> Ok joking aside, it caused the proverbial lightbulb to turn on in my brain, and helped tremendously in my career later when I ran into folks trying to seem smart because they understood ECC or ZKPs.
Presumably it helped to know that there was something beyond these folks' knowledge, but did it help in any more direct way?
The main benefit was to do with how I conceived mathematics as a subject:
In the before times, it appeared to be an infinite linear journey with subjects already studied in the set of "understood" things, and everything else in the "hard" set of things. Proceeding on the journey, subjects are expected to become harder and harder until eventually you're defeated and have to stop trying to learn more mathematics.
After that class, my conception of mathematics was of an extensively cross-linked tree of subjects where seemingly unrelated fields connect to each other, and where although the number of fields is large, it is not infinite, and with effort and time everything can be understood if required.
To be fair, that was the stated objective of the guy teaching the class. On day 1, he said "my objective is to teach you enough that you can understand whatever mathematics you need to understand in the future" and darn it he pretty much succeeded.
In summary, more of an attitude than specific knowledge of anything in particular.
Presumably it helped to know that there was something beyond these folks' knowledge, but did it help in any more direct way?