I want to teach myself Calc III

[sstinman]

Kevin, I'm not going to tell you what to do. You've already made up your mind on that.

Let me, reflect what I have read in this post:

1) You feal that you can achieve, but have choosen not to.
2) You have realized your current situation (achievments) are inadaquate, meaning less, and disappointing.
3) You feel that you are running out of time.
So far it looks like you are having a mid-life crisis, in your 20's.

Aside from the above you are right in stating the education systems doesn't support talented individuals. It's not ment to. The education systems at its basis is intended to identify people who CAN from people of CAN NOT, as difined by the active majority. Who's most active with eduction as a whole; the middle to upper-middle class. That group has the means and time to participate in school planning. The lower classses are too busy tying to get by and the wealthy use private schools and are not concerned with public schools.

So my point is you have to perform within the public school guidelines to attain the piece of paper that says you "CAN DO". It's one of the hardest things that I have done so far in my life is to graduate from U of M with a BSME and later with a MBA. The math and knowledge wasn't that tough, it was the displine to stay on the path that is expected from public schools that is the most difficult part. BTW I finished my MBA while I got married, built a house, had 2 children, and changed jobs 3 times ( to higher positions), and all paid for by my employers.

This coming from a guy that was so undisaplined that I nearly got kicked-out of school in my softmore year. I didn't pay attention to the material, I studied only hours prior to exams, and many times I took exams drunk. I still got by, but not for long. I was borded with the material and had too much fun with the freedoms that comes with college life. But like you I woke up from this dream that was turning into a nightmare and found that I had to control myself and do what was expected. The semester following this awaking (backed by negative encoragement from the Dean's Office) I hit all A's in 4 Engineering courses. It was enough to prove to the Dean's Office that I was worthy of staying at the university and in the school of Engineering.

The means of achieving the piece of paper are not that important (within ethical constraints). Get the paper to prove you CAN and then you have more freedom to do as you wish and study what you like. The disapline to achieve the paper is more important than the paper itself and will help you with anything else in life that you choose to challenge. Personally, I'm done with formal education. I've looked up some of the mathimatical ideas you described and I can't say that I can solve any of them, now. I do understand the idea each describe and could start to solve them, after all I have finished Calc. 3 and Differtial Equations, along with other advanced mathimatics. But my attention now is focused on raising my children to be disapplined individuals.

Good luck!

 

[TheVrolok]

This thread is absolutely asinine. Bottom line is a genuis would not blame society and the system for his own failures. A real genius learns on his own if necessary. I just can't even go into this right now because I'm entirely too frustrated after reading this thread.

 

[randumb]

Originally posted by: kevinthenerd
This is gonna sound crazy, but I just want to get moving through math just to be able to understand somewhat Goldbach's Conjecture, Goldbach's Odd Conjecture, The Poincare Conjecture, The P vs. NP Problem, The Riemann Hypothesis, the Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer Conjecture, the Hodge Conjecture, the Navier-Stokes Equasions, and the Yang-Mills Theory.

As it is, I've spent almost no effort at all learning what math I already know. (I slept every day through AP Calculus BC, and I taught myself series, etc. IN THE CAR RIDE ON THE WAY TO THE TEST.) I figure that with some real discipline and effort, I might be able to do something special with my abilities for mankind.

I'm either delusional or courageous. If, hypothetically speaking, I'm smarter than Riemann, I'd never know it because of the way the American education system works. You either meet a standard, are below it, or you're above it. If you're above it, little effort is made (even in private schools) to extract original genius and potential. I will now create my own challenge and attempt to mend the disservice done to me.

All those problems are the one million problems from Clay Mathematics Institute. You should be able to understand the P vs. NP problem, hell, I'm a freshman in high school and I can understand it.

BTW, the SAT is not a very biased test. The SAT is simple common sense. You should get a decent score if you're a knowledgeable person. I got a 1340 in seventh grade without studying.