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Find your own axis | thesephist.com

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When I was in middle school, I was one of the kids pushed up into the “advanced math” track. One day, my math teacher at the time threw me what I thought was an innocent question. She asked, “what do you think you want to do when you grew up?” I gave her my de-facto answer at the time, which was something in academia, probably physics. She said, “Good, don’t go doing something else that’ll waste your talent.” I didn’t give it much thought at the time, but over time I’ve come to rethink it. I mean – I’m sure she meant well, but what an absolutely condescending and single-minded way to think about planning a career! To think that there are paths where I’ll “waste” some potential I have, and to think that this should take a higher priority than what I enjoy practicing and where I want to grow – this seems wrong. Especially early in life, there are far too many variables interacting in unpredictable ways to say that one choice would lead to a more successful career or fulfilling life than

When I was in middle school, I was one of the kids pushed up into the "advanced math" track. One day, my math teacher at the time threw me what I thought was an innocent question. She asked, "what do you think you want to do when you grew up?" I gave her my de-facto answer at the time, which was something in academia, probably physics. She said, "Good, don't go doing something else that'll waste your talent." I didn't give it much thought at the time, but over time I've come to rethink it. I mean - I'm sure she meant well, but what an absolutely condescending and single-minded way to think abo

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