Zaid Khalil

New York City

26 September 2007

Jeff,

I am an ex-professional, ex-student, ex-radical activist, X-Gen'er looking to get a graduate degree in mathematics so I can eventually find some way of navigating this miserable world so that I don't starve. A radical friend of mine recommended me to read your book before I embarked on this path toward graduate school this past summer. Having worked in finance and gotten an undergrad in physics and now looking to go to grad school, I couldn't put it down. It is literally one of the most relevant books to my personal experience that I have ever come across, and it allowed me to frame various experiences in my life within a logical and consistent framework. For this I am extremely grateful to you.

Anyhow, I am taking the upper division undergraduate math classes and there is not a single day that goes by where I don't think deeply about the contents of your book. Its astonishing. Hell, if there is any critique I have it's that Disciplined Minds does not sufficiently address the intense level of contempt that professors have toward undergraduates. The most egregious thing I have experienced is the length that professors will go to blatantly weed out undergrad students, and it's only the first month of class.

Is there any chance that there will be a follow-up to Disciplined Minds, perhaps a second edition?

zaid