{"id":8938,"date":"2011-10-13T11:48:21","date_gmt":"2011-10-13T16:48:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/UpbeaT\/?p=8938"},"modified":"2011-10-13T11:48:21","modified_gmt":"2011-10-13T16:48:21","slug":"read-this-post-there-wont-even-be-a-test-at-the-end","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/2011\/10\/13\/read-this-post-there-wont-even-be-a-test-at-the-end\/","title":{"rendered":"Read this post! There won’t even be a test at the end."},"content":{"rendered":"Yesterday, I did something terrifying. Or, more accurately, something that should<\/em> have been terrifying but was instead an overwhelmingly positive experience. I attended a math talk hosted by the Fields Institute<\/a>. I am not a Math major.\n\nNow, before you stop reading, I promise that:\n(1) this post is not actually about math, and\n(2) there will not be a test at the end.\n\nBefore I begin, though, I should admit that my background is what some would call a \u201cnerdy\u201d discipline. I\u2019m not afraid of getting my hands dirty with a few equations here and there. I\u2019ve taken enough math courses at this point that long ago should have ended my occasional, all-encompassing bouts of sheer panic when someone talks about higher-level mathematics.\n\n----------------------------------------------------------\n\n
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I received this book as a gift this summer. I think that my professors are onto me.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n----------------------------------------------------------\n\nI know what words like \"manifold\" and \"combinatorial\" mean. I know that infinity comes in many sizes! So, what exactly am I so afraid of?\n\nThe thing is, we all have our own beliefs and deities. I happen to bow down to the \"almighty GPA\". As absurd as this is, I understand and have to accept that this one little number sometimes has a disproportionately large say in important things \u2013 like my suitability for a particular graduate school, or, in the words of so many parents and guidance counselors before me, \u201cmy future<\/em>\u201d.\n\nThe problem is that sometimes, the almighty GPA might lead us to be risk-averse. After all, whether we take a graduate-level seminar in quantum mechanics, or just a 200-level \u201crocks for jocks\u201d course, \u201csuccess\u201d is defined in the same way \u2013 grade point average. (I know that many lifeatuoft readers are currently wondering how I am able to read their minds.) It can be easy to forget that the whole reason that most of us came to university in the first place was to see what we're truly capable of. It's sometimes even harder to find ways of seeking new challenges that don't have dire consequences for failure.\n\nI will confess, somewhat ashamedly, that over the summer I dropped a math course that I could certainly have passed because I didn\u2019t think that I could get an \u2018A\u2019 in it the first time around. There are at least two other courses (and perhaps an entire program) that I might have loved but have saved \u201cto do when I\u2019m 30,\" because I can\u2019t justify to myself the radical academic risk that pushing myself this far outside of my comfort zone would entail. So what\u2019s my point?\n\nThe talk that I attended was fascinating. Undergraduates and professors; artists and mathematicians, side by side. Why did this work? In this particular case, it worked because the lecturer was a brilliant man who knew how to speak to an audience at multiple levels of analysis. More importantly and perhaps relatedly, however, it worked because we were free to learn, to take what we could from the talk, and to leave the rest behind<\/strong>. In most university courses, we tend not to have such a luxury.\n\nNo one would have minded if I went to the talk, decided it was all Greek to me, and politely doodled on the corner of my notebook at the back of the room until it ended. No one was going to take any precious decimal points away from me if I decided to test my boundaries. It\u2019s in moments like these that we\u2019re free to truly learn for understanding, and in the words of Spinoza, \u201cto understand is to be free.\u201d\n\nI left the talk with a renewed love of mathematics. Crucially, I left the talk with a greater confidence in my own ability to take risks, reason, and understand. I was given the space to grow without fear of punishment \u2013 and somewhat ironically, in doing so, I may just be a better student the next time I do something that \u201ccounts for marks\u201d.\n\n- Jennifer","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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\nYesterday, I did something terrifying. Or, more accurately, something that should have been terrifying but was instead an overwhelmingly positive experience. I attended a math talk hosted by the Fields Institute. I am not a Math major. Now, before you…\n<\/div>
Continue reading “Read this post! There won’t even be a test at the end.”<\/span>…<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>
Continue reading “Read this post! There won’t even be a test at the end.”<\/span>…<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"author":148,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[65,70,67],"tags":[6498,111,1085,6497,6496,495,3],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8938"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/148"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8938"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8938\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}