| > I also have learned compsci with his similar methods of finding interesting areas and digging in I don't think those things are similar. His method -- working backward for Wiles' proof of FLT to Linear Algebra -- is not really analogous to teaching yourself some undergrad CS. It'd be more analogous to deciding you want to understand Mulmuley's latest results from nothing and discovering while loops along the way. There's a difference in kind. Maybe this is splitting hairs, and at some level they're both "self teaching", but the huge chasm in relative difficulty/impressiveness still irks me :) > Frankly, professors would be more useful to me, if I could purchase their time by the hour over issues I don't understand Find a decent university and go to office hours / ask for independent studies. Paying tuition is quite literally purchasing their time. Only a small amount of official instructional time is spent in lecture halls. And most professors spend more time on teaching than they're technically required to. At decent universities that prioritize teaching, maybe 80%+ of teaching time is spend in one-on-one or small group interactions. IME most people who dislike formal higher education never learned how to use it properly in the first place. Or attended undergraduate at colleges primarily known for the attached research institutes, not their undergraduate program. |