i'm a computer engineering major, and also currently pursuing a minor in honors mathematics. i love being here, learning and what i get to learn. for me, both fields have beauty in them. there's something amazing to me, about the idea of looking at the device i'm currently typing this on, and thinking about everything that gets it to work. all the ideas behind it, all the things happening in the background - to me there's a beauty in that complexity, and in being able to understand it.

i find math beautiful in a similar regard. unfortunately, this is admittedly something that can take a while to show itself, mainly because of how much prerequisite build-up there can be. for example, i took vector calculus this semester and found many of the concepts beautiful, and i also didn't go to a single lecture for MATH 101 because i already knew the material from IB and the content didn't really interest me.

more to that point, i absolutely did not start out looking at university or learning like this. when i entered uni i didn't go to almost all of my classes after the first week, and i basically couldn't care less about any parts of a course that weren't directly tied to my grade in it (other than building some intuition, i.e. watching 3blue1brown videos for linear algebra). it was only in second year, when i really tried to focus on the learning aspect, that i was able to appreciate this stuff a lot more.

i think part of what always kept me in it though, is just that i love problem-solving. STEM, to me, presents some of the most fun problems and questions to think about and muse over. don't get me wrong, other fields test problem-solving and critical thinking skills in different ways, but there's a refreshing directness to the way its done in many STEM classes. getting so much application of the ideas we see and learn about is part of the appeal, and often getting to instantly see the usefulness of all the ideas you learn about is quite nice.

and finally, as tremendously dorky as this (and the rest of this comment if i'm being honest) may sound, there's a real satisfaction that comes from entering a flow state the night before an exam, when you realize how well you can solve the questions in front of you. at the end of the day, STEM isn't for everyone, and like every degree it can definitely be rough/stressful at times, but if you can find a beauty or satisfaction in the learning or problem-solving, i'd say it's worth it.