{"id":26565,"date":"2015-12-06T11:00:03","date_gmt":"2015-12-06T16:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/mathgradblog\/?p=26565"},"modified":"2015-12-06T10:22:53","modified_gmt":"2015-12-06T15:22:53","slug":"not-noticing-personal-progress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/mathgradblog\/2015\/12\/06\/not-noticing-personal-progress\/","title":{"rendered":"(Not) Noticing Personal Progress"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As we go through grad school, we all spend years learning new things but, if you\u2019re anything like me, you don\u2019t really feel any \u201csmarter\u201d (whatever that means). I have been taking classes, studying for and taking prelim exams (see Shelby\u2019s post <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/mathgradblog\/2015\/11\/13\/prelims-masters-exams-tips\/\">here<\/a> for some stellar study tips!) but I still don\u2019t feel smarter.<\/p>\n<p>Gaining knowledge is difficult to quantify. If I solve a homework problem, I have learned something but there is always another problem waiting for my attention so these small victories are rarely, if ever, celebrated.<\/p>\n<p>So how can we remember that we are getting smarter? For me, the most satisfying way is by helping other people.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>When a newer-than-you graduate student asks you a math question and you can provide some insight, it feels awesome! There was a time you didn\u2019t know the answer and now you do and you can pass that knowledge on to someone else. If that\u2019s not evidence that you are getting smarter, then I don\u2019t know what is.<\/p>\n<p>Next time you need an academic pick-me-up, see if there is someone around that you can help get unstuck. You might gain a new friend and some self-confidence!<\/p>\n<p>If\u00a0you have other ideas for noticing your mathematical progress,\u00a0post them in a comment!<\/p>\n<div style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\" class=\"sharethis-inline-share-buttons\" ><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As we go through grad school, we all spend years learning new things but, if you\u2019re anything like me, you don\u2019t really feel any \u201csmarter\u201d (whatever that means). I have been taking classes, studying for and taking prelim exams (see &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/mathgradblog\/2015\/12\/06\/not-noticing-personal-progress\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<div style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\" class=\"sharethis-inline-share-buttons\" data-url=https:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/mathgradblog\/2015\/12\/06\/not-noticing-personal-progress\/><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":70,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,139],"tags":[132,147,135],"class_list":["post-26565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-advice","category-grad-school","tag-general-advice","tag-math-teaching-and-learning","tag-teaching-advice"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3gbww-6Ut","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/mathgradblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/mathgradblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/mathgradblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/mathgradblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/70"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/mathgradblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26565"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/mathgradblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26565\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26568,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/mathgradblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26565\/revisions\/26568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/mathgradblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/mathgradblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/mathgradblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}