The Second Way
By: Julia Smoot
As I enter my senior year as a Mathematics major at the University of Michigan I’ve been reflecting on the challenges of being a part of a collegiate math department and I hope that I can offer a bit of encouragement to those who are starting in the same place that I found myself as I prepared to enter my freshman year of college.
Before I decided to attend U of M, I made an appointment with a math advisor to learn more about the math major at Michigan. In this meeting, for reasons I can no longer recall, the advisor asked me to prove that all integers are either even or odd (but not both). I failed to prove anything but my lack of mathematical abilities and for the first time in my life I felt truly stupid. As I was leaving his office, feeling that my academic skills were worse than inadequate, he said to me “you seem like someone who’s been looking for a challenge, now’s your chance.” That comment somehow overpowered my insecurities and I truly believe is the reason I chose to pursue a degree in mathematics.
“You seem like someone who’s been looking for a challenge, now’s your chance”
As you may have guessed, he wasn’t kidding about the challenge. I suffered my way through an 8am Multivariable Calculus lecture my first semester of college and proclaimed to my roommate that I simply was not cut out to be a math major. So logically, I registered for Linear Algebra the next semester and the cycle repeated itself. It was about this time that I came across a quote by a late University of Michigan professor saying “There are two ways to do great mathematics. The first is to be smarter than everybody else, and the second is to be stupider than everybody else; but persistent.” This sentiment completely changed the way that I viewed academic success. I am a firm believer that there is no such thing as “math people.” There is no math major gene and no magical “it” factor that makes you successful in this field. Of course some concepts will come easier to some students than others but the goal of learning mathematics is not to be the fastest or smartest one in the room. The goal of learning math is simply to learn math. Talent can only carry you so far but persistence can make up for any deficit in skill.
I want to leave those considering a math major in college with two pieces of advice. First, learn to be comfortable with failure. Many of us are fundamentally uncomfortable with the idea of falling short but sometimes it’s the best way to learn. You will gain far more from deconstructing your own incorrect solutions than from flying through easy homework assignments. Second, and most importantly, accept the fact that someone will always know more than you. You may wonder, then why bother with the frustrations and failures that come with any math degree? If you may never reach the mathematical level of many of your professors or even your peers, then why try? I’ve grappled with the same question for the past three years and I regret to inform you that I don’t really have an answer. No matter my interest in other subjects for some reason I keep coming back to this one. Math is a constant, it’s a basis for everything and although we’d often rather romanticize art or poetry, I think that math is beautiful. My math education is one of the most rewarding things I have ever pursued. So to all those sitting in dorm rooms spending their nights hunched over calculus books, I promise that it will be worth it in the end. As you continue your math journey, remember that there are two ways to do great mathematics and at one point or another we all have to do things the second way.
