University

[Ben Banana]

I keep trying to tell myself I'm delusional, but it's not working... To the extent of my experience, I'm under the impression that most of my schooling, formal study and education, as far as my effort has pushed, has only been corrosive to my intellect. Isn't there something wrong with my perception? Am I doing something wrong? I don't want to believe myself ... but I can't help it.

 

I feel like some of my intellectual skills I believe I was once exceptionally good with, such as intuitive (mathematical) problem solving, have dulled. I (delusionally?) see a possible connection with this degradation to my formal education, because as I've relearned how to mechanically handle problems without any theoretical context -- many of which I had already painlessly, though chronically solved previously by myself -- I have somewhat lost my strong sense and deeply-founded perception in the principles of the subject issues. I'm not suggesting a rigid or logical connection, but I see that this issue is at least somehow indirectly related to some part of the intensity of my involvement with formal education and how much freedom/time I have otherwise to think about my own problems and questions, for myself and by myself.

 

Am I quacky or something? What's wrong here? Is it me? If you think this issue is merely a fault on my own behalf, do you think it is a perceptual fault, or a lacking approach to formal study? At least, please, approach this topic of mine with respectful considerations.

Edited November 1, 2012 by Ben Bowen

[CaptainPanic]

Unfortunately, it seems (to me at least) that education often focuses on cramming as many facts into the students' heads as is humanly possible, rather than focusing on teaching methods and making the students understand things. The result of this can be that people lose sight of the bigger picture, which is necessary to use knowledge creatively to solve problems.

 

I do not think you are experiencing a degradation of your skills, but it might be that you have thusfar not yet learned and understood enough about maths to see the bigger picture. How soon you do get this big picture depends on yourself and the methods used to educate you.

 

I remember that at university, I was pretty clueless myself in the first couple of years. I was learning a lot of random topics and had no idea how to apply any of that. And then at some point, it began to dawn on me. At my uni, the bachelor was the period of cramming facts into the heads of students, and the master was a period to learn how to apply all that knowledge. I am not sure what kind of education you have followed, so I am just telling you my own experience.

[Ben Banana]

I know how to "apply the concepts," especially from mathematics. = D

 

In fact, I've been applying them much longer than I have had a formal introduction, as I am largerly self-taught regarding topics such as linear algebra (which in fact my own calculus teacher who I have currently only considers vectors useful for applications in physics, which I know is deeply false ). I wouldn't enjoy counting how many high school math teachers I've annoyed by insisting they help me with problems which are not important (or even related in any way) to the standard course... probably because a lot of them didn't know how to help me regardless of their stubbornness. Actually, I would dare say I'm familiar with the image of mathematics' application far better than most mathematicians out there who only managed to feed themselves back into the education process (from a world-professional perspective, essentially they learned-to-teach).

 

I would claim, my respect for the material is not a problem. My interest in education's manner of yields is a problem. This is the kind of deal where someone can, for instance, be in love with the history of ancient Europe, but find coverage of this subject as taught in a formal classroom not merely tedium, but also largely indirect, disatsifying and contractive to their immersion regarding their passion. Now back to my case with mathematics, I've noticed particularly during my practices and application of math (programming), well... I'm sorry but it's not easy to explain here.

Edited November 1, 2012 by Ben Bowen

[timo]

What I experienced is that I have much less seemingly great ideas than when I was much younger. That's quite simply explained, though: I now have a much better training in spotting the flaws in ideas and a much more realistic assessment of feasibility. That is, however, something different than actually having solved math problems in the past. So maybe it better relates to another experience I had lately: I tried to program something in Java, which I had done last about five years ago and remembered as completely trivial. While my programming skills in general have undoubtedly increased over the last years, I found the whole working procedure much less straightforward than I remembered it. The reason for this is rather simple, and -afaik- a well-know fact about the human brain: My image of the past (and Java) was more positive than the past actually was (not to confuse with my memory - technically, I can still remember that not everything went as smoothly as in my image).

 

Well, not sure if that is of interest for you. But if that just was a waste of time for you, then at least I can still claim that you wrote more than twice as much

[Ben Banana]

Yeah, I was thinking about that possibility... though honestly, I don't think it explains everything. My skill in programming has all but improved, but my natural mathematical sense seems to have rubbed away. The quirk remains: I've been exercising with more math now than I've ever done in my life, yet I feel like the tedium associated with the nature of this work, including the way I have been taught to perform it (hardly any theory is provided, it's just about getting the problems solved...) has in fact cropped my intellectual "cleverness," "ingeniuity," lucidity," or "creativeness" regarding mathematics. I'm trying to say that these qualities seem to have been grinded-down, not that they were originally exceptional or anything. Well, I don't know. Thanks for your thoughts.

[JohnStu]

Yeah, I was thinking about that possibility... though honestly, I don't think it explains everything. My skill in programming has all but improved, but my natural mathematical sense seems to have rubbed away. The quirk remains: I've been exercising with more math now than I've ever done in my life, yet I feel like the tedium associated with the nature of this work, including the way I have been taught to perform it (hardly any theory is provided, it's just about getting the problems solved...) has in fact cropped my intellectual "cleverness," "ingeniuity," lucidity," or "creativeness" regarding mathematics. I'm trying to say that these qualities seem to have been grinded-down, not that they were originally exceptional or anything. Well, I don't know. Thanks for your thoughts.

 

 

You are fine buddy, school has turned anti-intellect since schools are running based off of solely cash now AND most people are not intellectuals and the total cash of intellectuals is low in comparison to the masses, though intellectuals contain scientists and some rich business men.

 

 

My years of school has trained me how to lie, because every assignment, I just did it the way they wanted though I absolutely know it is the lesser effcient way than my own methods. I think this interesting skill will transfer good onto politics or trolling people in general.

[Ben Banana]

Well, thanks for your positive remarks. I think I agree; though for myself I feel it would be nice to find some rigid studies around this.

Edited November 7, 2012 by Ben Bowen