In high school, I never took physics. Instead, I took biology, chemistry and advanced placement biology, thinking that I was too good for little mathematical things like physics. I came into college with no experience beyond the little exposure I had in 8th grade of gravity and electrical circutis. As a result, I almost failed my first electrical engineering course.

And here I am again. I finished all the math requirements my first two years at Cal – discrete math and linear algebra (I already took calculus in high school). One of the recommended courses for my major was a stat course but I thought I was too good for that. That statistics were for the mathematically-challenged people and I would rather be tackling obscure proofs, Fourier analysis, heat-wave equation!

As it turns out, I am applying for the graduate HCII program in CMU. Today I realized that one of the \”prereqs\” is a statistics course. To try or not to try. If I try, this means I\’ll have to wake up every day next semester for class at 9 am. Sacrifice?