[muraiki]

Thanks for posting this. I've taken up studying statistics and machine learning lately after having never faced any challenging quantitative classes in college (I studied a liberal art). Lately I have been struggling with linear algebra and started to wonder if perhaps I'm just intellectually mediocre and not able to accomplish my dream of working in machine learning, even though I really enjoy learning about it. You've given me something to think about.

Also, stepping back and reflecting upon what I've learned even in just the past few months has helped put things in perspective; the stuff that I'm learning now would have been completely unintelligible to me then. Suffering from the "curse of the gifted" I never really learned how to study and often get easily discouraged, but I see now that I just need to keep focused and not give up so easily.