July 6th, 2024
Finished another semester, now i crossed the equator. I'm not enjoying academia at all, it's a source of constant suffering in my life. Summer and winter breaks feel like a breath of fresh air, I'm reliably happy and finally able to do the things I love. And when another semester starts, it's like I hit a rough patch. And it's not like I chose a wrong degree, i actually really enjoy doing math. I had a lot of fun with some of the subjects at university. But the way the educational process is set up is completely alien to me and makes all of my weaknesses stand out.
The thing is, I'm really bad at time management. I might do more than your average student and then my grades are worse. I might do the assignment, and then, say, simply forget to submit it... Or slack it too much. Or fail at planning for doing multiple things, put too much effort in one of them and completely abandon the other one.
A recent example of this, that furthermore poisoned my already pathetic academical life for at least a year (or, in the worst case, until i graduate): in my university at a certain point every student gets assigned to a department and then chooses a professor from this department to write a term paper under this prof's supervision.
I examined the list of all of the available professors well in advance, before the departments were assigned, found the one I really liked and contacted him. He briefly interviewed me and agreed to take me under his supervision. We even chose a topic for my term paper. And then...
I forgot to fill out the google form for choosing the department. Did the research to figure out under which of the profs i'll be able to work on the stuff that is the most interesting for me, contacted several profs, set everything up with one of them, the nicest one – and forgot to fill out a simple form where you write what department you want to be assigned to.
I went to the dean, asked what to do and if they can help me to get into the desired department. The dean refused. They said it's my fault (it is) and now I'll be assigned to a random one. And I ended up in literally the worst department, the one that was the last thing I could ever want. It's full of my most hated professors. And it's the department of mathematical physics. I hate physics, lol.
Me and abelian recently talked about the split in mathematicians: the ones, who prefer algebra, and the ones, who prefer analysis. I definitely enjoy the discrete more, a lot more, and I wanted to do discrete stuff, and now i'm in the most continuous department imaginable. And i'm going to have to write a term paper about continuous stuff. And I will have additional analysis subjects instead of additional algebra. I will be forced to study things I give zero fucks about with the professors I hate with my whole heart because I forgot to fill out the form.
The supervisor I eventually ended up with is a sweet woman and she helped me a bit – she came up with a topic for my paper that will somewhat apply my area of interest to the stuff i'm required to learn by the department, but... I don't know. It all still sucks. My only hope is that during the next year someone from other departments is going to quit and i'll manage to take their place.
Some time ago I came up with the concept of a human-machine. It works like that: there are days when I have to wake up at 6 in the morning to be in time for some bullshit useless class, not get enough sleep and make a 1.5-hour long commute, standing in a packed bus at rush hour.
In such moments, when I'm sleep deprived, very far from enjoying my life and, in other words, feeling as a very low-poly version of myself, I start telling myself: I am a human-machine. Didn't get enough sleep? Well, that's unfortunate, but I'm a human-machine, so who cares. Don't want to go anywhere, hate the need to? Sure, but I'm a human-machine, so I don't give a shit. It's a bit silly, but it works for me.
I guess I should take the whole department failure and other academical setbacks as an exercise in being a human-machine. The situation I ended up in is miserable, but there's nothing really I can do about it, only to bear with it. A human-machine must keep on human-machining. In the end, that's a perfect challenge for me, the strongest soldier. I'm made of 50 kilograms of pure rage.
After I published this post, saddleblasters commented on it:
"don't think the divide is as big as it seems. I'm in the algebra world (algebraic geometry to be precise) and there are so many applications to physics (even though I'm not a big fan of physics either). What I'm researching relates in part to Mirror Symmetry, which is a massive project at the intersection of algebra and physics. representation theory and lie groups are also areas of algebra used a lot in physics
the other thing i'll say is that the more analysis intuition you can get as an undergrad, the better. modern algebra since the 60s uses a huge number of homological methods, which have their basis in algebraic topology. undergraduate analysis and differential geometry (very useful for physics) can help a lot in understanding this stuff.
while it does suck, getting corralled into studying an area your less interested in as an undergrad is extremely common. it happened to me and many of my fellow grad students. it's a lot easier to research what you're actually interested in once you get to grad school"
Really soothed me and made me see things in a different way. Thank you.
Null•space commented too:
"I feel you. But try to look on the bright side. You will learn things you would have avoided your whole career. At best, you will start to like it the more you dive into it. At worst, your area of interest will not change, but your head will be filled with unusual concepts that you can use when you go back to algebra.
As for the man-machine part: It is not silly, but I would like you to discard this image of yourself. It implies that you ignore your feelings, but they are an integral part of every human being. This sounds like a thing that can escalate into burnout over time. Take care."
Thank you for your kind words, I really appreciate! I want to add, though: maybe at some point the human-machine thing was about detaching from the feelings, but now it's more about reminding myself that i'm strong, brave and successfully been through hardships that tempered my character. The machine part in the human-machine is about being as strong as a machine, not as emotionless :)