My Biggest Math Regret

Everyone, and I mean everyone, makes mistakes in life. We all have regrets. It’s inevitable. I mean, look at me. I’m 23, with a college degree, and I’m not unemployed. Yet I have more regrets than most college dropouts.

But I’m a big boy.

And big boys know how to accept their decisions and move on with life. Still, one decision haunts me to this day. It’s the only regret I can’t escape. It makes my bones chill and scares me more than hell. It’s the Boogeyman of all regrets…

Baba Yaga.

Let me paint a lil scene for ya here…

A young (some say handsome) college student walks across the stage at Binghamton University. His fist pumps in the air, and the biggest smile you’ve ever seen smothers his face.

This lil genius graduated with a math degree. In three years. Damn.

But as he has a celebratory drink at dinner, he realizes something even better than graduating with a math degree. He realizes he’ll never – ever – use math again. Phewww.

No more math probably sounds nice to you, huh?

Anyway, there’s a reason for this math major gleaming that he’ll never need math again. He’s saying sayonara to math because he dreams of becoming a writer.

And for the next two years, his dreams come true…

Sort of.

You see, he hustles and bustles day and night to make it to the big leagues. And he goes through every stage of writing you can imagine:

• Author/Novelist
• Screenwriter
• Copywriter
• Content writer
• Technical writer
• Copywriter (again)

But guess what…

The whole time, something feels off. He thinks he’s home, but deep down, he knows he ain’t in Kansas anymore. Right, Toto?

Two full years after saying sayonara to math, the boy realizes his mistake – his one regret that becomes the Boogeyman.

Enough blabbering.

Time to hear about the biggest regret that boy (eh hem, me) has…

Giving up on math.

Two years is nothing relative to the age of the universe. But I’m not the same age as the universe. Two years to me is 8.695652173913% of my life.

That’s a lot of time.

Okay, you’re probably wondering where I’m going with this. I'm not just writing here to flex that I could divide 2 by 23. There’s a reason for this rant.

In college, I studied pure mathematics. Rather than dive into real-world problems mathematicians solve in the field, I learned the theories showing why and how math works. It’s cool stuff, and I loved it. My two favorite classes were Complex Variables and Number Theory.

But love ain’t the same as winning.

I’ll admit I wasn’t the number one student in Binghamton’s math department. I didn’t have professors approaching me left and right to help them with research.

But I was still a smart cookie.

For my last 1.5 years of studying, I ranked in the top 10-20% for every class. Not bad, right?

Although that success didn’t come cheap. I worked hard and studied daily to ace my exams. I’d spend at least three hours a day:

• Doing problems
• Learning theorems
• Writing messy proofs

Consistency made me into a freaking beast.

Until my “two-year math hiatus” happened. Everything went downhill.

And guess what…

I struggle to remember a single thing from Complex Variables and Number Theory (my fav classes). It’s terrible. Embarrassing. Absolutely unacceptable.

But remember, I’m a big boy.

I’ll get over it, even if it pisses me off.

I’m done thinking about the “what ifs” in life…

• What if I pursued a math career right after graduating?
• What if I never decided to become a writer?
• What if I became the next Euler?

That last one’s a bit unrealistic, but hey, a boy can dream.

It’s easy to live in the past and think about the “what ifs.” That’s why I’m doing what any sensible person in my situation would do – study math for fun.

Even though I don’t remember much of my old coursework, I’m not stupid. Revisiting topics and consuming textbooks lights a spark in my mind. It lures out the knowledge hiding in my mind’s depths.

Recalling advanced math isn’t so bad once I immerse myself in the material again.

But I can’t jump back into Complex Variables and Number Theory as if I’d never left. I need some review. I’ve gotta go back to my roots (no pun intended… if you know algebra, you’d understand this).

So here’s my plan…

For the next 36 weeks, I’m goin’ crazy. I’m studying more math than is physically safe. I’m going through Robert Blitzer’s precalculus textbook and Susanna S. Epp’s Discrete Mathematics textbook over the next 6 weeks. I began college taking similar courses, and not to brag, these are easy.

So 6 weeks is realistic since I only need a refresher, not an in-depth study.

And after that, I have a plan for what I’ll study, but I don’t know the full details yet (like what book I’ll use and what sections I’ll focus on). But those don’t matter right now.

What matters is that I’ve started. I’m about 15% done with both textbooks at the time of publishing this.

So as I continue my mathematical adventures, I’ll update you on my journey. And if you’re looking for a lil sneak peek at what’s coming later, you’re gonna like this. I don’t know what career I’ll pursue in the future, but I want something that involves a lot of advanced math (like mathematical modeling) and programming. I’ve gotta research the following fields more, but right now, these are catching my eye:

• Data Science
• Financial Engineering
• Quantitative Analysis

If you or anyone you know works in one of these fields, shoot me an email here and let me know. I’m always looking to learn from more math nerds and discover how they’re loving (or hating) their fields.

Okay, that’s it for today.

I know this one was a lot about me, but I needed to get this off my chest. So thanks for reading.