I'm sort of in a bad dilemma right now and need some advice. I'm a CS major and I've slowly grown to like math more and more and coding and the usual CS stuff less and less. In short, math has become my new passion and I'm thinking of changing my major even though I'm 2.5 years into my CS degree (and I do like CS).
Here's my problem: I love math, but I'm not good at it. I like math so much now. I think about it and do it all the time; I'm totally fascinated by it! I LOVE IT!! But I just don't feel I was born a math person. What I mean is I'm just not that smart. I can do the exercises in my math books but that's only because we're given the general form of the solutions in the chapter introductions, you know what I mean?
I'm sure I'm smart enough to get a math degree if I went for it, but I'm worried that if I were to try and get a job I wouldn't be able to because as I said earlier I'm just not that smart. I really don't want to live with financial instability for the rest of my life and I don't want to be broke all the time. There are so many careers out there for CS grads, and I'm good at CS...but I like math so much more now.
I know it's important to follow your passions and do what you love, but what should I do? Is there anyone here that's been in a situation like mine?
Name:
Anonymous2011-07-03 3:03
what do you need a degree for? None of this is secret, you know.
Mathematics is just a game which includes elements of fantasy. -- Wikipedia, Set Theory article.
I don't believe in mathematics. -- Albert Einstein
As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality. -- Albert Einstein
Mathematics would certainly have not come into existence if one had known from the beginning that there was in nature no exactly straight line, no actual circle, no absolute magnitude. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
I don't know what predominates in Cantor's theory - philosophy or theology, but I am sure that there is no mathematics there. -- Kronecker
In mathematics you don't understand things. You just get used to them. -- John von Neumann
There's no sense in being precise, when you don't even know what you're talking about. -- John von Neumann
Today's scientists have substituted mathematics for experiments, and they wander off through equation after equation, and eventually build a structure which has no relation to reality. -- Nikola Tesla
Mathematics as a purely formal system of symbols without a human being possessing the know-how for dealing with the symbols is impossible. -- Michael Polanyi
Mathematical logic isn't a way to invent but a way to structure ideas. -- Henri Poincaré
In mathematical texts the type of a variable is usually deducible from the typeface without consideration of context; this is not feasible in computer programs. -- Niklaus Wirth, creator of Pascal programming language.
Reading a maths books is like reading a program without any of the supporting documentation. There’s lots of definitions, lemmas, proofs, and so on, but no indication of what it’s all for, or why it’s written the way it is. -- Steve Easterbrook, Professor of Computer Science.
Calculus is at once the most important and most difficult subject encountered early by students of mathematics; introductory courses often succeed only in turning students away from mathematics, and from the many subjects in which the calculus plays a major role. -- Kenneth E. Iverson
It is surprisingly easy to get the right answer with fallacious reasoning or without real understanding. Traditional mathematical notation contributes to this problem. Symbols have ambiguous meanings that depend on context, and often even change within a given context. -- Gerald Jay Sussman, Professor of Electrical Engineering at MIT, and creator of Scheme programming language.
Reliance on ambiguous, unstated notational conventions makes mathematics, and especially introductory calculus, extremely confusing for beginning students. -- Hans Freudenthal, Didactical Phenomenology of Mathematical Structures, Kluwer, 1983.
A false theory is false, even if not halted by a contradiction. -- L. E. J. Brouwer, Dutch mathematician and philosopher, who worked in topology, set theory, measure theory and complex analysis.
Mathematicians like to reassure themselves that foundational questions are resolved by some mumbo-jumbo about "Axioms" but in reality successful mathematics requires familiarity with a large collection of "elementary" concepts and underlying linguistic and notational conventions. These are often unwritten, but are part of the training of young people in the subject. For example, an entire essay could be written on the use, implicit and explicit, of ordering and brackets in mathematical statements and equations. -- Norman J Wildberger, Associate Professor in Mathematics.
Name:
Anonymous2011-07-03 4:36
Can you imagine a “physical process” whose outcome could depend on whether there’s a set larger than the set of integers but smaller than the set of real numbers? If so, what would it look like? -- Scott Aaronson
The primary concern of mathematics has been to use the infinite to elucidate this world. The primary concern of mathematical logic has been to explore the nature of infinity in order to classify and explain its mathematical applications. -- Recursive Aspects of Descriptive Set Theory, by Richard Mansfield and Galen Weitkamp
The mind of man being finite, when it treats of things which partake of infinity, it is not to be wondered at if it run into absurdities and contradictions, out of which it is impossible it should ever extricate itself, it being of the nature of infinite not to be comprehended by that which is finite. -- George Berkeley
The question of infinity had brought mathematics to the edge of uncertainty. -- Joseph Warren Dauben, Professor of History and the History of Science
Cantor's obsession with mathematical infinity and God's transcendence eventually landed him in an insane asylum. -- Ron Csillag
For the Hindu math genius Ramanujan an equation "had no meaning unless it expresses a thought of God."
The prolific Hungarian mathematician Paul Erdos imagined a heavenly book in which God has inscribed the most elegant and yet unknown mathematical proofs.
It is known that any contradiction can be neutralized by making a distinction which previously nobody had encountered or wanted. What is not understood is that any outcome in mathematics which violates or masks original intentions regarding a structure can be construed as a contradiction if a way is found to express those intentions as an axiom. -- Henry Flynt and Catherine C. Hennix
If a `religion' is defined to be a system of ideas that contains unprovable statements, then Godel taught us that mathematics is not only a religion, it is the only religion that can prove itself to be one. -- John D. Barrow, Between Inner Space and Outer Space, Oxford University Press, 1999, p 88.
>>1
You can follow your dreams and live a comfortable life. You need to consult a certified financial planner for a life financial plan, then study some finance so that you have the financial intelligence to carry out your plan.
Name:
Anonymous2011-07-03 8:15
Stick with CS. You can't get a job with a Math major.