I will soon finish my undergraduate degree in math, and I want to study mathematics as a hobby after I graduate.
Online, I see a general trend of people saying
You can't learn real math without collaboration and feedback. Go to graduate school!
But I don't want to go to graduate school, and I have found that I learn better through self-study than by taking notes in class. That being said, it always does help to get my questions answered by professors, and collaboration with other students is sometimes helpful as well.
Question: Is it possible to have this kind of mathematical community without actually being in academia?
What I fear is studying for years by myself obsessively on a subject only to find that I had a horrible misconception the whole time that could have been avoided if only a professor had looked at my work.