck when I am exploiting weakness in the assessment criteria so hard that the profs start to call me out in class. Honestly though I do it for the knowledge, I don't like that I have to be like this, but I wont be able to continue studying if I don't pass.

[Anonymous No.4861488]

>>4861323
I know that feel bro. classes are a challenge, but they are almost nothing compared to the discouragement i get from research.

[Anonymous No.4861492]

>>4861488
>>4861488
>>4861488
Fucking this man. I'm doing a summer REU program right now, and I'm butt frustrated most of the time. I've been humbled by the difficulty of research, but at the same time I scoff at the thought of classes being "too hard".