I once had a brain

I don't know much about science or math, and this bothers me. I've never known all that much, and a lot of what I did know, I've forgotten.
I want to know. I want to think, I want to learn. I want to know how the world works, about the stars and the oceans and molecules. I want to be able to manipulate numbers, explore the cosmos from that end. I want to know what philosophers think about the world and what scientists have found out. I want knowledge.

But I'm in music school. And a large part of many of the academic classes I've taken feels pointless, exercises in wasting time. And I don't know how to do it alone.