r/Advice•
atychia

I feel like I’m too dumb for my major

I’m a math major in community college and I’ve been struggling a lot. I wasn’t the best at math because I honestly never tried. High school was a tough time for me and I didn’t think I would live long enough to pursue higher education anyway. I realized I did want to go to college my senior year which was pretty late and I only had a 3.1 gpa so I just went to community college.

That summer before starting community college is when I realized I actually enjoyed math and ended up trying too hard to catch up. I burned out my first semester and it felt like it only got worse. I eventually decided to just fully commit to math and made the major switch.

I’m in calculus 3 and honestly things feel so much harder. It’s like my brain refuses to work. These aren’t any new problems in-fact I’ve them since I can remember but never really noticed it or tried to ignore it. I got away with just memorizing for tests but now I actually need to know these things.

Today was honestly one of the worst days I’ve had. My brain really wasn’t trying. It felt like I was listening but not really listening. Whenever we had a problem, it just felt like my brain didn’t want to think. I tried creating a plan to solve the question, but just couldn’t. I didn’t get a single question right. Everyone else just understood it easily. I’m not new to that feeling, it’s honestly very familiar, but I hate it with every fiber of my being.

This combined with the fact that I know I have a lot to review, it makes me feel like I’m not cut out for math. I don’t know what else I can do. I actually suck at everything else and math just felt the only thing I sucked less at. Doesn’t help that most people are already way ahead of me. Some just tell me to quit and I hated hearing that, but they’re just right.

I don’t know what else to do now. What would I even major in, and why am I just bad at everything I do and can never improve?

Posted Sep 14, 2026, 8:05 PM UTC

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