<story><title>There’s more to mathematics than rigour and proofs (2007)</title><url>https://terrytao.wordpress.com/career-advice/theres-more-to-mathematics-than-rigour-and-proofs/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>devnulll</author><text>One day I&amp;#x27;ll retire and go back to school. The idea of learning Math - really learning &amp;amp; understanding Math - as a fun pastime is so appealing.&lt;p&gt;What&amp;#x27;s stopping me now? That sweet overpaid SDE salary and the endless obligations that come from being an adult. I suspect I am not alone...</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>stult</author><text>I’ve had a very similar experience and my solution was to incrementally move into more and more math intensive jobs, starting from regular old SWE working on a web app to working on an aerospace-related web app that involved lots of physics and geospatial calculations and then moving toward MLE&amp;#x2F;DS jobs. All without a STEM degree, teaching myself the math as I go. It hasn’t been easy but I enjoy what I do more and more over time.</text></comment>
<story><title>There’s more to mathematics than rigour and proofs (2007)</title><url>https://terrytao.wordpress.com/career-advice/theres-more-to-mathematics-than-rigour-and-proofs/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>devnulll</author><text>One day I&amp;#x27;ll retire and go back to school. The idea of learning Math - really learning &amp;amp; understanding Math - as a fun pastime is so appealing.&lt;p&gt;What&amp;#x27;s stopping me now? That sweet overpaid SDE salary and the endless obligations that come from being an adult. I suspect I am not alone...</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>hebrox</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m actually looking into this. Just an hour ago I mailed the local university that I won&amp;#x27;t be doing any courses there. My initial plan was to do a bachelor at around 50% speed. But working and having to girls (1,5 years and 3 weeks) makes that quite impossible. And looking at photos of myself at 17 makes me feel rather out of place at a university at age 42.&lt;p&gt;The Open University has an AI master that I&amp;#x27;m thinking about right now.
It has about 25% of the math that I want to learn, so that would be a good start.
I did some prep work (an official high school math certificate) last few months and I noticed that I need a schedule to keep me going.&lt;p&gt;One thing that I&amp;#x27;m quite certain about, is that &lt;i&gt;doing&lt;/i&gt; math is the most important thing. And doing math leads to more doing math.</text></comment>