Seconding this. After high school, I worked in industry until I got bored, and went back to school starting with community college. I'd never thought I was good at math, and I placed into pre-college algebra. Programming had taught me to think methodically, so I crushed those early classes. Fast-forward a decade; I've got a PhD in math (nothing like what I set out to do; I just followed my passion).

That is extremely inspiring. Can you speak more to how you went from industry to a community college to getting into and completing a PhD program? Did you quit your job to return back to school? What area did you end up specializing in and what do you do now?

Long and short, I got sick of the tedium in web development, quit my job and went back to school. The dot-com bubble had just burst, and I had been taking occasional classes including a very inspirational data structures course which planted the seed with formal proofs.

After I went back to school, I tutored in the math study center to pay the bills, which really helped cement not just the learning but also the notion that I could survive academia. I'd gone in with a plan to study engineering, but after I transferred to university, I kept dawdling on the math prerequisites and not taking the engineering courses that needed them. So it kinda gradually dawned on me that math was what I loved, and away I went.

I never strayed too far from computers. I'm a graph theorist, specializing in computation; had I known better I'd have gone into computer science because that's where I see the most progress being made.

> had I known better I'd have gone into computer science because that's where I see the most progress being made.

Interestingly this is similar to what my two advisors (one from the math department and one from CS) suggested to me. It would be easier to do the math I like in a CS department than it would be to do the CS I like in a math department. Do you feel like math departments are more conservative when it comes to working outside the discipline?

You, seriously, just made my day!

I'd also like to chime in with support for community college math classes. I was pretty good at math to the point that it was becoming a problem for my JR High, so they sent me to the community college to take the math series starting from the bottom up. Went all the way through Differential Equations at community college.

Maybe an even better way to start would be with trying to take a math class during the summer semester. 8 weeks of intense study to kick things off. I bet after doing some programming algebra would be a breeze.

I'd like to further recommend this course of action. Community colleges are a wonderful resource and at the one I attended the Math Department stood out as being particularly good. The student body tends to be extremely diverse too, from high school kids to retirees and everything in between. Oh and it's extremely affordable.

Might want to ask current students about those classes first.

My experience with community college math developmental classes was: "Go to this AV room, watch these videos, do these workbooks. If you have questions, I have office hours on these days.". Which was terrible. I did have someone I could come to with things I didn't understand, but it was obviously not something they liked doing and you had little choice about the material used.

This was decades ago, but I'm betting that now it's: "Watch these Youtube videos, do these workbooks. If you have questions, ask them in our online forums." Which is likely worse than just doing your own thing.

Holy crap! I wonder if it's a rural vs. metro area thing. Our CC was definitely classroom work- again, decades ago.

Same. Was a normal college thing. Classroom, teacher, chalkboard, occasional glazed eyes... but also the expectation you'll ask questions, and the ability to get feedback or clarification.

I worked in the math lab of my community college while in high school tutoring returning education students. 16 year old me teaching algebra and calculus to 55+ folks. They were some of the most engaged people I have ever taught and they were so happy, like tears of joy happy to finally get material that plagued them for most of their lives.

Anyway, my recommendation is to check out "the vibe" of the mathlab or whoever are the folks doing the tutoring. If they engaged and love answering the same questions all day long, then definitely sign up. If the tutors are like watch this video and do this quiz, if you have a problem sign up on the sheet kinda attitude, then find another place.