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I would highly recommend going back and learning maths properly. In my case, I actually gave up on maths in year 7 because I wanted to hang out with friends mo
by dools 13y ago
I would highly recommend going back and learning maths properly.
In my case, I actually gave up on maths in year 7 because I wanted to hang out with friends more than study. I consistently failed in high school despite being pretty promising in primary school ... but that's just 'cause I "wasn't trying", right?
Well, maybe so, but maths is a skill. You can't ignore it for 4 years and then pick it up in the same way you can with English or Japanese or Sociology.
So when it came to year 11 and 12, when I actually wanted to do well at maths, I couldn't, so I borderline failed high school maths.
A foible of the (Australian) state in which I went to year 11/12 meant that, despite not using maths towards my university entrance score, I was still allowed to use it as a pre-requisite to get into a university course.
I didn't go to uni straight away because I didn't really know what I wanted to do. At age 21 and on a whim, on the last day that you could mail your applications in, I picked Mechatronic Engineering from the handbook and sent in my application. Why? Because I thought it sounded cool (I used to love Robotech :) but I had no idea that Engineering was so maths heavy (that's how ignorant I was of the field).
First year I failed everything. The only thing I did well in was programming, so I took 2 years off and got a job as a programmer. In the last 6 months before I started uni again, I went through my Calculus text book from the beginning, going over my first year uni notes and assignments at the same time. Answering all the problems in the book, etc.
As it turns out, the things that were most nobbling my ability to do calculus was lack of understanding of algebra, trigonometry, geometry ... things like logs and graphs and functions, factorisation, all that stuff. Once I'd learned that, I discovered the rest wasn't so bad.
I re-did my first year subjects in summer school that year and passed (even got some Credits which is 65+!) and then managed to get a low distinction in one of my second year courses.
You never saw a guy so happy with his 75 in Vector Calculus :) all the engineering geeks were crying in their pillows because they got a 98 instead of a 100 but I was punching some serious air.
Getting past this personal myth that I was "just bad at maths" is one of the most important things I've ever done. It really taught me that, with persistent execution and incremental improvement, you can learn and do anything (within reason: ie. I probably can't learn to levitate although I'd love to be proven wrong :)