| In my experience, and opinion, going somewhere for learning purposes should be a humbling experience. College should be a place where a student realizes how little he knows. I say this because in my experience, the first symptom of ignorance is a feeling you know a lot. I'm depressed since childhood because since a very young age, I had read about great minds. How could I ever feel I'm "good at maths" after reading about Gauss, or Galois? It made me feel like the lowest form of life. That is akin to the way Military Generals feel towards Alexander the Great: You can be a great General, but you probably will never be Alexander the Great. Maybe this should be done freshman year: Before even a single "maths" course is dispensed, a session on the achievements of Gauss and Galois, at age 17 or 19. Maybe a brief discussion on who Lagrange was, and what he did in his teens. This should take out any feeling of being "good at maths", and make students shut their mouth and open their ears. |