I resonate with this because during my time at Harvard, that shock felt existential. I genuinely felt my intellectual identity threatened for the first time, and suddenly, I met peers who’d lived years ahead in science. They weren’t just better, they thought differently. The proof-based mindset, the ability to move fluidly between abstraction and rigor, is a whole new language, one that isn’t taught at most high schools, even elite institutions like UCT, WITS, or Stellenbosch.
This experience highlights the privilege of early exposure. Those students who took linear algebra and abstract algebra before college weren’t just smart, they had access to mentors, enrichment programs, textbooks, math circles, or schools that allowed them to leap ahead. The playing field was uneven long before the first lecture.
And yet, there’s something profoundly transformative about that initial humiliation. The best kind of learning is disorienting, it shakes the foundation of what you thought you knew, forcing you to rebuild from first principles. The process hurts, but it’s also where true growth begins. As the saying goes, “If you’re the smartest person in the room, you’re in the wrong room.”