Oh academia, wherefore art thou so forsaken?
I miss the scientific part of my brain.
Let me explain.
I wasn't a stupid child. I hate mentioning it (quite possibly because I'm English, and therefore humble to a fault), but I joined Mensa at age four, after a series of tests showed that my IQ was in the top 1% of the country's population. I did well at school, usually top of the class, and had to move out of the state school system because a) it wasn't moving quickly enough for me, and b) I was getting bullied to a hilarious degree. I ended up at a private school on a grant, where the bullying wasn't as bad (although I still got teased quite a bit, usually for being the poor kid). Up to GCSE, I did as many science-related subjects as arts-based ones. When my results came through, I got A*s in French and German, and As in Maths, Physics and Russian.
When it came to A-levels, I started off with Maths, Physics, French and English (not entirely sure why I did the latter, as I got a B and a C at GCSE). I soon realised I liked German, and physics was blowing my mind, so I abruptly switched the latter for the former after about a week. The real problem was that I was lazy and easily bored. I found it hard to focus on things. After a month I realised that four A-levels was something that a person with my lack of motivation just couldn't do, even if I owed it to myself. Sensibly, I should have dropped English and carried on going. Instead, I dumped Maths entirely, and ended up on the track to being... well, something that involved langauge, apparently.
When university happened, I was stuck for choice. Being a lazy bum, English seemed too much like hard work, and I looked at the other two. Not wanting to do a pure language subject (because that was pretty much an English-type degree involving lots of required reading of German or French texts), I deviated towards Linguistics. Et voila, that's how I ended up doing it.
I think it's pretty telling, that I dropped out two-and-a-half times. I wasn't bad at the subject - I tested well, my essays got high marks, I always followed the seminars and was the first to get the right answers - but I think you really need to want to do degree. You can't just do it for the sake of it.
And now I work in a job that doesn't stretch me mentally. I miss my brain being able to do good things that are better than what most people do.
So I've decided to re-learn what I've forgotten, starting with maths, because it's such a fundamental subject (and also because I tried using simple algebra to work something out, and failed entirely to remember how it works).
I know there are a fair few mathematicians out there, so if anyone can think of a good direction to point me in for my studies, I'd appreciate it. And if I need help working stuff out, I'll know where to ask.
Mmm, optimism for the future. There's something I hadn't felt in a while!
Let me explain.
I wasn't a stupid child. I hate mentioning it (quite possibly because I'm English, and therefore humble to a fault), but I joined Mensa at age four, after a series of tests showed that my IQ was in the top 1% of the country's population. I did well at school, usually top of the class, and had to move out of the state school system because a) it wasn't moving quickly enough for me, and b) I was getting bullied to a hilarious degree. I ended up at a private school on a grant, where the bullying wasn't as bad (although I still got teased quite a bit, usually for being the poor kid). Up to GCSE, I did as many science-related subjects as arts-based ones. When my results came through, I got A*s in French and German, and As in Maths, Physics and Russian.
When it came to A-levels, I started off with Maths, Physics, French and English (not entirely sure why I did the latter, as I got a B and a C at GCSE). I soon realised I liked German, and physics was blowing my mind, so I abruptly switched the latter for the former after about a week. The real problem was that I was lazy and easily bored. I found it hard to focus on things. After a month I realised that four A-levels was something that a person with my lack of motivation just couldn't do, even if I owed it to myself. Sensibly, I should have dropped English and carried on going. Instead, I dumped Maths entirely, and ended up on the track to being... well, something that involved langauge, apparently.
When university happened, I was stuck for choice. Being a lazy bum, English seemed too much like hard work, and I looked at the other two. Not wanting to do a pure language subject (because that was pretty much an English-type degree involving lots of required reading of German or French texts), I deviated towards Linguistics. Et voila, that's how I ended up doing it.
I think it's pretty telling, that I dropped out two-and-a-half times. I wasn't bad at the subject - I tested well, my essays got high marks, I always followed the seminars and was the first to get the right answers - but I think you really need to want to do degree. You can't just do it for the sake of it.
And now I work in a job that doesn't stretch me mentally. I miss my brain being able to do good things that are better than what most people do.
So I've decided to re-learn what I've forgotten, starting with maths, because it's such a fundamental subject (and also because I tried using simple algebra to work something out, and failed entirely to remember how it works).
I know there are a fair few mathematicians out there, so if anyone can think of a good direction to point me in for my studies, I'd appreciate it. And if I need help working stuff out, I'll know where to ask.
Mmm, optimism for the future. There's something I hadn't felt in a while!