Mathematics. Learning and doing pure (proof based) Mathematics. I was really good at it in high school and college, and it was the only thing I truly enjoyed.
So I got curious, picked up a book from undergrad curriculum and started learning myself. Got more curious, and I enrolled in a Masters program and got a Masters.
I don't have much time these days, but eventually I will get back to it and continue learning more. Perhaps one day, after I have retired or scaled down in my current job, I will pursue a PhD in it.
If you are curious about how I was able to accurately pinpoint "Mathematics" as my passion, then read on...
I was very disappointed by the lack of "scienciness" in software engineering. It wasn't even true engineering in my eyes as in, there were no calculations I needed to do, no statistics to keep in mind. It was just pure coding until something works. That wasn't intelecutally satisfying to me.
So I signed up for Andrew Ng's "Machine Learning" course. I really enjoyed it because he is an excellent teacher. But during the course I noticed something peculiar. I would skim through the reading material about AI/ML but would SLOW DOWN during the Math part of it. I would obsess about the PDEs, think deeply about them, even try to prove/derive them which was totally unnecessary for the purpose of the course and learning AI/ML's applications.
Combine this with my conversations with my colleague about AI/ML. He is really passionate about AI/ML and its applications and how to use it to solve real world problems. As far as I am concerned, I don't care about that at all. I ONLY care about the underlying mathematical objects used in it. He would talk about using an prebuilt library or a model and to just apply it to solve something and it would make him happy. Not me. I want to talk about what degree of the PDEs being used. What theorem is used to prove a certain equation.
This is when I realized that I didn't care about applications all that much. This was further validated when I got curious about the undergrad curriculum and picked up the book "The book of proof", and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I LOVED proving theorem and staring at the mathematical symbols on my notepad/whiteboard/chalkboard (yes, eventually I got a HUGE chalkboard installed in my study).
So I got curious, picked up a book from undergrad curriculum and started learning myself. Got more curious, and I enrolled in a Masters program and got a Masters.
I don't have much time these days, but eventually I will get back to it and continue learning more. Perhaps one day, after I have retired or scaled down in my current job, I will pursue a PhD in it.
If you are curious about how I was able to accurately pinpoint "Mathematics" as my passion, then read on...
I was very disappointed by the lack of "scienciness" in software engineering. It wasn't even true engineering in my eyes as in, there were no calculations I needed to do, no statistics to keep in mind. It was just pure coding until something works. That wasn't intelecutally satisfying to me.
So I signed up for Andrew Ng's "Machine Learning" course. I really enjoyed it because he is an excellent teacher. But during the course I noticed something peculiar. I would skim through the reading material about AI/ML but would SLOW DOWN during the Math part of it. I would obsess about the PDEs, think deeply about them, even try to prove/derive them which was totally unnecessary for the purpose of the course and learning AI/ML's applications.
Combine this with my conversations with my colleague about AI/ML. He is really passionate about AI/ML and its applications and how to use it to solve real world problems. As far as I am concerned, I don't care about that at all. I ONLY care about the underlying mathematical objects used in it. He would talk about using an prebuilt library or a model and to just apply it to solve something and it would make him happy. Not me. I want to talk about what degree of the PDEs being used. What theorem is used to prove a certain equation.
This is when I realized that I didn't care about applications all that much. This was further validated when I got curious about the undergrad curriculum and picked up the book "The book of proof", and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I LOVED proving theorem and staring at the mathematical symbols on my notepad/whiteboard/chalkboard (yes, eventually I got a HUGE chalkboard installed in my study).
And, that is how I met Mathematics.
Thank you for reading :)