<p>Here's to those of us who love mathematics but haven't done anything brilliant and still struggle in math classes like ordinary people. You're not alone. :D</p>
<p>Take me, for example. Mathematics is the meaning of life to me. I feel empty without it and I feel like I’m going somewhere with my life when something makes mathematical sense, especially when I learn that my own ideas are valid.</p>
<p>I’ve failed math classes, spent weeks dwelling on problems that people have solved in hours, and I haven’t gotten particularly deep in any area of mathematics. Analysis? I couldn’t prove the fundamental theorem of calculus. Abstract algebra? I don’t know what a ring is. Discrete mathematics? I have trouble remembering the twelvefold way. Mathematical logic? I’ve spent hours re-reading the same few introductory notes on λ-calculus.</p>
<p>Most days are the same: there is something specific that I’m suddenly interested in learning. I do a quick check to see what I need to understand before it will make sense, then try to prime myself in the necessary background. Suddenly my browser explodes to 30+ tabs, each of which has enough material to last me for weeks of reading. By the time I learn anything, it’s about something so far removed from my original goal that I’ll eventually forget it anyways, my limbs are numb, I’m hungry, and it’s bedtime.</p>
<p>This repetition has driven me to depression and to wonder what there is for me to live for. But I keep going because I still have time to kill and I am learning a little bit as time goes on. Something is better than nothing, despite what perfectionism says.</p>
<p>Meanwhile I’ve never heard of any of the things you mention except the fundamental theorem of calculus, and I only know about that in a computational antiderivative = indefinite integral sort of way. Unless the twelvefold path has anything to do with achieving nirvana.</p>
<p>School kind of sucks because there’s always this expectation to learn specific material for an upcoming test and I never have time to sit around on the Internet and just learn what I want.</p>
<p>^ Ditto. I love math, but have not heard of half of those mathematical terms. I’m a junior and we just started Calculus two weeks ago. In my school, I’m in the honors track, as I’ll be taking AP Calc AB next year. On CC, I might as well be in the remedial class…</p>
<p>You know of all those terms, and yet you say. . .</p>
<p>My guess is that Halogen is a college student who has taken higher levels of math. Though if I am wrong, no need to “overreact.”</p>
<p>I actually hadn’t heard of rings (or even algebraic structures), the twelvefold way, or λ-calculus until well after high school graduation. They’re more examples of what I’ve been reading about recently and getting stuck on no matter how I look at them, then feeling defeated because of it.</p>
<p>It’s less about the pace of my coursework (90%+ of my studies are extracurricular) and more about how many things I encounter that are roadblocks.
Yes, that’s correct. Though my high school struggles with geometry are still fresh in my mind. :-)</p>
<p>Actually, I still find trigonometry to be counter-intuitive. It kill me when I try to integrate trig functions or functions that would integrate to trig functions.</p>
<p>The way I see it, love of mathematics is still the same no matter what level you’ve had the opportunity to study at.</p>
<p>I feel you. I’m not great at math (CC standards here) but it is enjoyable.</p>
<p>The joy in math is not in doing it with the goal of getting a grade, but doing it for the pursuit of deeper knowledge. Maybe if more people gave math a chance outside of their classes, they would see it’s vibrancy.</p>
<p>awh i want to join the club. i was trying to read some math papers yesterday but im so bad at it. IT SUCKS. they did too many manipulations i couldn’t follow, i really don’t understand how you are supposed to go from reading the exposition in your textbook to reading math papers. they’re NOTHING alike. the book explains everything the math papers explain only so much as the math geniuses need to get it, everyone else is left by the wayside, the math paper reading circles are their own exclusionary clubs, its unfair.</p>
<p>its so cute how you try to grapple with math. we should grapple with math together sometime. not as a date. just as people grappling with math together. tell me what you think think and i’ll set the date. date as in day of the week! not date date.</p>
<p>DAMN THE MATHLETES </p>
<p>
Well, it’s been almost a year. I know what a ring is now, and I know all the steps of the Noble Eightfold Path because I took Non-Western Philosophy. 
Still no idea about the other stuff. I’ve gotten better at math, though…you benefit from studying math even if you don’t understand it very well. </p>
<p>Can I join the club? I’m good at math at school and I have a pretty high A but when I do math competitions I fail. Badly.</p>
<p>
Yeah, story of my life. A lot of my problems come from not having enough time, so I hope I can still succeed at having a math-related career because in real life you don’t have to work that fast. 
I hope. </p>
<p>I like math, but I’m not good at it. Lol. </p>
<p>Genius only gets you so far. Dedication and effort definitely trumps genius. </p>
<p>I read an MIT blog about this student who, as a freshman, tested out of MV Calc, Linear Algebra, a couple other stuff I don’t remember, AND real analysis (“hardest” math class at MIT). People thought he was a genius. The blog writer one day asked him for some help on his MV Calc homework and eventually got closer with the genius kid. He found out that the genius kid was no genius, just had a really really really good work ethic. The kid would do every problem in every textbook over and over again, learn everything until he could apply it in any problem, etc. </p>
<p>Eventually, because of his dedication, he made everything look so easy that people assumed he was born a genius.</p>
<p>
People find this idea comforting because a lot of us have this idea that genius is sort of conferred on you by nature, but dedication is a choice. I’m not entirely convinced it is. </p>
<p>Read about the genetic-environment complex.</p>
But if the genius starts trying, then I guess it’s gg