What are the skills you need to do mathematics? Aspiring mathematicians are trained to perform computations and follow procedures as quickly and precisely as possible, for most of their education. Practicing mathematicians generally agree that computing is at best only a small part of doing math. By reflecting on the skills that were needed for me to do my own research about generalizing graph embeddings I conclude that to do math one needs to be able to ask questions, describe and characterize mathematical structures and generalize from small examples. WE should Rather than teaching kids how to compute.