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Math Team

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21–30 of 106 posts

Re: Math Team

#21

Post by 33a »

The author sounds burnt out and bitter. I get that he tried really hard and didn't quite make it as far as he wanted, but this reads like he's holding onto a lot of resentment for no good reason.

My experience with doing competitive math and programming stuff was generally quite enjoyable even though I never did the best or made it to an ivy league school. I'd still encourage any kid who's at all interested to try them out. Solving puzzles is fun! Who cares if learning number theory is "useless". So are video games, football and chess.

Re: Math Team

#22

Post by lusus_naturae »

carabiner wrote: post #7
gumby wrote: post #2

What a horrifying existence. The author recognized the problem, “The problem with doing something pointless for accolades is that you have to do so much of it, for so much longer than you expect” but what were the consequences? Are they happy now? BTW MIT doesn’t do legacies.

He basically says "yes" at the end. Got an awesome job and career and became part of a tech power couple with his wife he met freshman year, all because of his high school struggles. In current late stage capitalism, I think this is the best outcome you can reasonably seek. You're either in the elite or scrounging around, reposting memes about doordashing mcdonalds and having too many roommates. I wish I had followed…

The problem with your suggestion is that it implicitly suggests death for loser commoners, of which there will always statistically be more. The loser commoners need some way to ensure their basic needs are met, or they find a way to do that anyways. For example, see all the "eat the rich" rhetoric. I don't think there's anything wrong with suggesting that people should try to make the most of what they have, but suggesting that you need math skills or a Stanford degree to be guaranteed basic human needs or rights is a shortsighted perspective that doesn't account for the variety of human experience, eventually leading to surmounting misery for others. For anyone with a consequentialist pov, consider this: increasing societal misery only leads to broken communal structures, and failures in social contracts (implicit or otherwise). Simply, more poor and sad people = more chances of societal unrest = less safe society for everyone (including elites).

Re: Math Team

#23

Post by cl3misch »

> What would that be like, I wondered, as his words floated gently through the space above my head, to just be interested in something, not as a stepping stone or as a resume line, but just to sit down and count the paths, just because you wanted to know how many there were?

Not that great, necessarily. Sometimes I wish that I could simply be happy with a "normal" job that pays the bills. Instead of feeling like I have to pursue an academic career, just to be able to work on the problems I am interested in.

Re: Math Team

#24

Post by blauditore »

The whole concept of "getting into X" especially in American education is ridiculous. It shows how unhealthy the system is if you can't trust someone's degree if they haven't been to some "elite" college.

Re: Math Team

#25

Post by 3523582908 »

wow, i really empathized with this

i was so burnt out upon entering MIT, and now i regret not taking a gap year or something. i feel like i missed out on a great learning opportunity

thank you for writing this. you opened a bit of a window into my past i haven't really processed

Re: Math Team

#26

Post by TraceWoodgrains »

The author and I have discussed this elsewhere, but we had dramatically different experiences with competitive math, and I think part of the key is that he experienced it as a part of the college admissions grind, while I experienced it as an escape from the classroom to go do cool puzzles.

My major takeaway from his article was "The things we do in the high-stakes holistic admissions structure we've set up are insane" more than anything to do with competition math in specific.

Re: Math Team

#27

Post by noqc »

akprasad wrote: post #18
noqc wrote: post #14

The author writes a decent essay, but the claims that he makes about the mathematics curriculum don't really line up with my own experience of the subject, and I suspect has nothing to do with his actual trauma. This passage sticks out to me: >I kept getting put into advanced mathematics classes while missing core concepts from previous years.... Eventually I was in classes with no standard curriculum at all, classes…

The author mentions "dropping [his] religion" here [1], which undercuts the idea that he is lying to himself about his religious doubts. I don't think much good comes from analyzing a private stranger in this way, especially given such limited evidence. [1]: https://benexdict.io/p/uncertainty-and-marriage

I didn't claim that the author is still "religious". I claimed that the author maintains the importance of "faith". This is the same thing as being religious, of course, but without the specifics.

He is publicly making an argument that math team is dull and bad. The argument is based in the evidence of his personal experience, and the philosophy with which he approached this math team is very important context that he has left out, which undermines his claim.

He's also not a private stranger. He has 1500 followers on twitter, and an extensive blog about his personal life.

Re: Math Team

#28

Post by quax23 »

aleyan wrote: post #5

Went to the same school, was on the same math team, but was a year ahead of the author. Quit math team in my junior year because I wasn't at a competitive level, but it was a great time while I was on it. As a SWE, I rarely get to exercise the tenacity and problem solving skills I learned on the math team, but when I do they are "transformative" to the rest of the team. > Nights were for other worthless extracurricul…

I can relate; I didn't study quite as hard as my peers, didn't get into the prestigious private colleges that they got into (still went to an excellent public school across the Bay from Stanford), studied a fair bit of math, and ended up with a decent job where I've found that my math and problem solving skills have paid dividends. I'm certainly not making tech or F-U money, but I have a comfortable life a few years out of college and I'm lucky that I didn't have to sacrifice my youth or my interests to get here.

It's also interesting to follow the trajectories of people who were in the group that over-optimized for outcomes but have fallen off that path. I think the author was able to mitigate his burnout (I presume he had a good tech career), but I know a fair amount of folks with good pedigrees who haven't, and are still in limbo (unemployed, underemployed, or taking an extended break early in their career/schooling). I know they have the potential to do great things, but it seems the stakes of burnout are much higher today and harder to recover from financially.

Re: Math Team

#29

Post by OkayPhysicist »

blauditore wrote: post #24

The whole concept of "getting into X" especially in American education is ridiculous. It shows how unhealthy the system is if you can't trust someone's degree if they haven't been to some "elite" college.

I wouldn't blame the education system as much as I'd blame industry in this case, actually. The problem is companies that are too big for their britches: Most of the time, you don't need the best of the best. You need someone who will show up on time, get the work done, and not turn out to be so abrasive that they alienate the rest of your team. Most companies are not working on hard problems, they're not even working on tricky problems. They're just working on the remaining problems. Average should be adequate, and that's what average schools produce.

Of course, some places are working on genuinely hard problems. They need outstanding individuals, and these are what elite schools offer: They've already done the filtering, ensuring that the very highest performing individuals disproportionately possess one of their diplomas. The elite school may or may not have the greatest instructors, but regardless the students will get a superior education simply due to the fact that they are embedded in an environment that surrounds them with outstanding talent.

In this way what university you went to acts a signifier as to your abilities, not just how much you know, but how rapidly you're able to learn new things, and how much work you're willing to put in.

Re: Math Team

#30

Post by ajkjk »

I did mathcounts and math team stuff in middle school/HS and it never once occurred to me that the goal was to get into a good college. It just seemed fun.

I wasn't great at it, but I was pretty good considering that I didn't get any training, and I always thought it would have felt amazing to actually get good at those tests and feel like a math wizard. I guess I'm a bit bitter about it; it's a shame the special opportunities go to people who are depressingly minmaxing instead of people who would really love to have them. Although I also know that at some level if I had 'resolved' to get good I could have, so I can't be too resentful.

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