When I got to university, I realized some people love mathematics so much, they live and breathe it, they love it, it excites them. I also, realized that I didn't feel the same.

THIS is my biggest frustration with studying math at university. I enjoy getting into the depth, meaning, history and application of everything im learning... but realistically i only have enough time to learn how to answer the questions they want me to answer correctly and move on. Most theories and progress in mathematics was made by people who never had deadlines, and were pursuing this knowledge at their own will, speed, and capacity.

Academia can kill the interest and passion for any subject.

i think grades in higher mathematics like differential geometry, galois theory, commutative algebra and so, shouldn’t have grades. in my experience I find that the more I care about my grades the less I care about the meaning of these abstract ideas. so i have vowed to not care about my grade and seek understanding exclusively

Thank you for existing.

Yes, sometimes I don't know if it's my passion or my ego? Both? Hard questions.

I'm a Math Major. I am also 66-years-old. Really.

Yeah, in my experience math classes can seem to only be focused on getting information into your head as fast as possible so you can take a test and move on. So during my math degree I really had to step away from that mindset and just sit down with the textbook and read. Read and read until I actually understood the flow of the proofs and the point of developing those ideas into a formal concept. When I did math that way, I ended up really enjoying it a lot more and actually got better scores on the exams because I understood the material at a deeper level.

School has a way of making you feel like you are way better than you actually are. Then you go into the real world and barely know anything.

Your honesty is incredible. You are one of the few people I’ve ever seen admit some of the taboos and social ugliness they experienced in mathematics and physics departments

Part of Bob Ross success was his ability to make people feel welcome. By treating people like his equal, they weren't intimidated or afraid to come back for fear of failure. A man who spent his career screaming at soldiers. the man was a national treasure, and so are you. As a high-school dropout, my life was hard work, harsh chemicals, and eventually disability. But it wasn't that I was stupid, just not being understood by a system that did help the ones who could not keep up.. But my greatest love was always math. The few times I could find books on math it made no sense to me so I just gave up. Then along came KZfaq. So although I am 64 years old I have a keen interest in continuing to learn math. So please keep teaching for all those who will never understand it, but absolutely love it anyway.

The best thing I took from studying mathematics; - Two random variables were chatting in a bar. On overhearing their conversation.... A: "What is the integral of 1/cabin?" B: "log cabin." A: "Nope, houseboat--you forgot the C."

Thank you for your insights. I have a Ph.D. in physical chemistry but always felt that I missed a real understanding of some fundamental math and physics. Now retired, I have watched 3blue1brown’s videos with amazement and I face-palm often. I would love to start all over again and this time take the time to explore concepts instead of just learning how they can be used and then quickly moving on. And I would love to be a part of, support, or even just see collaborations of bright people to expand that type of stunning educational explorations and demonstrations for people everywhere. Not to make a dime but just to excite people.

Linear Algebra - consistently high grades throughout my degree - found it boring (where was 3Blue1Brown?) Galois Theory - found it almost impossible - low grades - thought it was great - still think about trying to get my head round it History of Maths - highest grade - really enjoyed it TLDR - grades don't correlate with enjoyment :-)

Great video. As a mathematician, I just want to say that all the deep meaning behind ideas, the big pictures, unfortunately they are not part of the university education. The mathematical understanding lives in the minds of mathematicians, and it is not usually written down, even in textbooks. And with this education system, one gets good at computations, algebraic manipulations...etc, but doesn't understand the meaning. In a sence, the philosophy of the subject is missing in all the math classes. And this has to change if we want to talk about a good education.

I threw out my junior high school yearbook many years ago but I’ve always been haunted by what my math teacher wrote in it. “Warren, your talent in math is a gift. Always strive to improve a natural gift.” I floundered a bit after that but I don’t blame myself entirely because I had things that I needed to deal with. All was not lost - I got a Bachelor of Arts degree and have been happily serving my corporate masters ever since. But 30+ years later, I’ve never gotten over the feeling that I should have pursued mathematics. Now, I’ve gone and purchased a couple of math books thanks to having watched a few of your videos over the past while. I feel excited! Cheers from Canada.

You had me at..."..i thought i was good because i got good grades". I think the problem is that context is not provided to Math...when they are introducing Calculus it should be what motivated Newton Liebnitz to invent it...rather that jumping into dry formulae..that is my life's greatest regrets

This dropped as I was studying maths

Tibees, I think one of the most significant factors in whether a person will end up loving math is the first few professors they have in college. I entered college thinking I would study physics but my Calculus professor made the subject come alive and I fell totally in love with math. I got my degree in it and although I did not pursue a masters I am still in love with math and get to use it every day in my profession (finance). If I had a different teacher initially i may not have ended up with a lifelong love of the subject. I’m now 66 and am about to retire and I am considering going back to get my masters, just because I love it so much. I get excited about number theory in particular, as there are so many fascinating topics within it and some of the results are just beautiful in a way that is hard to express to others. There is also the beauty inherent in math’s ability to be so incredibly predictive about the real world. Anyway thank you for your insightful videos.

i also always hated studying STEM subjects back when i was an engineering student. after 8 months i changed to major in culinary arts..

I actually just came from mathematics StackExchange, where I was looking over the plethora of problems I've answered and asked. I can definitely say as a graduate student aspiring for a phd, I still don't consider myself "good at math". It's more like my love for math always pushed me to learn more and try harder, which has gotten me pretty far.

I’m so happy I found this channel when I did a bit ago. I’m graduating in May as a math major, physics minor, and all of you videos where you’re just chatting really speak to me and make me think. Thank you Tibees!

This is why I went to Engineering. Because I can apply Mat and Physics to my work everyday. When I was student I didn’t how useful thing like probability, statistic..

As someone who’s studying high school physics and calculus this advice is really helpful. I always try to teach and help others in homework, but the communication is definitely challenging. I felt like being unable to convey your ideas shows how much you lack in understanding. Again, thanks.

Tibees... wishing you a happy new year... you are a inspiration to many...

Oh my god, I relate so much to what you said. And I only realized it now. I got into a Physics grad because I got the best physics scores in high school. I wanted to stroke my ego. It was so weird getting there and seeing all my colleagues that were just as good as I was, if not straight up better, and I gotta admit, I felt a bit down because of it. Thankfully for my motivation, I gave up on Physics and got into Civil Engineering. It's a new territory, the people are very different, I feel like i'm learning a lot, getting into this with the mindset that I have a lot to learn, not that I'm better than others. Thank you for the introspection, it really tells me a lot about myself (and I'm guessing about a fair amount of people who chose an exact science too), and I'll keep this in mind from now on :)

I started learning these math concepts such as derivatives and integration from Calculus and even the unit circle and definitely used it to boost my ego and have my parents be more proud of me than all my siblings since I am the only one who did complete Calc 1 and need even more advanced courses for my engineering major I guess I see the error of my ways but i am honest with myself and that is that I truly love these crazy ideas that mathematics bring They can be tricky and drive me insane but I truly have a heart for math but I used my passion for the wrongful ideas as well

I was once reading a book by Bertrand Russell. He said that , several times in his life he wanted to commit suicide. But it was love of math, that did not let him die. So beautiful is math. I loved every math class I took. And in order to complete Ph. D in engineering, I had to do lot of them. I loved it even in my early years and high school. If I was ever angry, upset, frustrated, doing math always cheered me up. Math was my relaxation actually. In my days, textbooks had no solution manuals. So I ended up solving every problem in every math textbook I had. It was a tremendously satisfying feeling. Most of my math professors were excellent. (I think I only had one, who was subpar). In engineering, I was able to solve , otherwise unsolvable problems by invoking math. These days, I am a professor of computer science. I think, only subject more fascinating than math is making computers and other machines smarter using computer programs.*

That is absolutely fascinating. Thank you, Tibees. I appreciate your careful thinking and insight.

the first one really hit me hard, lately I had the same feeling wondering if I really enjoy maths or just the satisfaction of being good at math, and I just finished my first year of university and I don't know what I really want :c

This is so comforting, it's encouraging to see successful people who do similar things or have the same flaws as you. I'm still in high school but I have the same "take the most difficult classes" and "oh I got a good grade I must be good at this!" ideas. I'm trying to work on just enjoying the classes for the actual knowledge and ignoring these arbitrary numbers and letters we call grades.

Thank you for your video. I am also a woman and I sometimes regret getting a degree in engineering. Later in life, when I realized I don’t like engineering, I thought back about why I chose the major in school. I realized I was focused on passing the classes and accomplishing the goal of becoming a professional engineer (it gave me the ego boost you are talking about), but I never considered if I would like engineering or be good at it. I often feel like I don’t “get it” on an instinctual level (I’m not good at fixing things). Luckily I’ve found a niche in engineering that fits me well. I am a state regulator and mostly use my people skills and writing abilities in my daily work. Sometimes I think I should gave taken a different path, but the things I like doing are artistic and not a good way to make money. I do think it was a good decision to get a degree in something that is practical and a way to securely support myself. Especially because I never married or had children.

Hey Tibees, I have a double major in Biomedical Engineering and Mathematics. I definitely empathize with retrospectively seeing the difference between getting a good grade and understanding. Also, relating back to linking abstract concepts I learned in pure math courses back to the real world, I took complex analysis and circuits at the same time. I was surprise how well they lined up (phasors and Euler's forumula), I just wish I looked for these connections in even more of my courses. Overall, a wonderful video!

Nice video!!! I study Electrical Engineering, and i always try to connect ideas (especially the mathematical ones) and exploring applications while studying them for the exam. I pass my tests, but sometimes i feel frustrated and disappointed because i can't usually get high grades. It's a logical aftermath, I supose, but can't avoid thinking my attempts to acquire a big knowldege about my lectures and books aren't being compensated. Wish i could find a middle point between your regrets and my poor strategy hahaha. Sorry my bad English, I enjoy all your videos :)

I can relate big time. Thanks for sharing this. I've been doing through my own journey on this topic and I hope to share it as you have.

Thanks for the thoughtful video, I'm currently halfway through my maths degree and am trying to discover if I actually like it or not. My favourite subject so far happened to be taught by Barry Hughes who featured in your 'Australian professors react to India's toughest exam' video. It also happened to be a very difficult subject on which I got my lowest grades ever in a maths subject, but the way everything we learnt was proved so carefully and rigorously, and how we were supposed to know the proofs rather than just assume they existed somewhere, helped me to really experience mathematics and gain a real appreciation for what it is. Once again thanks for the video, I will certainly be keeping some of these things in mind as I progress through my degree.

Ahh, I remember watching VSauce's video on the brachistochrone, and it reminded me of a passage I read in Douglas Adams's novel "Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency" where he describes "the invisible mathematician in our brains" which lives at the backs of our skulls, sitting on top of the spinal column, and exists solely to solve these particular shortest-route calculus problems. Only we're never aware of it calculations, it's so invisible to our regular perceptions precisely because it computes shortest-path-tracing predictions so quickly and so precisely that we never question that things like brachistochrones *must* exist (and that they must be coolly calculable - otherwise we could never throw or catch or drink from a cup or even walk) and that we use them all the time. Until we have to put them down on paper at which point we suddenly realise how stunningly complex applying even one dimension of reality to an "abstract context" like a maths problem is. Also Michael and Adam had such amazing fun building the prop it was so awesome seeing their nerdy joy I'm going to go watch it again right now.

Hey Tibees ! I personnally am passionnate about mathematics, so that's why I'm sooooo happy that you've done this video. Because as simple as that, I want to become a math teacher. Even if I'm actually French, it is a real pleasure to have some sharing about it. And actually, the self-confidence it gave to you is one of the things I keep searching ! So thank you very much about that. Now that you say that you didn't find maths being 'cool', I hope you consider this as a possibility for you to appreciate even more your mathematic study, as well as your mathematic videos ^^

As a first year Engineerjng student I really appreciate this. You're describing a lot of what I'm going through now as far as enjoying the material vs. enjoying making good grades on the material... and also as far as remembering to try to delve deep enough into my coursework to be able to explain it to others who (like me at the beginning of my journey into math and science) aren't as mathy as I am now. I like hearing your perspective and what i got out of it was 1. Try to take courses you enjoy, 2. Dive deep into your understanding of the material, and 3. Stay humble. Thanks Tibbees! You're awesome and your channel is always a joy.

this gave me a lot of interesting viewpoints from which to examine my choices, and with the most fortunate timing I would think. I am about to start studying maths in September, and while I am a total enthusiast and wouldn't change the field, I might think differently on some choices I have to make within it. I have been studying Molecular Biology almost 20 years ago, well mostly I have been partying Molecular Biology until I dropped out, and worked in hybrid breeding until 2 years ago. I am quite nervous about going back to university now, but I just stumbled about your channel yesterday, and became an instant fan. You manage to create the perfect balance of fun, interesting maths tutorials with a generally peaceful relaxing atmosphere...

I used to hate math with a passion, worst subject, hated going to class, worst grades in high school etc... I've found though that by discovering the deeper meaning behind major concepts and realizing how it applies to the real world I finally can appreciate what this is good for. It seems that every subject has some sort of connection back to math, like it's the trunk of some big tree.

tibees, like this and I'll get my phd in mafemafics

I can relate to this when I finished pre-calculus, I practiced a lot and saved the subject barely at the end of my 1st semester but only in the 2nd I realized the value of what I should have learned but didnt truly internalize it nor appreciated it enough. Getting clearer ideas about concepts I supposedly already knew made the learning process more interesting and made me question more what I learned. Looks like something similar might happen in the future with the left maths available, will try to make the most of them and learn more than just for the exams. Thank you for sharing your experience!

Thanks for your honesty. I have generally found the ideas hard to absorb and that caused fear that I'm only now beginning to face. I also rarely got to enjoy the practical application of learning the subject matter, which I lay mostly on the instructor's head. I REALLY enjoyed a course in numerical computing because the questions seemingly came out of real world situations. Bringing the course to life by injecting as much real-world applicability might be the key to getting and maintaining students' interest in the subject. I recently found the 3Blue1Brown channel and that was REALLY cool. The amount of (what I think is) good math content on the Internet astounds me sometimes and I hope many more people will never get the chance to experience the detailed explanation and real-world relevance. Thanks for the time and effort in making your videos. I'm sure they'll be will be beneficial to folks like me "on the outside". All the best.

I can relate, though describing it ends up becoming a story that starts with chaos and ends up an organized chaotic flow. So I'll just leave you a thumbs up, Wish you a happy and fullfilling 2019 and ... Hope that you find that confidence booster you need (acting, self defense, knitting, improv class,rock climbing, ... ) oh yeah, euhm, don't rush, nobody knows everything, don't let yourself get intimidated, there's theory and there's experience, and ... Be yourselves ! 🎉✨ ps. what do you think about vihart's videos?

Thanks for giving some insight to how your maths studying really was. It’s relieving to see that it wasn’t perfect. 👍🏼

Thank you so much for making this video. I've been planning on enrolling on a similar course without considering anything else, but now I realise what I'm really facing. Great job, cheers!

Stumbled to this channel just a day ago, best one i found for years probably! Very inspiring videos and in a way very soothing too. Im starting a masters next month, though in a totally different area (international relations), i hope that i can captivate those listening to me even just a wee bit compared to you! And the other thing that comes in my mind, though i was always quite lazy with math, physics, and etc, is how they are so much more "relevant" than "human sciences" (not sure if thats the term in english). It may be that i just underestimate the fields that i have a greater ease to learn and to handle with, but i cant resist to think how physics, math, chemistry, biology and so on and so on are inevitably superior to the other fields, including my own (IR). These are learning about the fabrics of the universe, but they are applied to pretty much everything in our society, so they are the foundations of humanity right now. I certainly envy those such as you that seem to have such an easy grasp of it. Why i think these fields are superior, i dont know, its just that i have this idea that if a random person reads some 100 good books on the history of, say, the vietnam war, they'll certainly have an impressive grasp of it at the end. Say, out of 100, 99 will pass the hardest test on it. While out of 100 people reading 100 books on astrophysics, how much would be able to pass a hard test on it? And i guess i felt the need to say this because as most students i meet are from the human sciences, i hear a lot of people almost having contests trying to see which field is more important.

My favorite thing about mathematics: give me pencil and paper, and I will never ever get bored. (Well, it will take a while at least).

Aslong as you enjoy it more than half of the time, it is a good choice. The greatest men and women weren't made directly by their degree, but by what they learned, who they met, ideas they exchanged, during that time. People put too much pressure on you to "find your passion". What if you dont have one? Or know what it is? And it certainly wont be the same one you have at 80 years old that you picks at 18. So dont take it too seriously, relax, enjoy the ride.

I learn so much from your videos because you talk so openly about your experiences and I can totally relate to them.

I majored in physics . And oh man i can relate to everything youve said . Thank you for making this ❤ . Especially the realisation that all these theories and problems dont exist anywhere outside of this academic bubble i would say .

I regret studying n being stuck in computer science and engineering wherelse I wanted to study math

Love that calm storytelling

Thanks for a great video. Totally understand the feeling as I tried Math at uni as well, until I realized all I cared about was getting a good grade and feel good because I had managed to make it. Thanks for introducing me to the Brachistochrone problem as well! That video you linked to was super entertaining and interesting!

I definitely can relate. It wasn't until I started teaching as a TA that I begun to realize how neat some of the concepts were, since I had to teach algebra based physics at times, which forced me to learn how to communicate the material more effectively. I also felt like I had virtually no real grasp on what some of the concepts were (especially special relativity...) but teaching it helped me understand it at a more personal level since I had to synthesize the information appropriately.

Relatable af I am not highly qualified but being passionate about physics and mathematics I still decided to not to pursue a career in it, reason being lack of motivation (money) and rat race for grades. I like to learn from problems rather than learning and then solving the problems. Crush 2019 though..

This was very insightful. Thanks for existing.

When I was in undergrad I tried to appreciate the deeper implications of what I was learning, but I always felt like it was coming at me through a firehose and I just didn't have time to think about it too deeply. It was a bit frustrating but we did have a lot of ground to cover in four years.

I just stumbled upon this video and you really put into perspective where I am at with my academic career. Keep being you because I love listening to your videos!!

As a physics major, I know exactly what you are talking about but I guess my outlook is a tad different. I feel in many ways the ‘cool kids club’ mentality is kind of the culture of academia, how students are evaluated on pretty arbritarily chosen metrics and not on understanding, especially in standardized testing. It’s the way it’s taught which encourages regurgitation and It makes me more angry than regretful, especially when I see others drop out because of how poorly it can and is taught at times. I also feel like anyone who studies physics and math will have ‘imposter syndrome’ at some level, especially if you begin to understand it haha. Anyway, I think you made an awesome choice ;), as this is a pretty cool KZfaq channel.

I know a guy who got a PhD in mathematics and he was a professor at a university for a bit. Unfortunately the pay wasn’t good so he pursued accounting and became an accountant. Situations like these make me question my current path and make me feel like I chose the wrong path.

Currently in University studying Mathematics. A lot of this resonates with me especially in terms of picking classes and perceiving concepts as abstract simply because of how they are defined in terms of math. But if anything its just helped better calibrate why I love what Im studying, and why Im studying math at all

Thanks for making this video. You're very honest with yourself and good at analyzing your underlying motivations - neither of which is easy.

If you have children in your home, teach them how to play dominoes at a young age. It's fun and at the same time it teaches them how to quickly add, subtract, multiply and divide. Both my daughter's excel in math and with numbers. They tell me now that dominoes was a big positive for their success and what they've become today. I hope all the scholars will continue to make education a fun learning process. People have a tendency to retain good and positive things better. Good luck everyone! I wish all of you a happy and humble life above ground. From katrinka, San Francisco Bay Area🌺🌴

I love math because it's precise, accurate and it flows harmoniously. I was just never great at it. I really enjoy your videos

Tribes, I too did a double major, although were in mathematics and statistics. The way you expressed yourself reflect my feeling exactly. I too took difficult courses more to show off than expecting it to benefit me in my overall understanding of where I was going in my studies of mathematics. I have made up for for those mistakes by carefully selecting more relevant courses in my masters.. Thanks for stimulating my brain with your various lectures. You are a great presenter. and lecturer (and look quite cute as well)! Thanks again. Richard

I totally "get" what you're saying (you express yourself very well!) . . . I think that very often when we're in the throes of learning some difficult subject, we don't "fully" understand it -- sometimes it's just a matter of lack of time to fully explore . . . and only later, after time has passed, things start to "click into place" and we get better understanding. I very much enjoyed your "strange realm" concept!

Very brave and honest, I liked this video a lot. You are very inspiring.

"doing a class for being the most difficult and pretigious math", that's sums up 90% of al mathematicians.

Yes I can relate. I thought I would avoid some of the feelings you expressed by going into Applied math. The goal was to get a PhD and teach college math somewhere as a profession. But when I finally ran into my 1st 15 page proof I decided to stop at a MS degree and work for awhile and never made it back. I too still have a passion for it and get sucked into some of these math problem presentations occasionally but it's all so very time consuming and life is just too short.

Thanks for your perspectives! I wish I had stumbled upon this video way earlier.

"I liked the feeling important part, but hated the work part."

I should do a video of "my regret studying chemistry" (I am almost finished with undergrad)

Thanks for sharing these! I think many other students can relate to some of the points you brought up. For me, I struggled with reconciling my perception of math in lecture and in my own mind with others' perception of math when I would tell them that is what I'm studying (if that makes any sense). It led me to experiencing some type of imposter syndrome. I think that the theme of exclusivity associated with mathematicians and math students is a bunch of bs. As you mentioned, some youtubers are making great strides in making mathematical concepts more relatable and accessible to a wider audience.

I'm a very recent subscriber to your KZfaq channel and you're giving me hope and uplifting my mind beyond what I thought possible. I started when KZfaq pushed your video on Tesla grades

Replace "Math" with "Meth" and the video becomes quite funny

Thank you for your honesty and just for being you.

I have 2 degrees in math and I really enjoyed it all! Grad school was the best time of my life, especially being a TA. It really helps to have a professor who is also passionate about the subject. My kinda sorta only regret was not getting my M.S. in something more applicable like Staistics, but I had FUN studying pure math.

This is extraordinary insight into personal goals and abilities. Made me think. Thank you.

I've no regrets specially when I remember , Fourier transforme And Laplace transforme.

A: How many ways can you arrange -1/2 of a person? B: what? A: sqrt(pi) ways

It's cool that you found applications of math out there in the real world! This inspires me to learn a bit more about math. I avoided math earlier in life because I didn't see how practical it is, but I've changed my mind more recently.

I had a similar experience as well. Oftentimes, the fast-paced structure of the undergrad curriculum doesn’t allow time to explore concepts beyond homework and exams, which usually leads to a heavy focus on grades and a neglect of the big picture.

I am a computer science student and I took courses in Algebra, graph theory, calculus and stats during my bachelor's degree, in the beginning, I was thinking that these courses were useless (I mean I couldn't imagine how to use integrals, derivatives to solve RL problems ) for a person who wants to be a developer and that algorithms/programming languages courses are the most important to master. but on my current master's degree ( i am following an Artificial intelligence master ) I realized how math can be used to solve for a lot of optimization problems and I also learned how to use all those math theorems and stats techniques that I studied before to make AI agents and models .... what I want to say is that maths are important and every scientific field need mathematical techniques to evolve and to solve new problems, and i wish that you could use your math skills that you gained during your major on your physic research !

My regret studying mathematics is not quitting right away. There is way more money in stripping.

I'm finding this at the moment. I'm finishing up a Masters' in Pure Maths, and struggling with a lot with the abstract algebra/group theory concepts, because I failed to grasp their true importance in my undergraduate and forgot a lot of it. (i.e. where I find Analytic Number Theory beautiful and easy to grasp, Algebraic Number Theory and Algebraic Geometry are impenetrable concepts). Agreed, I wish I had more to contextualise such abstract concepts, and not just learning it for the sake of it. Really glad I'm not the only one who feels like this!

Wonderful! Thanks for sharing those thoughts.

This is my viewpoint as someone who considers themselves intelligent, but who always found that the education system had its priorities "backwards". I see a lot of people who have a very elitist attitude towards education. To them it's not about the knowledge, but more about the idea of being perceived as "more intelligent", and perhaps "better than", and this to me has always been a quality that is inherent in "academics" and often professors, teachers etc. These people very often didn't care about the subject, but just cared about high grades, outperforming others, prestige, and once again that big idea of being "better than others". Quite often these people when it actually came down to it were not "intelligent" people in any meaningful way, at least they weren't to me, and quite often they were actually far less intelligent than their peers because they had the illusion that all of these lofty sounding "complex" ideas which they had in their head were actually not as valuable as they were taught they are. I'm not trying to condemn knowledge or learning, not at all, I am simply trying to comment on the motivations as to why a person learns. In reality being a wonderful athlete, or a wonderful artist is just as valid as being a wonderful mathematician, scientist etc, and I'm not talking in terms of talent, I'm talking in terms of intelligence. The athlete is in a sense highly developed in "applied physics", in the sense that they are applying (perhaps subconsciously) a whole variety of physics concepts in order to achieve what they achieve with their bodies. The traditional physicist in many ways is only doing this in their heads, which is also valid nontheless. I think that this "regrets" video from the author is her realization of some of these things, and that she did not want to be that kind of person, at least that's what I get from it. Maths and physics etc need to be taken off the pedestal, and re-envisioned. Some people will never find the passion for equations on a piece of paper, but tell them that physics are in video games and it will click for them, or tell them that physics concepts will help their baseball swing, or their basketball shooting etc, and they will be in. Anyhoo, hope that interests someone out there!

It's the first time I see someone saying something as deep without realizing it and God knows I watch a lot of KZfaq videos !

You really hit the nail on the head especially about the brachistochrone from variational methods and its wide and fundamental importance to lots of really cool stuff.. I didn't realise the uses of Complex Variables in many physical theories and their uses in particle physics. I didn't understand the importance and wider applications of Linear Algebra or Partial Differential equations in engineering and many physical theories including quantum physics. That bigger picture is missing from many Maths courses. Maths is fundamental but we don't seem to show people why it is

Thank you for your inspirational talks. It really help to motivate me

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As a math and computer science double major, I can completely empathize with what you’re saying. I feel like such an imposter because I didn’t take the time to really absorb and understand and apply the knowledge I was given in my 200-400 level classes, and it makes me feel horribly unprepared for a career in analytics. I wish I had taken the time to truly enjoy the material and get that deeper wisdom about the subjects involved.

Thanks for this clear and sincere video. What you are experiencing is sometimes called "conscience growth". This is perhaps more valuable than the grades you got, and some believe it is our primary objective. Your video certainly taught me a few nice ways to simply describe some of the reasons for doing the thing we do.

My stress level plummets whenever I watch your videos! Thanks for being awesome.

Interesting video! From my personal experience, even if I still think I appreciate maths, I regret not seeing maths as beautiful as they really are. Instead, I considered them as a simple 'tool for physicists' for a long time. In fact, during my third year of bachelor in physics, we literally had a course named 'Mathematical tools for physics' where we just work Fourier transforms and differential equations without all passions of mathematicians. But now I had courses on Cosmology, General Relativity, Celestial Mechanics and other astrophysics courses in my master degree, I finally realize how much maths are important in many domains, including physics and astrophysics. They constitue a langage by themselves, and describe the world in a wonderful way... I'm not sure I would change my studies to do maths, but I cannot agree with some other students claiming than courses with more maths 'aren't real physics'.

As a Navy veteran, I'd wish I paid more attention in class and remembered more formulas to get to the quotient quicker.

Thank you for this summary! The thing about "not realizing the math we study actually has cool uses" ringed a bell. I had maths as a minor at uni as it was "easy" for me and it was just "do the routine, go to exam to show you can do it, rinse and repeat". There was really only some linear algebra courses I (at the time) had some real application for and was actually interested in because of that. Only after watching 3blue1brown videos this spring I've gotten the feeling that "damn, there was all these cool things I didn't even think about, what a waste".

Tibees I think I understand what you are saying, although I luckily never went through that. I was fortunate enough in that I had high confidence in my abilities, and quite early confirmation of that. So I never doubted myself, except for not knowing whether I would end up being a low-level college teacher, a high level university researcher, or an internationally well-known figure. You have very good knowledge of your subject and exceptional teaching abilities, so I think you should stick with that and be happy, very happy indeed.