- #1
Frion
- 30
- 0
Do you have any stories of people successfully self-studying a relatively advanced subjected in which they've had absolutely no coursework? Personally, I've taken some honors level courses in high school and then done some extra studying to get on a good enough level to take the AP test. I've studied courses like Differential Equations largely on my own because the professor spoke with too thick of an accent. But I've never actually tried studied a subject completely on my own.
Everyone I know who said they self-studied a subject I was familiar with had serious gaps or misunderstandings. One guy completely self-studied calculus, but he totally wasn't hacking it physics, usually because of math issues. Another guy said he self-studied linear algebra, but he didn't even know the spectral theorem. Lots of amateur mathematicians on the internet are always called out for making obvious mistakes in math that's too advanced for me to judge personally. I've literally never seen a self-studying success story and this makes me very nervous because I'm thinking about self-studying PDEs but it seems nobody succeeds at self-studying.
I'm not even sure what the main obstacles are. Is it just an inevitable fact that a person cannot verify that he learned everything up to a certain standard? Or does one just miss out on subtler points without an instructor?
Everyone I know who said they self-studied a subject I was familiar with had serious gaps or misunderstandings. One guy completely self-studied calculus, but he totally wasn't hacking it physics, usually because of math issues. Another guy said he self-studied linear algebra, but he didn't even know the spectral theorem. Lots of amateur mathematicians on the internet are always called out for making obvious mistakes in math that's too advanced for me to judge personally. I've literally never seen a self-studying success story and this makes me very nervous because I'm thinking about self-studying PDEs but it seems nobody succeeds at self-studying.
I'm not even sure what the main obstacles are. Is it just an inevitable fact that a person cannot verify that he learned everything up to a certain standard? Or does one just miss out on subtler points without an instructor?