Last week upon registering for Spring quarter, I came to the realization that I should’ve been taking a certain math class all this quarter. It’s a prerequisite for almost all of the classes I have left to take, and if I want to be out of here by the end of this Summer, I should’ve been in it starting eight weeks ago. So, after a little freaking out and sending e-mails and going to meetings, I was given three weeks to teach myself the entire course and test out of it with a 75% or higher at 11 a.m. on Friday, February 12. Next friday.
Needless to say, I’ve been doing almost nothing but Discrete Mathematics since then. (I don’t expect anyone to click that link, but if you’re interested, it’s there. Fuchs?) Also? Just for good measure? I’m going on this math endeavor on top of already taking 19 credits and working 21 hours a week.
Discrete Math, for those who want the book report, is exactly what it sounds like: secret math; the shit that goes on behind the scenes; the stuff that allows the whole show to run properly. The how and why. How math works and why it’s viable to trust it as truth.
So I’ve been extremely over caffeinated, over-exhausted and stuck in math-trance for a few days now–that’s probably a really big chunk of reason for what I’m about to say, maybe. So we all know that I nerd out, right? And yeah it’s funny, yeah we’re all aware, okay okay, whatever. Setting that aside, guys? This stuff is really, really beautiful. I think it’s safe to say that if I had the time right now to really heavily think about it, I’d potentially tear up a bit. (But I don’t have the time to do that, so, moving on…)
I was explaining my situation to someone at work last night and they responded with ah, you’ll be fine, you’re a math whiz, you’ll totally test out without a problem! It was flattering but I didn’t really believe it, you know, casual politeness, thanks but whatever? That kind of thing. Cause I’m not a math whiz. Really. I’m not.
Honestly? I’m a B/C student in Math. I bullshitted (bullshat?) my way through AP Calc in high school. I was good at it, it fit my schedule, it was interesting when I cared, but I didn’t really care ever. I was ~going to art school~ so I didn’t take the AP Exam. Passed the class by memorizing for tests, graduated with a 3.5. Cause I just simply did not care enough to truly learn it.
Two years later at Brookdale, the summer after I started my minor, I bullshitted my way through Calc 1 again. Passed it, got credit. Failed Calc 2 the following fall. Struggled pretty hard with Calc 3 and Calc 4. Pulled off C’s, so I got credit. Complex Variables right now? Kicking my ass. 100% totally kicking my ass. It’s impressive to you kids in SPAS, and thanks (really), but a C student in the School of Math? A total joke. C Students in Building 8 are Lazy with a capital L. So Discrete? Yeah okay. Totally screwed in one way or another.
After I was done being (pretty) hard on myself, I thought about it objectively. For a while. And I realized just how incredibly unfair that is. Because I’m working harder at being a C student than a lot of people are working at being A students. Because I’m not bad at math. I’m actually pretty good at math. I’m good at math and that’s because I actually care about it now. It took ~art school~ for me to care about math. It’s beautiful now, and I want to know why. I absolutely love it. I want to have a really deep understanding of how everything works. I’m passionate about what I’m doing. I’m passionate about numbers. I get excited. I’m more inspired and excited by the beauty within math than I am with most of the contemporary art world right now.
What I’m bad at? I’m bad at school. I’m bad at RIT. That’s the problem. I’m bad at memorizing to pass a test. I’m bad at accepting things for what they are (see also). I’m bad at RIT because my ultimate goal with this minor is to learn something, to understand and appreciate it, not to pass classes. And that seems to be what most everyone in the Science Programs and SMS are trying to do: Pass classes. Play video games. Get a degree. Get a job. Play video games. Have money. Buy a house. Retire comfortably, preferably playing video games.
I know of way too many Deans List students in SMS who are on Deans List only because, frankly? Because they don’t give a shit. It’s not everyone, I’m not trying to making a blank generalization here, but because they can accept what’s in front of them and not think about it, they’re good at school. They get an A. The system works for them. They don’t get hung up on details and they don’t waste time in a ten-week system trying to ask any questions. So for the 14,000-some-odd kids at this school, I know very very few people who are passionate about Math and Science, who believe in it and are personally (not financially) invested in it. This is what Art School taught me. To be personally invested in something.
And what really breaks my heart is that RIT even caters to this. These are the kids that function well in this school. Example: my textbook right now is called, “Complex Variables for Scientists and Engineers.” Last week in class my professor accidently started talking about Mandelbrot. This man never makes sense in class, by the way. And he made sense. For once. Talking about Mandelbrot. But, he cut himself off because “that’s not in this course.” (Photo kids: Mandelbrot is the Stieglitz of Complex numbers.) A few minutes later? Returned to mindless preaching and not making sense.
So I’ve been trying to find someone to help me with this class, because as I’ve stated, it’s kicking my ass. It’s upsetting. Because it’s beautiful material, I’ve done enough recreational research on Complex Numbers to know it. I’m so personally invested in it, but the professor and the class structure make no sense. It’s because they leave so much out of the curriculum. There’s not enough time in ten weeks to teach theory, to teach beauty, to teach the how and why, and these kids need to be able to be engineers, god damnit! Not Mandelbrot deux. And you know what? I can’t find anyone to tutor me in Complex. Because everyone I talk to “took that class but doesn’t remember anything.” HEY RIT! Would you look at that! No one learned anything! They all memorized and faked their way through it! High five: the system is beyond broken!
Yesterday I met with one of the only people in SMS that’s bending over backwards trying to help me with what I’m doing, the amazing Anna Fiorucci. While we were talking a professor stopped by and they briefly talked about a really intelligent student that’s struggling to be in school merely because of politics (financial aid, has kids, works full time, etc.). The guy said something along the lines of, “he’ll never be able to get any work done in an environment like that, with so many people around him all the time, he needs some quality alone time to do math.” I don’t know, it was heartbreaking to hear a faculty member say that, especially when I’m sure they know who Paul Erdös is and what he did for mathematics as a social activity, how successful he was at it, what an amazing human being, etc. It just made me think like, wow, this is why almost no one at this school truly believes that math is a really beautiful and dynamic thing, so many of the faculty members are either furthering the mindset that everyone’s already in or just not convincing them of otherwise.
I’m going to throw a shameless plug for the one and only Paul Wilson in here, because I am convinced that he is by far the most amazing math professor at RIT, or at least that I’ve had enough luck to encounter. Funny thing is? A lot of students really can’t stand him. And I suspect it’s because he cares. And he expects his students to care. And if they don’t care, he’ll do his best to drill them until they’re forced to care (be it about math or about a grade). Alright, that’s all.
The same problems exist in SPAS. Western Art? That class would be amazing if we weren’t forced weekly to memorize thirty paintings that look almost identical and were all made within 20 years of each other. Because you know what that class did for me and I suspect a lot of other people? It made me hate painting and sculpture. For a year and a half. Until Chip Sheffield reassured me of otherwise and made me care about art.
M&P? Please. I love math, and even I hated that class. It’s memorization. It’s do what Nanette says to do. It’s repetition. It’s don’t try to make sense of it. It’s follow rules, monkey see monkey do, it’s schoolwork, it’s not education. Can anyone but Rob Luessen tell me what sensitometry is and why it’s pretty cool? Right now? Eh. At the end of freshman year I looked at my M&P book and realized that it’s actually really interesting material. I kinda liked reading it on my own. But I didn’t learn a god damn thing from taking that class. I just learned how to pass it.
I could go on. But recently I was told by a SPAS professor that my peers and I don’t work hard enough. It wasn’t the first time that a SPAS professor had said this, either. It still really upsets me. Because I’m truly working my ass off. I haven’t slept more than 5 hours in a night in pretty long time. I forget to eat. I exhaust myself just about every day to be at this school. I drink too much coffee, so that I can do too much work, and then maybe be able to keep up with the course load that my education expects of me. I’m not complaining though, I’m not, because I’m doing what I know I love and at the end of the day (okay, quarter) I’m happy. And most everyone I know? They’re all doing the same thing. We’re all working our asses off, and if being bad at pointless busywork, being bad at working the system, is what qualifies us as “not working hard enough,” then I guess so be it. It’s just that it’s not a fair accusation.
I’m not really sure what I’m expecting to get as a response from this. But I’m done.
Nikki-
This was an engaging entry. I feel I can relate not entirely, but somewhat because I too have a love for science as an art student. Math isn’t my thing, so I can’t offer my opinion there but I really wish more people slowed down and appreciated the beauty that science is. Science is who we are. We wouldn’t have art without it. I’m doing a project on how we see color, and it dawned on me…wow if not for optics, photography wouldn’t exist. I’ve always been intrigued by astronomy. It was always the theories that were interesting to me. The way people thought and conversed and figured things out. I could never care enough about the math or the formulas that EXPLAINED it all.
Just recently I’ve been diving deeply into the technical stuff. I am interested in science but do I really KNOW science? Not really. I can tell you what I like about the night sky and the universe and the questions I have related to theories but I can’t tell you HOW or WHY things are the way they are or the reason why I’m interested in such things. I find it especially hard to find people who have the same love. I try expressing to people that OHMYGOD the universe, our galaxy, black holes, they are ridiculously beautiful because of this, that, etc. and they could care less (generally speaking, speaking of course… fellow space cadets, holler at me!) When I was in shooting classes, all of my work revolved around the psychology of the human brain and how we think and perceive. It felt like nobody understood it. Nobody seemed to care or have interest in that kind of subject. My experience in photography classes was always “by-the-book” fine art for me. So I definitely agree that people generally want to pass and go on with their lives. But to each his own I suppose.
I’m glad you posted this. Getting hung up on the subtleties of life is one of my favorite hobbies.
After I was done being (pretty).
That is poetry.
also one thing to say about the working thing. I know it was most likely dan, and you know he only cares about one thing and that is photographs (that he likes). Don’t take it personally he told me on many occasions that i was being lazy. If photo is on the back burner so be it. It kind of is right now (until next week) for me cause life is more work.
keep your chin up.
No! It WASN’T Dan. Surprise, I guess. And I mean, yeah he’s said it before, but I’ve never thought he’s been terribly irrational about saying it.
Nikki:
I couldn’t agree more with you.
I started going to community college in San Diego called Mesa about a week following high school graduation in 2007, and it was the last place I could possibly have expected to find professors that cared about their students, and students that cared about their material. Over the course of two years, I met wonderful professors like Ken Kuniyuki (http://kkuniyuk.com), who got his B.A. in Applied Math from Stanford and M.A. in Pure Math from UC San Diego; he’s an eccentric, wiry, small (and I think insomniac, at times) Japanese man that was excited to teach Calculus and he genuinely cared about his students even though he had a hard time expressing this to others.
I am disheartened every time I discover that more and more places, even at “higher learning institutions”, have canonical, mind-numbing, and unintuitive methods for teaching students. I recently transferred to Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University this past January, and in my opinion, the math professors here would be hard pressed to teach as well as I was taught at the community college in San Diego, where I paid $26 per unit; here I am, now paying $1000 per unit for classes that I could have paid 3/100ths the price for and receive equal or better instruction from more enthusiastic professors.
Anyway, I hope things work out for you in the end. Keep fighting no matter what, but I know I don’t have to tell you that. Rock on.
Cheers,
Johnson T.
i am sitting here watching kids play video games instead of doing real shit. i shouldn’t be annoyed BUT I AM! l,ac.duardeunsaedouhd
Nicki, its funny. The amount of work and stress we put into doing shit at school is insane. It’s a pressure cooker, a melting pot, and a blast furnace all at once, because we go through, and get the shit that everyone thinks completes what we’re looking to do with our major, or minor, or life, and they put us through a super intensive program in a short amount of time. We mingle (or should) with other people, to the point of almost being uncomfortable and alienating because we can’t stand the people that are stuck around us for the simple reason of being stuck around us, and we’re then done, graduated, whatever, and we’re both expected to know what we’re doing and expected to know nothing.
The things that we take out of this melting pot, the cooker, are the things that stick and apply. It’s funny; doing student loan collections is absolutely insane the perspective it gives you. Found a lady today who went and got her graduate degree from University of Massachusettes in teaching, was doing a non-prof charity function, and seemed like she had her life set up to be some ABC Family retrospective. I found her because she was arrested for 12 counts of forging perscription medications after getting kicked out of the non-prof.
Why?
As much as you’d like to think so, everything was set up for this lady and everyone like her to fail. The expectations of going to college, getting a degree, and then having your life fall into place because of that set expected procedure mean that nobody really actually looks at what they’re doing and how they’re doing it. You’re falling in love with math, and that’s awesome. Figure out what sticks and go with it.
Sorry for rambling.
I would like to retire and play video games some day but thats far too unrealistic.
I really enjoyed reading this. It’s good to hear someone talk about something they’re so passionate about (that’s not someone who’s full of themselves talking about their own art). I completely hear you about the Western Art and Architecture. I took that class when i was supposed to my freshman year and hated it. Hated every second of it. I had to force myself to go to class every week (didn’t help it was 3 hours every monday NIGHT). Most of the time i would just skip it, and cram before exams. Just slide after slide after slide and nothing interesting to say about a single thing. Plus that book was so god damn expensive. I sold it as soon as I could. Barely passed the class.
I regret selling that book so much because there’s so much amazing art in it. I never was able to really appreciate the actual content of the course until two years later when i really started to invest more than just time into my work, and I wanted to further myself as an artist. I still think the class itself sucked but its so much more about the CONTENT, than the class..or at least it should be. Any professor who things that everyone is as lazy or doesn’t care as much as a normal RIT student, doesn’t care about the students either. Those of us who care are the ones who stay late every night, forget to eat, barely sleep and work our asses off. We can find solace in the fact that, though few, there are others just like us who exhibit self destructive natures because of a love of our work and what we’re doing. Those are the kids who’s opinions matter most. This is why sunday and wednesday is so important.
Nikki:
I found this while looking through your Found Functions page, which my cousin, a fellow photographer, suggested I have a look at. You’re doing beautiful work, keep it up.
I’ve also been reading some blogs that talk about how to better handle the workload at college, so you can imagine how I must be thinking that this is exactly what you need… I thought I’ll just let you know about these blogs and you can see for yourself whether or not they are any good. The advice is pretty radical and you may really feel that it won’t work for you. That’s all right. But my hope is that some of it may work out for you.
The blog that got me started was Cal Newport’s blog, called Study Hacks. One of the ways that this blog made sense to me was to point out that simplifying your life is a key to excellence. As Chris, one of the previous commenters, puts it, find out what sticks and go with it. Another thing about this blog that I liked is the really detailed advice that Cal gives, which you can just pluck out and use at once. Or at least that’s how it seems to me.
Another blog I’ve been looking at is by someone called Scott H. Young. I guess this blog has similar content to the previous one, but Scott has a different perspective on life. Most of the posts are in the archives, which you can access from the button on the top right-hand corner of the page, but there are some useful posts listed at the bottom of the page. Took me a while to figure that out.
It’s great that you’re finding out you like math. Discrete math is especially nice because, to me, all you have are simple rules, and then a lot of interesting stuff happens. But this is what math is, I think: a playground for reasoning. If you like clean, uncluttered spaces, which is the impression I got from your work, you may have found the same thing for your mind in the math you’re doing. Math is hard… we don’t grow up speaking or doing math all the time, unlike looking at pretty things or talking… but it’s fun once you get the hang of the rules. And you get better with practice, as with most things that are hard to do.
All the best in your work.
Wow, after all these great comments I feel kind of stupid posting one this short, but here it goes:
Your post reminded me of a piece of dialogue from the Illuminatus Trilogy (which, upon a little googling, seems to be a variation of a popular quote). I don’t remember it verbatim, but it goes something like this: “People don’t go to school to learn. They go to school so they get a slip of paper with some letters on it.”
It sounds to me like you’re one of the few people who do want to learn, and are failing because of it… what a twisted world this is =(
I’m going to start university later this year and I hope this doesn’t happen to me… or worse, I become a “slip of paper” person.
As the others said, keep your head up, keep learning, and with any luck you’ll find someone who appreciates the knowledge you’re building, rather than just your skill memorizing quiz answers.
-Nils
Nikki,
I’m currently taking my 2nd semester of complex variables as a graduate student and will be finishing up my M.S in mathematics this summer. I just wanted to let you know that you aren’t alone! In lots of my classes, we get fed tons of theorems and proofs, theorems and proofs, over and over and it’s hard to see the beauty in it all. I’ve also read The Man Who Loved Only Numbers and was very intrigued by Paul Erdos and how amazing math can be. It’s great when you have those moments where you see it and everything just clicks, wouldn’t you agree?
You sound like a great student. Keep pounding away, and good luck on that discrete test on Friday. :)