Math Team
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Math Team
1–10 of 106 posts
Re: Math Team
#2What 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.
Re: Math Team
#3In the 4th paragraph he describes “the arc of a stone falling to earth” as an exponential function. Is that true? I always thought it was quadratic.
Re: Math Team
#4In the 4th paragraph he describes “the arc of a stone falling to earth” as an exponential function. Is that true? I always thought it was quadratic.
Yeah that jumped out to me too
Re: Math Team
#5Went 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 extracurriculars to pad out our applications. ... The worst part was knowing that it was all going to be extruded into a few lines in an application form, that a committee would review for about ninety seconds
This is the tail wagging the dog; work really hard for 4 years in HS so that the next 4 years will be spent at a comparatively more prestigious college. I don't think we should expect high school students to be able to optimize this correctly themselves, and from my experience guidance counselors weren't particularly helpful. College admissions feel like a local maxima that have a lot of unintended side effects but would be difficult to change.
Personally, I didn't do the extracurriculars that would look good for college, but rather the ones I enjoyed; I didn't study very hard either. Didn't get into Stanford or an Ivy, but I look upon my experience in high school/college fondly rather than bitterly. Life seems to have turned out ok too.
Re: Math Team
#6Excellent read. The danger of deferring gratification is that you become a subconscious master of it.
Re: Math Team
#7What 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 path of OP. I encourage gen alpha, gen z to strive for OP's path, optimizing for income, in order to have a happy life with food, secure shelter, healthcare, and a retirement life. Increasingly it's just the haves and have-nots. The middle is crumbling away and you must maximize income potential in order to have a decent life.
I think a lot about a meme I saw: "I'm a therapist, and while therapy is great, what I think what most people need is money."
Re: Math Team
#8High school, at least as far as it serves as a sorting mechanism for top students, follows a kind of Parkinson's law: the number of hoops to jump through increases until it reaches the natural limit of how little sleep the top students can handle.
There were rumblings that my high school, which had plenty of AP classes already, was about to introduce a combination AP/IB curriculum, which absolutely terrified us. I and my AP-taking classmates breathed a huge sigh of relief when it was announced that it would be delayed, and the students in the year below us would be the guinea pigs. They would have to run twice as fast just to stay in place.
Re: Math Team
#9High school, at least as far as it serves as a sorting mechanism for top students, follows a kind of Parkinson's law: the number of hoops to jump through increases until it reaches the natural limit of how little sleep the top students can handle. There were rumblings that my high school, which had plenty of AP classes already, was about to introduce a combination AP/IB curriculum, which absolutely terrified us. I an…
Indeed. In my time, it wasn't uncommon to have 6 AP classes a semester along with at least one time-intensive extracurricular. Assuming each class is the equivalent of 3 credit hours, it's the equivalent of an above average number of classes in college (15 being the expected amount, 12 being the minimum to be a full-time student, and 18 considered intensive) while playing a competitive sport.
The best part: Even a decade ago, the above was considered neccesary but not sufficient for admission to a top school. Plenty of people with perfect to near-perfect college entrance exams, Intel International Science and Engineering Fair finalists, etc didn't make the cut. Of the few that did, the majority were the lower Ivy's (Dartmouth and Brown).
Re: Math Team
#10My own path through related stuff is unusual, so nothing like the authors. I do however have experience working with and teaching people who were on very similar paths to theirs.
There are a huge number of kids in this authors shoes, ones who are on a treadmill and not entirely sure why. There are also lots of kids who were always the best at something (in this case math) that any of their teachers etc. had ever seen ... until they move across the country and find themselves in a classroom where they are middling at best. And sure, there are rare kids who are so good it catches you off guard.
FWIW I suspect there are more kids made miserable than those who thrive, but I think it's largely unavoidable in a tournament system like "elite" college apps. There are also plenty of kids who had some fun and made some friends along the way without taking it too seriously. I suspect in this case it's often a good outlook in high school, especially for kids who don't really fit in anywhere else.