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Illiun
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I will give you a little background about myself, if you don’t care skip down to the bold part. I am an actuary with a B.A. in mathematics, but I have always wished that I would have perused a career in academia. Growing up I did not have the best guidance, father was not around, mother working 50 hours a week during the evenings. I did not have a bad childhood, but I had no real guidance. K-12 teachers always taught at too slow of a pace for me to keep any interest. I learned more myself through self-study than anywhere else. After high school I joined the U.S. Navy, got married had a kid and went back to school on G.I. Bill. I did not want to go into graduate school because it was not going to be fair to my wife and kid. The G.I. Bill had run out and for me to force my wife to keep working and for both of us to be spending less time with our child was not something I was willing to do. So I became an actuary which pays well so she can stay at home with our kid and I get to see him 6 hours a day. I eventually will get my PhD part-time after I get my fellowship in the actuary society. I am 33 years old and I know it is not in my future to be the next Euler or Paul Erdös. I will always do mathematics for my love of the subject, but I don’t ever see myself becoming a distinguished professor at a top university.
My kid is 4 years old and I have been doing some kitchen table mathematics with him and he seems to be enjoying it. I am looking for a little advice to help him develop. I am not going force my unfulfilled aspirations on him. However I don’t want him to be his own mentor. I was my own mentor which is another way of saying my mentor was an idiot.
What do you wish you accomplished during your pre-kindergarten to high school years that would have helped you later on in your academic career?
I personally wish I knew about International Mathematical Olympiad. I think it would have been challenging and fun to try and get there. I also wish I would have been involved with a sport. It would have been a nice way to meet people, keep fit and be eligible to be a Rhoades Scholar.
If my son keeps an interest in Math or Physics I plan on spending a comfortable amount of time with him every night doing entertaining mathematics and maybe some physics. I am an actuary so I can pretty much get a job anywhere people put a dollar figure on life and death, so I would be willing to move if there is a K-12 school out there that I think he would enjoy.
My kid is 4 years old and I have been doing some kitchen table mathematics with him and he seems to be enjoying it. I am looking for a little advice to help him develop. I am not going force my unfulfilled aspirations on him. However I don’t want him to be his own mentor. I was my own mentor which is another way of saying my mentor was an idiot.
What do you wish you accomplished during your pre-kindergarten to high school years that would have helped you later on in your academic career?
I personally wish I knew about International Mathematical Olympiad. I think it would have been challenging and fun to try and get there. I also wish I would have been involved with a sport. It would have been a nice way to meet people, keep fit and be eligible to be a Rhoades Scholar.
If my son keeps an interest in Math or Physics I plan on spending a comfortable amount of time with him every night doing entertaining mathematics and maybe some physics. I am an actuary so I can pretty much get a job anywhere people put a dollar figure on life and death, so I would be willing to move if there is a K-12 school out there that I think he would enjoy.