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“In mathematics you don't understand things. You just get used to them.” - Johann Von Neuman I so related to that statement in college. I took all the necessa

“In mathematics you don't understand things. You just get used to them.” - Johann Von Neuman I so related to that statement in college. I took all the necessary math and engineering (fancy word for more math...) classes to get my EE degree. I was able to apply the math well enough to be able to stick around in my engineering program (although there were SEVERAL different points in time I almost changed major, and I did dabble in getting a philosophy minor.) In college, my mindset was: "study enough to get by. beer. boobs. football" (yeah yeah, I went to a Big 10 football school) But I didn't really care about the math too much, as long as I got my degree and a paycheck at the end. Now, out in the wild, I find enjoyment in the application of math (I do signal processing) and I only wish someone was there to help me see the "fun", or applicable side of things back in school, so I could understand even more now. I think the big problem with my college courses was that the course material simply existed just to exist, whereas now in my job, it exists to perform a function, and it's kinda cool to see how stuff works. But make no mistake, now that I'm though with my studies, I'm more than thankful I had to take all those ball beater math classes, so I actually (at one point at least) knew the 'math' behind the math i'm using, I knew more than the math, I knew how it was derived, and THATS every course building on each other, and it's tough, and there's distractions, but it's necessary.

abduhl 15y ago
I hear a lot of the first half of your post but not a lot of your second half of your post (I agree with both). Most people look back and remember how hard/dumb/boring/useless that one class was and how they never use it in real life. Barely anybody looks back and remembers how something that they learned in their math class was integral to their ability succeed later on in their career. For example, almost everybody complains about how hard/useless calculus was. These same people are able to take a volume integral in cylindrical coordinates no problem. There is a fundamental disconnect here. And anything you don't remember? Well, being familiar with a concept makes it a hundred times easier to learn the second time.

abduhl 15y ago

I hear a lot of the first half of your post but not a lot of your second half of your post (I agree with both). Most people look back and remember how hard/dumb/boring/useless that one class was and how they never use it in real life. Barely anybody looks back and remembers how something that they learned in their math class was integral to their ability succeed later on in their career. For example, almost everybody complains about how hard/useless calculus was. These same people are able to take a volume integral in cylindrical coordinates no problem. There is a fundamental disconnect here. And anything you don't remember? Well, being familiar with a concept makes it a hundred times easier to learn the second time.