Going to College as an Adult

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The_Black_Log Foler

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Fucking spent 6 hours failing to solve a problem that was review of fairly basic pre requisite material. Stayed up until fucking 5am trying to work it out. Today I retry it and solve within 10 minutes. Fucking old man brain is trash. Oh and now it’s past the homework submission time. Rage level is epic.
What is your degree in and what are you taking?
 

The_Black_Log Foler

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I was always an A or nothing kinda guy.

Maybe I'm a person of extremes....
 

Asshat wormie

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What is your degree in and what are you taking?
Started a masters in math. Taking 1 undergrad class and 2 masters classes. The undergrad class is second semester of advanced calc because program requires a year long sequence in that poo and I only took 1 semester. The other two classes are first halves of year long sequences, one in Dynamical Systems and the other in Stochastics Processes.
 
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The_Black_Log Foler

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Started a masters in math. Taking 1 undergrad class and 2 masters classes. The undergrad class is second semester of advanced calc because program requires a year long sequence in that poo and I only took 1 semester. The other two classes are first halves of year long sequences, one in Dynamical Systems and the other in Stochastics Processes.
So pretty much calc 1-3? Then I assume diffy q and linear?
 

The_Black_Log Foler

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Yeah, the hard stuff.
Calc 1-2 was tits. Calc 3 was kinda aids. Differential equations was tits. Some reason I never took linear.

Why a graduate degree in math if you don't mind me asking?
 

Asshat wormie

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Calc 1-2 was tits. Calc 3 was kinda aids. Differential equations was tits. Some reason I never took linear.

Why a graduate degree in math if you don't mind me asking?
Better question is, why not?

I like school but after 2.5 undergrad degrees and like 4 minors, I am tired of being around 20 year old tards.
 
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Pescador

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Impressed by those of you willing to dive back in to the pool of homework and exams. Finally being finished with coursework for good was one of the best / most liberating feelings in my life. I really enjoyed grad school in particular due to the focused nature of many courses, but I never stopped despising the constant assignments and the feeling that another exam was always just around the corner.
 
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Asshat wormie

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Impressed by those of you willing to dive back in to the pool of homework and exams. Finally being finished with coursework for good was one of the best / most liberating feelings in my life. I really enjoyed grad school in particular due to the focused nature of many courses, but I never stopped despising the constant assignments and the feeling that another exam was always just around the corner.
I like the structure and I enjoy access to professors and labs. I wish I had more time in the day for school, never enough to learn everything I want.
 
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Asshat wormie

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I am jealous of you being able to get a math degree. Every school I looked at only taught math classes during the day. Its like schools refuse to accept people might want a math degree but already have jobs.
My current classes at in the evening-ish. Twice a week I start at 4, the other two days are 6. But yeah, time flexibility does help with such things.
 

Khane

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I still need to get those As, feels like I am not trying otherwise and I hate that. Speaking of probability, one of the classes I am taking is stochastic processes and I fucking hate the intro probability problems that I had to review a few weeks ago. Holy shit am I bad at those. I am dunking on highly abstracts shit in my other classes but you ask me to pull a few balls out of some urns? Nope, fuck you..

Just pee in the urns and the balls will float to the top
 
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Just found this thread. God bless all of you, first of all. I'm an adult, on the other side of the glass, and I've got about 30 yrs clocked ... teaching undergrads where I am lucky if 5 out of ten are competent and perfectly responsible and sensible students, and if 1 out of ten has a mind deep and broad enough to do really fun (for me) work and really tear into some stuff.

I'm convinced age makes a huge diff. Older brains have limits, and some major bonuses. And an adult and smart student?

Is that a M.S. in Math wormie ? That's just badass. I love it. And you gave my favorite answer -- "why not?" Really, why not? It's both fun and sometimes very vexing. All in all I've had much worse times.

(I can't math for shit. If you can math you can physics and if you can physics you can do anything. I just have a memory and head for words. I can slice and dice arguments and debates. But can't include math. I'm "innumerate." )
 

Asshat wormie

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Just found this thread. God bless all of you, first of all. I'm an adult, on the other side of the glass, and I've got about 30 yrs clocked ... teaching undergrads where I am lucky if 5 out of ten are competent and perfectly responsible and sensible students, and if 1 out of ten has a mind deep and broad enough to do really fun (for me) work and really tear into some stuff.

I'm convinced age makes a huge diff. Older brains have limits, and some major bonuses. And an adult and smart student?

Is that a M.S. in Math wormie ? That's just badass. I love it. And you gave my favorite answer -- "why not?" Really, why not? It's both fun and sometimes very vexing. All in all I've had much worse times.

(I can't math for shit. If you can math you can physics and if you can physics you can do anything. I just have a memory and head for words. I can slice and dice arguments and debates. But can't include math. I'm "innumerate." )
Yeah it's a MS in math. I have this crazy idea that I am going to go get a PhD doing mathematical and/or computational biology out of a math department and I felt I needed a stronger background than what I got from my undergrad. The answer to "why PhD at 40?" is also "why not a PhD at 40?" But we shall see, MS for now.
 
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I used to teach at this school, and one of the old faculty (this was a philosophy dept.) was quiet, huge gray beard, mild mannered. We worked on some stuff for a month or so together and I found out he also has a doctorate in physics. I asked him how that came about. He said, "well, in the early 90's I was trying to understand this problem, and I realized I would not be able to do good work on it until I had physics under control, and so I took two years leave and did that."

Yeah. That's boss stuff. And the fucker said it wasn't "all that hard, just time-consuming." Oh, rub it in, you bastard.

I love meeting people like that.
 
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Tarrant

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--Me after taking my first major quiz at my new school-

Me: "YESSS!" *Claps*

My 10 Year Old: "What happened?"

Me: "I got 100% on a big quiz I had for class and I was nervous about it!"

Him : "What was it about?"

Me: "Plato"

Noah: *pauses* Uh....are you sure you aren't in kids school?"

Me:

giphy.gif
 
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No no, solid regional SLAC. Second tier quality. And I took a leave and then had a job, then decided to extend the leave, the March happened now it is gone. I would not go anyplace near a classroom till 2022 anyway. I like being sane. So savings and no teaching it is. I can live very cheap. I can go there.

I have very mellow standards. I just want a fucking intelligent series of paragraphs that demonstrate an ability to hold more than 140 characters in your brain at once. I just want to see a spark of life. I've clearly adjusted to our new reality.

Because I view competent and responsible as being able to do the work on time and at least take accurate notes and have some inkling. "Smart" is, more than an inkling.

Memory and focus and language: those are the three classic humanities skill. Used to be, if you had those three things down, you owned.

And sometimes I think all 3 are becoming like Daylight Savings Time: something that no longer makes much practical sense. That is what I think about a lot: a post-literate, post-memory, post-focus-oriented society. I think that is where we are headed because we are gradually off-loading all three to machines. I try to be open-minded, but it is a strange outlook, or seems so to me, but I am, literally, old technology.