Why should I invest time in x if I don’t even know what my y is.
A few thoughts:
1) You don’t know what your Y is, but you have some guesses and distributions of Y, based on observing others who are vaguely similar to you. The fact that many people seek education _is_ evidence that they think it’s a good use of their resources.
2) Well, you can’t save the time for later, you have to invest/spend it somehow, at the rate of one second per second. Physics forces this. It’s not a question of X or not-X, it’s a question of what specifically is better than X.
3) Don’t undervalue the educational environment—it’s not just the knowledge and coursework, it’s the fact that there are other students just as overwhelmed as you, staying up late to do problem sets and ask each other questions. ” What’s insanely difficult for me will be infinitesimal to them ” is simply wrong. It’s insanely difficult for many of them as well, but they have resources (fellow students, TAs, office hours, etc.) that will aid them on the journey to understanding well enough to get a C- and a rough understanding...
4) Individual variance is likely larger than institutional variance—school is a selection process as much as an education process. If you don’t have the talent and interest, it’s going to be MUCH harder to get over the initial fear and hurdle to understand the underlying models at a gut level, and then to apply that to a variety of specific problem types and knowledge.
5) It’s actually hard. Until you’ve really given it a solid year of fighting, crying, feeling dumb, seeking help, not getting it, and re-trying things that didn’t make sense the first time, you have no idea whether you’re capable of learning it.
A few thoughts:
1) You don’t know what your Y is, but you have some guesses and distributions of Y, based on observing others who are vaguely similar to you. The fact that many people seek education _is_ evidence that they think it’s a good use of their resources.
2) Well, you can’t save the time for later, you have to invest/spend it somehow, at the rate of one second per second. Physics forces this. It’s not a question of X or not-X, it’s a question of what specifically is better than X.
3) Don’t undervalue the educational environment—it’s not just the knowledge and coursework, it’s the fact that there are other students just as overwhelmed as you, staying up late to do problem sets and ask each other questions. ” What’s insanely difficult for me will be infinitesimal to them ” is simply wrong. It’s insanely difficult for many of them as well, but they have resources (fellow students, TAs, office hours, etc.) that will aid them on the journey to understanding well enough to get a C- and a rough understanding...
4) Individual variance is likely larger than institutional variance—school is a selection process as much as an education process. If you don’t have the talent and interest, it’s going to be MUCH harder to get over the initial fear and hurdle to understand the underlying models at a gut level, and then to apply that to a variety of specific problem types and knowledge.
5) It’s actually hard. Until you’ve really given it a solid year of fighting, crying, feeling dumb, seeking help, not getting it, and re-trying things that didn’t make sense the first time, you have no idea whether you’re capable of learning it.