These last two years in my BSc program have been trying for me. I just did a Measure Theory midterm today, and I feel defeated.
There’s nothing that I love more than doing math. It has become a great part of my life and I cannot imagine my life doing something other than math.
That said, I’m starting to think I’m not as good as I thought I was. I’m not a fast thinker. I’m a slow, methodical thinker that has to have a grasp on every small detail to make sense of the whole situation. I can’t quickly come up with original counterexamples and get working with new definitions in a 2 hour test.
As I got to advanced courses, I started getting worse grades. I don’t feel like I’m a bad student. I get some A(+)’s, mostly B’s, and occasional C’s. The more advanced the courses, the more effort, time and stress I have to put up. I got to really dread upcoming tests.
I love when I get to work through a textbook myself and when doing my own personal research, but I dislike having the pressure of a course workload and the dread of the tests I have to take. It takes a toll on me.
For this Measure Theory course, we have a main textbook and a secondary one. I worked through almost all the exercises of the main textbook, but I didn’t do many exercises from the secondary one.
The midterm consisted almost entirely of exercises from the second textbook. I feel like I put more a lot of effort just to get a lowly D.
Now, while I love math, I don’t want to have my whole day to day be consumed in math. I know the answer is to put more effort in, but I struggle justifying disrupting my current study-life balance.
I want to pursue a PhD in math, but part of me thinks: “If I’m struggling this much at the BSc level, will I even make it to the PhD?”.
Now, as everything in life, there are people who are very good at what they do and some that are not so good.
Do you consider yourself to be a “mediocre” mathematician? How do you deal with higher level math? How do you reconcile being “mediocre” with your self-worth? Are there any “mediocre” mathematicians doing well on their MSc/PhD here?
Is the answer just to put more effort in? I’d like some advice, if possible. Thanks.