The Number One Thing for Success in Math Class

Sure.

Everything you say is true, but you still can run into professors who are vendictive and petty. When I was an undergrad I was taking a history of math class. I knew a lot "about" mathematics, but no more than your average bear "of" mathematics. I had read and knew a lot of the history of mathematics and mathematicians, but I was no better or worse at working out problems or doing proofs than anyone else in the class.

The first day of class the professor asked "What is the mathematician's favorite fairy tail?" For me the answer was easy, "Alice in Wonderland", because the author was Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) a very talented mathematician. I popped off with the answer and the professor was NOT amused. I had "stole his thunder" and wrecked his lecture on how state university students were a bunch of ignorant dummies. Needless to say, he zeroed in on me the following weeks forcing me to drop the class and take it again with another professor. He was constantly calling on me and asking obscure math history questions and if I didn't know the answer, he would give me that "you're not so smart as you think you are look". Anyway, I'd say, he had a problem, not me.

|attitude|

Damn, the only topology I know is in 3D modelling software. I haven't yet got there in mathematics.