I feel you OP. Trying to get the gumption to go back to school myself after some years off. Just be sure that you have a plan for post graduation so that it was all worth goung back for.

Also glad to here that if I go back for ME or MS in EE all I need to know is Ohm's law :-D

Not aimed at you but
this is exactly the problem, in my opinion with a corrupt, elitist, extremely for-profit education type system. When education is associated with the ridiculous debt that I hear of, in some countries, the value of the education itself, which should be the whole point, is totally undermined by worry of gaining a return on the investment, money-wise.

Granted, the notion of finding a job and making money in your field of study
is a rational concern, regardless, since you got to put food on the table but the beauty of learning about a subject you are genuinely interested in is absolutely priceless.

I was going to make a thread , about education, how kids should be educated, and on the redundant, repetitive, institutionalised , theatrical, and perhaps indoctrinate
system that we have in place and see as standard, when we have the world wide web at our fingertips, the emergence of the Khan Academy and such..

sure but only if 'devastated' is a realistic con.

That would be up to iosys to assess. From what he has expressed here, at least some of his self-worth would be riding on this. It seems that maybe more of his sense of self-worth is riding on feeling like a pussy if he doesn't make the attempt.

It might be helpful if someone were willing/able to explain to him why his self-worth shouldn't be on the line. I don't have it in me at the current time, but he clearly deserves it.

imo, The study of higher level math expands a person's mental perception. I don't think an education is complete without it. I don't think 30,40,50 or beyond is too old. You may even find it easier to grasp than when you were younger. There's an energy problem as we get older so staying in good physical condition helps. You might start out by reviewing the math you studied before. See how you take to it. You might find yourself saying, hey I can do this.

However, if you get into a regular program you might find pressure slowly building. This can happen is small stages where you feel like you can handle just a little bit more until one day you wake up and find yourself in distress over it. As we say in poker, always leave yourself outs.


PairTheBoard

Ending corporal punishment was clearly a mistake.

Unless there is some expert knowledge I'm unaware of then his self-worth almost certainly isn't on the line. He may think his self-worth is on the line but that in itself a good reason to do it because even if he fails he will discover it wasn't (or doesn't remotely amount to 'devastated')

The fear of failure is far more real and pernicious than any big cognitive downside from the reality.

The physics/maths/homework thread you guys run here are my outs. : )

Apparently, my nephew and kids of his age today are going to live past hundred. Education will have to be for life, or we won't keep up.

Go ahead. Make a thread about this.


Have SMP'ers design an educational system with teaching methodologies and a basic 4-year college curriculum (classes all should take irrespective of major).

There was a social experiment where they dropped a bunch of tablets off in a remote poor village in Africa. Gave no instructions, on how to use them. The tablets contained large amounts of knowledge the villagers never had access to. Left them to their to own devices.

They called back some time later to check the results.

I have not a single doubt that we could make at least 100x more efficient and make studying an addiction instead of a chore.

Googled this: "tablets africa knowledge no instruction"

http://www.technologyreview.com/news...ch-themselves/

Will read now, too much coffee to wait to post after reading.

Pervert.

The North may have won, but the South is going to make them live to regret it, right?

I think you are probably correct here.

The south doesn't get to raid the north's schools to spank kids.

A fellow student while I did my PhD was this guy:
Alexander_Abercrombie

He taught himslef maths whilst working as a concert pianist. I believe that he applied to do an undergraduate degree, but had taught himslef so much number theory he ended being accepted directly onto a postgraduate course.

In the three years of his PhD, he published around 17 papers. This is pretty exceptional.

He was just under the age of 50 when he finished his PhD. So, for the OP, it is definitely not too late.

Very exceptional. It usually takes a two-year period from initial submittal of a paper to a peer-review journal through actual acceptance and final publication. My information is old so perhaps this timeframe has been reduced in the last decade or two (especially with the advent of the internet). That he was able to publish 17 papers from one PhD thesis is also rather remarkable, of course the actual publication dates can, and many usually are, after the PhD is granted. Do the papers include, say, abstracts or presentations at meetings and conferences etc?

One example only. But for the purpose of illustration and analogy, useful. So I'll add one more, of a personal friend that went back to get her BA degree in Italian studies and graduated Magma Cum Laude at the ripe old age of 57. She is currently enrolled in a Master's degree program and will finish that Spring of 2016.

Limiting yourself simply because of age or fear of failure (because of age or other factors) is probably not a wise decision. But one shoe does not fit all feet*.

* Added to make BTM2 squirm and squint and hop about on one foot in a mind-asphyxiating paroxysm**.

**: Please note: Mind-asphyxiating paroxysm is a trademark of Zeno World Domination Conglomerate, Ltd.

That is correct. See link below.

How The South Will Rise To Power Again-

http://www.forbes.com/sites/joelkotk...o-power-again/

Southern? Zimmerman, give him some grits.

semi-grunching.

Whatever degree of excellence in a field as person is capable of achieving, the only time it is 'too late' is when the individual is no longer capable of doing it. That can be a narrow parameter or a wide one depending on a person's approach.

Getting prepared upfront to be devastated by failure can turn out to be also devastating. What's a good way to cope with it?

Where does a person go after failing? Quit or Try again. If you believe you can achieve the knowledge, then dispense with the arbitrary school timeline. How much can getting devastated and not well-prepared make it harder to correct any mistakes and try again? The worst that can really happen is you learn a limit or two. Maybe feeling devastated can be a stepping-stone instead of a hurdle.

Oh, and in my county in Alabama you need explicit parental permission for corporal punishment.

I beg to differ, Zeno:



More importantly, I agree mostly.

The number 17 was a bit of a guess on my part - it's based on my memory of events over 15 years ago. However, a check of Google scholar indicates that it's not too far off:
http://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?...n&as_sdt=0%2C5

There are 15 published close to the PhD dates on the first two pages alone. Some are in top quality journals, although there are some conference papers as well.

well from my experience I will give people some advice of what not to do if you want to do a level maths. and thats never ever entertain the idea of using CGP text books!!

now I know my vision is not great i need glasses etc but i got stuck because the answer was totally alien to what i expected i mean way off normally this is just a careless mistake but this was to far gone for that. after confusion and making myself look like an idiot by asking for help on something fairly simple which i thought i understood correctly

(i did the, method i used to start with was 100% right, i also verified with google and youtube)

i realized the issue was that next to a fractional power sign in the formula some **** put a negative sign but to be clear this was not just next to in the sense of a space that one could clearly see no this was exactly parell to it and less then 1mm apart from it.

after putting my face right next to the text book as in less then an inch from i finally spotted it ever so faintly.

Good advice. Which exam board are you doing?