“… and this is your brain on mathematics!”

Last weekend, I joined a group ride and ended up chatting with one of my fellow riders. It turns out she’s going back to school for a degree in Environmental Studies and we talked about that for a bit. Then I told her I also had recently returned to school, chasing a degree in math. Her eyebrows raised and she said “Math, huh?”, as if to say, “Oh, you’re one of those.” I smiled wryly. I understand that we live in a largely mathphobic society, but does that mean being a math major makes me a freak?

She followed up by asking, “What are you going to do once you get the degree? Do you want to teach?” I hesitated for a longish time, lost in thought, and finally said, “The answer is about 80% ‘No’.” And then cringed. Yeah, okay, so my brain is broken by mathematics.