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Comment by mililani | Hacker News Reader

I'm thinking of switching majors. I'm currently pursuing a masters in occupational therapy, but after a semester, I'm realizing it is just not for me. I did my undergrad in math and chemistry, and I've always regretted not doing at least a masters degree in math. Anyways, anyone else here a math guy? I've been out of math for almost 15 years. I'm kind of scared about going to grad school for math.

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Sounds scary. You know what sounds beautiful though? The idea of you working your ass off and completing it. That part is on you though :)

Grad school for math can be a bit scary. If you've been out of math for that long, you'll need to do some review. All of the people I know in my graduate program are experts at at a large swathe of undergraduate topics: calculus, differential equations, linear algebra, combinatorics, probability, etc. And of course, they know even more about the topics they really like. If you have the chops to do it, though, math only gets more interesting from there: Real Analysis, Topology, Modern Algebra, Galois Theory, Knot Theory, Convex Geometry...

I stopped doing math when I was 18, and did an undergrad in psychology. Now I am doing a second undergrad, this time in math. Coming back in after a decade of absence wasn't difficult at all (but then again undergrad is somewhat easier then grad school), and it was definitely worth it.

It's funny, but math is both occupational and therapeutic for me at the same time. Maybe you could weave those fields together!

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