Schools Turning Math Passion into a Career: High School Drop-Out's Story

[Tenshou]

reading papers online and working through a textbook on your own is not a substitute for having a formal education. Then why the apprehension? College is NOT like high school. Teachers aren't going to threaten you into doing anything.

I don't want to sound rude, but without a formal education, it's going to be incredibly difficult to do anything "real" in mathematics. This is just a conclusion that you've come to on your own. Being in college has nothing to do with being someones "lapdog." You're recalling your high school experiences... In college, you don't have to do a damn thing if you don't want to. You won't get far with that mindset...

All of this may be true, and I know for a fact I won't be taken seriously, unless I am like the guy (Zhang Yitang) who found that there exist primes which are at least 70million a part. But the lap dog is not some delusional fallacy, I feel as if... In fact I know that there will come a time when I am in a personality clash with one of the professors this has happened for the 3 years that I had my high school career. Every year there was at least one "teacher" who I couldn't get along with and I would fix the problem by skipping the class, but when you are on the verge of becoming truant you should move. Watch this This is, in some cases, similar to what I have experienced in high school.

You will not be a lapdog... I'm not entirely sure why you're so put off from the idea of being surrounded by fellow mathematicians?

I understand that you want to do what you want, when you want. And you will have it, within reason. If you want the grades, that's entirely up to you. Sure, a professor who takes a liking to you may be silently disappointed if you neglect to pass their course, but they recognize that responsibility is on you.

If I may say so, and you may find this to be rude:

You're acting immature. What you see as a lap-dog future, I see as your inability to rise up to a challenge and take responsibility for your own future. The work is hard, and some of it may seem unnecessary, but it's part of the whole. And no one but you is responsible for the outcome.

I get your point, but I have one thing to say... maybe two, Are you in graduate school? And have you ever seen the movie good will hunting? If you are in graduate school, then you may know what it is like to have an adviser, which is, with all due respect a dick (pardon my language, and refer to the link), but if you have seen the movie good will hunting and you see the kid, who isn't as prodigious as Will, gets sent off for some coffee and walks away like a sad dog while they begin their discussion in mathematics. Yes, I do know this is a movie but sending him away like that as if the mathematics would be over his head or something. you know what I mean?

2)In many ways, you're already more a dog then you'll ever be with a college degree. You'll never become a professional mathematician or someone contributing to science, you'll forever be someone outside of the box contributing nothing because you refused to learn your lessons and put the work towards your goals. If you don't want to do the work, then why should anyone bother making it easy just for you and only you? If you want to succeed and do something you love, get the requirements. Part of the requirements are just filters to see who really wants it.

Parts those requirements seem like complacency test... I know I won't be, or even be able to contribute to mainstream mathematics, unless I get a lucky break as Zhang Yitang did. Just because one goes to school doesn't mean they didn't put the work into achieve their goals.

There's a good quote along the lines of "successful people make a habit of being uncomfortable", basically that you need to do the things you don't necessarily want to do to end up where you want to be. Unfortunately, you need to play by the rules until you're in a position to change them. Right now, no one will take you seriously without any degree and without a demonstrated work ethic. There's no easy way.

This is true. And you are right, also I think I will take that quote to heart, it is rather inspiring.

...As I said earlier in the thread, I dropped out of high school because I basically quit caring... I viewed going to college as "giving into the man" ... "number in the system."

As others have said, you think there "must be an easier way than going to college," but that IS the easier way.

It isn't that I quit caring, it is I don't like being pushed around just because I refuse to acquiesce to that authoritarian regime of the schooling system. Ah, giving into the man. In honesty, I don't believe that it is like that. I just feel that if people could truly view me as equal without me having to waive some degree of certification in their face saying: Yes, this good dog was trained by the best. It seems degrading, and even more for those authoritarians to do that to get what they want. It is sad to say, but this has made me believe that it may be the only way. There is no easy way in this world.

If you truly aren't any good at mathematics, then your work will never be in an academic journal, regardless of your work ethic or love of math. However, I'm going to assume that you're just being humble (which isn't a bad thing) and assume that you could do well in math.

One thing that I haven't heard mentioned is that it's possible you just went to a very bad school. We know very little of where you went to school - was it in an inner city district, with lots of distractions / low funding, for instance? If you did go to a crappy school (forgive the language)...

If you do like learning, and just hate having bad teachers... So what you need to determine is whether you like math enough to do it all the time. That is what it will take to succeed given your desires and your situation. Also, perhaps you could post some of your worked problems on here, so that we could help you judge whether you're understanding the material. That would be a good first step to knowing whether you're any good at math, and whether it makes sense for you to go down the incredibly long, hard road that is a PhD in mathematics.

There is also of course the possibility of just doing math on the side and having a secondary job that you don't like very much. Einstein of course worked at a patent office when he wrote some of his early groundbreaking stuff. So, if you can find a fairly well-paying job that allows you that freedom, it may be worth the annoyance of working such a job. But to rise to fame from that situation these days, you really have to be a genius among geniuses. Having a PhD would make things much easier.

The job thing sounds pretty useful I think, but I still need the GED as Marne has stated. Oh, believe me I do Loath those bad teachers; that sounds like a plan to do, I mean posting some of the mathematics on here :)

Thanks everyone, I think it is true now, that I need a high school diploma or equivalent :( this is unfair and sucks, but that is the only way I have a possibility to get a job and go to college. I have to do it the hard way unfortunately :(

 

[meanrev]

It isn't that I quit caring, it is I don't like being pushed around just because I refuse to acquiesce to that authoritarian regime of the schooling system. Ah, giving into the man. In honesty, I don't believe that it is like that. I just feel that if people could truly view me as equal without me having to waive some degree of certification in their face saying: Yes, this good dog was trained by the best. It seems degrading, and even more for those authoritarians to do that to get what they want. It is sad to say, but this has made me believe that it may be the only way. There is no easy way in this world.

Would you trust a surgeon who doesn't have a medical school degree? A defense counsel who doesn't have a law school degree? An aircraft engineer who doesn't have a high school diploma? A mathematician who doesn't have a high school mathematics certification?

I exaggerate this somewhat, as the society we're in is slightly more accepting of uneducated mathematicians than uneducated surgeons. But certification is something that almost everyone needs, and finding an exception to that rule is nearly impossible - if you intend to find one, then you have to count on your own judgment and luck for most of the time, because PF can hardly help you. I dropped out too, but here were some areas where being a dropout stung:

- When I set up meetings with startup and securities lawyers, they wanted to know my educational background. These guys like to 'pre-qualify' you, i.e. make sure you're worth their time before giving you a meeting.
- The algorithms that decide your credit score and acceptance/denial for an apartment lease application take into account what people with your educational background have done instead of what you have done with your educational background. This is faulty and will not give you a fair assessment.
- When I met potential investors, they wanted to know if I had a B.Sc., B.A. or Ph.D.
- When I tried to employ people, they wanted to know what I knew that would make them gladly take my instructions.
- When you come of a certain age, you really start to desire the attention of the opposite (or same, depending on your orientation) sex. Your chances deteriorate without a degree.
- Some countries have strict restrictions on issuing entry visas to people without degrees.
- There are certain professional licenses that require a degree before you sit for your exams. An example from my field of work is the CFA. You need a bachelor's at the minimum, otherwise you must have worked at a broker dealer or equivalent for 4 years to exempt this requirement. Chances are, you can't do the latter without a bachelor's anyway. There are workarounds like the Series 65, but this is for another topic.

I'm a little better off than you since I dropped out of college, not high school. And I also had the fortune of dropping out of a selective college that people assumed meant a good thing if you had dropped out. I also had the fortune of dropping out to work on something easily monetizable.

I guess my advice is:

1. You have very little reason and arguing power to drop out now.
2. If you still decide to stay as a dropout, an entropy clock starts to tick at that very moment and your likelihood of failure spontaneously increases which each passing second. The only way to negate this is to put a lot of effort into undoing it. In other words, you have very little time, spend it wisely, and try to avoid forum room confrontations/arguments.

Good luck. Feel free to message me if you think my advice would be useful, but I rarely have time to answer my PMs.

 

[middleCmusic]

Also, doesn't Zhang have a PhD? I thought he just ended up working at a Subway due to some bad luck.

 

[dkotschessaa]

Thanks everyone, I think it is true now, that I need a high school diploma or equivalent :( this is unfair and sucks, but that is the only way I have a possibility to get a job and go to college. I have to do it the hard way unfortunately :(

Tenshou, I think once you get there you're actually going to love it. A lot of my prejudices, which were very similar to yours, vanished when I actually started going to school. When you get to study something you really love, it's a joy, even when it's difficult.

As for the authority thing... I personally have no respect for authority in terms of title alone. But I have enormous respect for what people have *done*. Think of it that way. Math professors don't typically get their jobs on charm and a few good connections. They got there by doing some serious work, and I think you should respect this.

That being said, of course some are complete a-holes. But at least I've been lucky enough not to have any. (The most crotchety professors at my university are in the chemistry department. I don't know why.)

You have some degree of hiring-firing power. You can review professors before you sign up for a class and you can drop them when they don't work out. Sometimes you can't. Either way, they're working for you. You're paying them. And if you are really interested in the subject (it's safe to say you are, by your posts)) then they will be glad to help you. They are your paid consultants. Please respect them and heed their advice.

Please also do not compare your high school experiences to college experiences. High school teachers have to babysit a bit. It's expected in college that you are an adult, and so there's much less of a behavior authority thing there. If you disagree with your professor, you can do so respectfully and professionally. If they are way out of line (violating their own policies or the schools, abusing students in some way, etc) then there are channels for that. You will be taken seriously when you show serious interest, which I think isn't a problem.

Anyway, go to school, be awesome. You won't regret it.

-Dave K

 

[QuantumCurt]

You're still comparing high school to college, which isn't even a logical comparison to make. There is an entire world of differences between the two.

Sure, you can have plenty of conflicts of personality with high school teachers, but in college you rarely even have time to develop these types of conflicts. You typically only really get to know a professor if you do have common ground. You're not forced to take classes that you find completely pointless, because you get to pick your own classes. The professors are not there to babysit you like they are in high school...they're there to give you a lecture about a topic.

You're unfairly judging college. You've never been to college, so how can you judge whether or not you'd like it? And your resistance to getting your GED seems a bit ridiculous to me. You don't even have to take classes to get it. It's a matter of paying a nominal fee, and sitting for the tests. I got mine 3 years after dropping out of high school, and I never had to take any remedial classes or anything like that for it. I just went in and took the tests, and smoked them. It was no problem at all. Simply having a GED opens up a lot more possibilities jobwise. Even places like fast food restaurants and factories generally don't want to hire anyone without a high school equivalency. How difficult do you think it would be to get regarded as a credible mathematician, without even having a high school equivalency? You seem like an intelligent person, so taking the GED tests should be a cakewalk.

Seriously though, at least give college a shot. Take a semester at a community college, and go into it with an open mind. It may turn out that you do hate it. If that's the case, you can either stick it out anyway, or drop out. However, you may also find that it isn't at all what you're expecting, and end up loving it.

If you're basing your idea of the "lap dog" mentality on a movie, then you are not seeing the reality of college. Sure, when you're in a PhD program, you may be regarded as something of an "inferior" by advisory staff, but that's because you are. They are vastly farther along in their education than you are. "Inferior" is a bit of a misnomer here though. Being sent off to get some coffee because you "can't handle big boy talk?" Really? Again, if you're basing this perception on a scene in a movie, you should probably throw that perception out. Grad students are generally very well respected even by their advisers. They aren't seen as some nuisance that the adviser has no choice but to deal with. They are seen as bright young minds, that the adviser has the privilege of helping.

 

[HayleySarg]

I wasn't a graduate student, but for my duration of my senior year where I worked along-side grad students in my project, I was treated as such.

My adviser was not my friend, but she was also one of the best teachers I had. During my weekly presentation, she would grill me on my work, and she'd give me 5-10 related papers afterwards. They push you hard, but they *generally* don't hate you. They just want you to publish and be the best you can be. After all, to some extent, you're a reflection of them.

Good luck

 

[TMFKAN64]

If you love mathematics, there is no reason you can't study up on it and learn more about it in your free time. Self-study can be a very rewarding hobby, and I'd never discourage anyone from trying to learn more out of curiosity.

However, if you want to work in the field and do serious research, plan on getting a Ph.D.. I don't like to say "never"... but anyone who is potentially brilliant enough to succeed without one would already be busy publishing research papers.

As for being a lapdog, I hope you enjoy subsistence farming. Because that, or being born independently wealthy, are just about the only ways you can get out of having to do what someone else tells you.

 

[dipole]

I got my GED and am going to graduate school for physics. Getting your GED isn't that bad... your school probably offers some preparation program that should take you a few weeks, then you just have to take the exam and you're set.

Once you have the GED, you can go to a community college for two years, take the basic math courses you'll need like calculus 1-3, and then transfer to a full university. This is essentially what I did, but with physics.

The upside is you can start early since you don't have to finish high school, and at the community college you can get most of your gen-ed requirements done with so you don't have to waste time with them at the full university.

I think this is a very viable option for you.

 

[Tenshou]

Thank you every one for the encouraging words, and the not so encouraging words, I think you all have helped me make my decision on what must be done.

 

[Jorriss]

Thank you every one for the encouraging words, and the not so encouraging words, I think you all have helped me make my decision on what must be done.

What did you decide?

Hopefully to go to college.