crushing a week’s worth of number theory problem sets in about 7 hours
That’s absolute madness. At least if it’s not the “intro to proofs” number theory course.
It was a 200 level course at my university, which means it was a senior level or first year grad student level.
The problem sets were designed to be 1 to 2 hours per night, so it’s not that wild, but certainly took a toll. Plus, by rushing it I missed a lot of beautiful connections I didn’t get until I did a 6 week intensive exploration course in grad school. 6 hours a day of problem sets.
I never really “got” number theory. Too much machinery flying around. I preferred analysis and even algebra. But my math program was…not good.
That sounds intensive. My mind would melt from that much focus I think.
It was good because it just posed numerical problems designed to encourage the students to make the connections for themselves. And the problem sets were open ended enough that at any given moment you’d have every single group working on a different proof.
It was a great experience.
