I think ChatGPT is perfect for learning. Specifically because if you don't get something, you can keep asking it infinitely without worrying about seeming stupid. You could never do something like that in a classroom. Perhaps you could do it if your parents hired a special tutor with infinite patience for you.

In school my main issue was - my mind wandered for a moment - and now I'm all out of sync and without context. Everything from that point on is just a complete waste of time. And this happened every few minutes, so it's impossible to learn something in school.

> Math, all kinds of math. I'm not sure about you, but math matters in software development.

This is something that I largely disagree with. 99% of common software development doesn't rely on math at all. Or any knowledge of math. And I enjoy maths. Math was my favourite subject in school. Most I've touched maths is if I have tried to do game development or some sort of simulation software for my side projects, but everyday professional work - I have really never needed math beyond the simplest.

> Understanding temporal logic and mathematical logic in general makes doing formal verification much easier.

I think this type of logic is completely unrelated to what is being taught at school which is rote learning of formulas and NOT problem solving. What is being taught at schools is not true problem solving.

> The bottom line is, fundamentals expand one's conceptual depth and breadth, as well as the ability to abstract and to dive deep, which in turn gives a person more choices. I didn't start as a system engineer, nor did I know that I would work on internals of ML algorithms.

I see, if you are working more on that side, it may be true, that you are using more maths there - I've been doing mostly common full stack development, which really just doesn't require maths. While I've tried different ML things, which haven't really required maths at all, I assume you might need maths if you are developing some cutting edge algorithms. But usual ML that I have tried seems to be mostly about trial and error to find the correct parameters intuitively.

> Besides, even the fun of studying STEM topics is hard to get outside of school. I'm sure one can read about physics and chemistry and what not, but man, having labs and professors who can give you guidance... That makes a whole world of difference.

I've found it more fun outside school without the forced pressures and with natural interest...