[mathewsanders]

Your math anecdote resonated with me, but with Chemistry instead. I was a Chemistry/CompSci major. I only did a Bachelors degree, but for Chemistry I never really had to study or memorize much because I could generally figure out just by imagining the structure of molecules and feeling how they might interact (this was for organic, materials science and inorganic chem wasn’t so intuitive).

Same with algorithms on data structures- I would imagine a toy data structure and play around with how algorithm would interact with it.

The compulsory first year Math papers on the other hand were impossibly hard to follow, even with a lecturer who happened to specialize in mathematics education I was always lost about 20 mins into a lecture and always struggling to catch up.

I don’t feel like I can picture things as clearly as some people describe in this thread, but it’s not a total blackout either. Something in between.