Back to School, and, What’s Wrong with My Brain?

I’ve started the application process for Penn’s Master of Computer and Information Technology (MCIT) program. I’ve been doing this whole Internet thing for 8 years now, so I guess it’s my career ;-). I should get a degree that’s more relevant to it than political science. And as a Penn employee, I can take the classes for free, so why not? With the baby coming, I’ll probably do just one class per semester. So it’ll take a long time for me to finish the program, but I’m not in any rush.

But first I have to get into the program. One hoop I have to jump through is the GRE test. I’m taking it on April 9. I’ve started studying, and I’m amazed that I remember almost none of my math education. Going through the first practice test I was dumbstruck by most of the algebra, trig, and geometry questions. I got A’s in my advanced statistics classes in grad school, and an A in calculus in college. But that was a long time ago - right now I couldn’t even tell you what calculus is if you asked me. Maria’s been helping me - somehow she remembers all her high school math. I asked her how she could possibly remember it all, and she said she has a good memory for general concepts and principals, even though she’ll often forget particular facts and details. I wish my mind worked that way - instead it is a vast wasteland crammed full of useless trivia. So even though I’ve forgotten the concept of factoring (despite the fact that I used it regularly throughout at least 4 years of my education) I can tell you right off the top of my head that 80s pop artist Falco, before the song Rock Me Amadeus made him a super-star, actually scored his first hit years earlier with Der Commissar, as the singer for the band After the Fire. I never even liked Falco, yet that useless tidbit of information lingers in my mind, an unwelcome squatter occupying valuable mental real estate. Hopefully between now and April 9 I can clear away enough mental debris to make space for the math I need to learn.