now that I'm almost done with a year of grad school, I'm realizing that a lot of people in undergrad who talked about math as some sort of niche thing, had just seen a semester of graduate math. like congrats on taking graduate math in your undergrad, but you're fucking annoying.

someone was making a joke about Lebesgue measure the other day and I was wondering... why is this written as something so niche? why are you using language that makes other undergrads in this group feel inferior? it's just a Lebesgue measure...

I guess what I'm saying is that many people in the undergrad math community love to make others feel excluded by quoting simple concepts they are learning in graduate classes as these abstract, unapproachable things. when really, they're simple concepts, just written abstractly.

I didn't have the means to take grad courses while finishing a degree on time and I felt like I wasn't good enough to pursue a grad degree. as if there were things that I'll never understand. now I know that these are absolutely approachable if I took an introductory grad course.

even if there wasn't malice in these people's intent, what matters is the impact. I know that they're making people feel excluded because I was feeling excluded and insecure. I thought that these people were 'super-smart' and 'passionate', but really they just had resources.

for anyone who is in the same position as undergrad me, people aren't smart because they were able to access higher-level material before you could. those people are just resourceful, and you will be in the same position as them if you had the same resources as them. no cap.