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Alright so I am sitting here awake at 3:20AM after just having recently done ~55 math questions for my online PreCalc course. I just finished my Freshman year of college, majoring in Software Engineering. College has pretty much been an annoyance and a joke thus far work wise, not much different than high school.
However, math is kicking my ass and completely destroying me. It has left me with a lowered GPA, continuous stress, and has eaten up summer time that I was so desperately looking forward to and need. I am one of those people where if I have something coming up that I need to do, it lingers in my mind until it is accomplished.
The math course I am currently in (online) requires me to do ~120-250 math problems a week. Now sure if you divide that by 7 days it doesnt seem as devastating, but that is WAYYY more than I even had to take in my discrete mathematics class at my university (discrete is higher level than precalc btw).
So yeah right now I am freaking out basically typing this because I need to have the course done by the end of summer. I either stick with this horrible online course, where I also have to go to the university an hour away to take tests, or take a local precalc course (if I can still even get into it anymore) at a nearby county college 35 mins away. However, THAT course is 3-4 days a week for ~3 hours a session. Colleges take wayyyyy too much priority with low level math courses.
Anyhow yeah, I'm stressed, surprised this stress hasn't killed me by now, and I just want to get this fucking class out of the way so I can continue with college and make my family proud of me, but this is so difficult.
Anyway.. if you read this far, ty for your time.
Feel free to leave any responses below.
- InseKt
TLDR; Ranting about math classes in college and how they are beating me to death mentally.
 
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120-250 problems a week is a huge range (suggests you're exaggerating) and I doubt homework is even worth that much of your grade. Also, the sheer number of problems indicates very little about how difficult an assignment is--I would think that 100+ problems a week means that most of them are pretty trivial.
Why would you take discrete math before precalc anyway?
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The local course sounds like the option with less work, but more time. You could just go to that and sleep if you're looking not to work really hard.
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I feel you bro. I am taking upper division accounting courses and they are hell; however, if I were you I would stick with the online class. Not only will it expand your knowledge base, but most importantly, it will ake you more well rounded and accepting of challenges. College is a good place to test your limits and I say go for it man!
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Yeah, math is kind of terrible. I mean, I enjoy it and all but homework in math was always the bane of my existance. We only had four problems per course per week but often I didn't even manage to do those correctly. I definitely know how much math can kick your ass, especially in your first few semesters. Stay strong, it will get better after maybe three semesters.
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Really rare to see homework for math courses being part of the grading policy or worth anything. In all my calc, theory and logic math courses, only the exams counted... Homework was just something assigned to keep you up to date or give you accessible problems to review from. Usually basic courses like pre-calc math is much less of a hassle to take online then actually physically attending class, although I've never taken any, just been told of such.
And considering you're doing engineering, shouldn't let such a basic course impede your curriculum progress as there are plenty of math courses left to take.
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IB Higher Math was by far my hardest class in High School. Not because of the course content, but because of how hard my teacher made us work, I hated it, it was way too much and I never did nearly enough work for it. But, there were only two people in our 14 person class who got 6 out of 7 as a grade ..... the rest all got 7 (world average is 4.52 IIRC btw).
I couldn't stand that much math, so I took a couse in the first semister of college, and I cruised through it without really trying or taking it seriously. To tell the truth, I didn't do that well, but the next semister I quickly realised I was missing something big - I was doing so much Chemistry (4 year Masters M.Chem program) I had NO time to do any recreational math. Long story short I changed my degree to Chem major Math minor, and for the past two months I've been egearly anticipating the summer .... when I get to have time to do math again! I love it! I'm acutally going to go see my old math teacher, cause we all love him.
Moral of the story is: I've learned for math classes that demand a lot of work, but are really easy, don't be cocky and dismiss it. Do the work, it should be quite easy, and it's the best way to solidify your math skills, and ensure you won't loose that rigorous habit too quickly. Math is the language of science, and it's quite fun, it is a priviledge to have time to do it! Also if you can't stand doing the online problems (and I'm being totally serious) as long as you are capable in the material, I'm going through and re-teaching myself all of my high-school math anyways, send me a PM and we can work out that I take 70%, the dull, simple, easier problems. For real, I'm bored and want to do them.
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On May 23 2012 23:36 bITt.mAN wrote:
IB Higher Math was by far my hardest class in High School. Not because of the course content, but because of how hard my teacher made us work, I hated it, it was way too much and I never did nearly enough work for it. But, there were only two people in our 14 person class who got 6 out of 7 as a grade ..... the rest all got 7 (world average is 4.52 IIRC btw).
I couldn't stand that much math, so I took a couse in the first semister of college, and I cruised through it without really trying or taking it seriously. To tell the truth, I didn't do that well, but the next semister I quickly realised I was missing something big - I was doing so much Chemistry (4 year Masters M.Chem program) I had NO time to do any recreational math. Long story short I changed my degree to Chem major Math minor, and for the past two months I've been egearly anticipating the summer .... when I get to have time to do math again! I love it! I'm acutally going to go see my old math teacher, cause we all love him.
Moral of the story is: I've learned for math classes that demand a lot of work, but are really easy, don't be cocky and dismiss it. Do the work, it should be quite easy, and it's the best way to solidify your math skills, and ensure you won't loose that rigorous habit too quickly. Math is the language of science, and it's quite fun, it is a priviledge to have time to do it! Also if you can't stand doing the online problems (and I'm being totally serious) as long as you are capable in the material, I'm going through and re-teaching myself all of my high-school math anyways, send me a PM and we can work out that I take 70%, the dull, simple, easier problems. For real, I'm bored and want to do them.
The people in my class doing High Level Math spent literally all their time in school on the assignments. As someone that did Math Studies the schadenfreude was amazing. I sincerely hope I'll never have another math class, it just doesn't get along with me.
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best advice is probably going to be pacing yourself rather than waiting until its an insurmountable amount of work. But yeah, telling us how many problems you have to do doesn't say much as a math problem(in pre-calc) can take anywhere from 1 second to however long you are willing to spend on one problem you are stuck on.
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I feel for you. Math is hard.
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Pre-cal and you're a rising sophomore? Did you not ever take it in high school? Have you taken actual calc yet?
While discrete math is technically a "higher level" class than pre-cal or calc, it's also kind of elective-y and more geared toward comp sci majors and people who are interested in that area. I won't say it's easy (though a couple of my comp sci friends tell me compared to linear its a joke), but its very different from the more common math track. Honestly, if you have trouble with pre-cal, you might want to rethink all the math classes you will probably be taking as an engineer.
I can't think of any problem (even from MAO competitions) that would have taken more than a couple minutes to solve if you knew how to do them, unless the course is giving you some of those ridiculous plug and chug substitutions or something. Even if its an online course, treat it like a real class, write down your problems and do them on paper. Math is one of those things that it helps if you write it all out.
You could try Wolfram and KhanAcademy-- those have lots of good info for math. Wolfram can actually do problems for you if you can figure out how to input them. It worked pretty well for me up to multi-variable, so pre-cal shouldn't be a problem for it. Also, a lot of really good colleges are giving away lectures and stuff from classes online. You could take a look at those too.
I had a pretty crappy calc bc teacher. The only reason I learned any calc in high school was because I was in MAO-- still, that year I stopped winning stuff. I had a really good calc teacher last semester of college though. It's a bit sad, maybe if I had had a good calc teacher I would have ended up an engineer.
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For me, I was able to do pre-calculus level math in 11th grade. So I think my homework assignments were maybe closer to 40-60 problems, but we had a new assignment every other day.
Honestly a lot of it felt like algebra at the time, which made it really easy for me. I could do my homework in maybe 60-90 mins. A lot of times I didn't use a calculator because I'm pretty good with mentally calculating non-division problems up to double digits. Then other times I wrote programs for my graphing calculator to do cookie-cutter problems for me.
It ended up being a matter of practice. Practice = speed when it comes to math problems, because you learn to easily recognize a path to the solution, and it typically becomes like an algebra problem from there.
Of course, online homework was usually tough because the program often didn't understand my answer, even when it was correct. We had to use a lot of () around everything to make the program understand, and it took a while to type out the answer. A lot of times the typing time was a large chunk of the homework time, which sucked.
When I got into mechanics problems, I had about 12-18 problems every MWF, but they took probably 20-40 minutes to finish (each problem) due to the thinking involved in creating a solution path and often the sheer amount of algebra that resulted. We also had the correct answers in the back of the book, so after we finally finished a problem, a lot of times we would have the wrong answer and have to do it over. It was always awesome getting it right the first time.
Anyway I know software engineers don't need as much applied math as mechanical engineers, but if your precalc problems are taking you more than 2-3 mins each, consider talking to the professors for some of your later math classes and asking them questions about the math involved, before you go off the deep end.
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On May 24 2012 03:13 ticklishmusic wrote:
Pre-cal and you're a rising sophomore? Did you not ever take it in high school? Have you taken actual calc yet?
While discrete math is technically a "higher level" class than pre-cal or calc, it's also kind of elective-y and more geared toward comp sci majors and people who are interested in that area. I won't say it's easy (though a couple of my comp sci friends tell me compared to linear its a joke), but its very different from the more common math track. Honestly, if you have trouble with pre-cal, you might want to rethink all the math classes you will probably be taking as an engineer.
I can't think of any problem (even from MAO competitions) that would have taken more than a couple minutes to solve if you knew how to do them, unless the course is giving you some of those ridiculous plug and chug substitutions or something. Even if its an online course, treat it like a real class, write down your problems and do them on paper. Math is one of those things that it helps if you write it all out.
You could try Wolfram and KhanAcademy-- those have lots of good info for math. Wolfram can actually do problems for you if you can figure out how to input them. It worked pretty well for me up to multi-variable, so pre-cal shouldn't be a problem for it. Also, a lot of really good colleges are giving away lectures and stuff from classes online. You could take a look at those too.
I had a pretty crappy calc bc teacher. The only reason I learned any calc in high school was because I was in MAO-- still, that year I stopped winning stuff. I had a really good calc teacher last semester of college though. It's a bit sad, maybe if I had had a good calc teacher I would have ended up an engineer.
What happened was they did not assign my precalc class to me first year like they should have.
I took Calc and PreCalc already in high school and passed with a B or better, and discrete math i just passed freshman yr 2nd sem with a C+. Idk why they are making me take out time of my own during the summer over a mistake they created...
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You can major in Software Engineering? What school do you go to? I didn't even know they offer PreCalc at the University level. The lowest offered for me was Calc I and many exempted from it with AP coursework from high school.
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Were your high school pre-cal/ calc classes college-level/ preparatory or whatever? Maybe you're thinking "oh, I know pre-cal, I took this in high school", when you've actually forgotten a lot of it so now it seems harder than it should.
Like djcube, I thought pre-cal was generally not offered in colleges. My school has like Business calc, life sciences math in addition to regular old calc I and calc II, but we don't have pre-cal. I don't think it's even a requirement or anything like that.
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On May 24 2012 04:50 InseKtSC2 wrote:Show nested quote +On May 24 2012 03:13 ticklishmusic wrote:
Pre-cal and you're a rising sophomore? Did you not ever take it in high school? Have you taken actual calc yet?
While discrete math is technically a "higher level" class than pre-cal or calc, it's also kind of elective-y and more geared toward comp sci majors and people who are interested in that area. I won't say it's easy (though a couple of my comp sci friends tell me compared to linear its a joke), but its very different from the more common math track. Honestly, if you have trouble with pre-cal, you might want to rethink all the math classes you will probably be taking as an engineer.
I can't think of any problem (even from MAO competitions) that would have taken more than a couple minutes to solve if you knew how to do them, unless the course is giving you some of those ridiculous plug and chug substitutions or something. Even if its an online course, treat it like a real class, write down your problems and do them on paper. Math is one of those things that it helps if you write it all out.
You could try Wolfram and KhanAcademy-- those have lots of good info for math. Wolfram can actually do problems for you if you can figure out how to input them. It worked pretty well for me up to multi-variable, so pre-cal shouldn't be a problem for it. Also, a lot of really good colleges are giving away lectures and stuff from classes online. You could take a look at those too.
I had a pretty crappy calc bc teacher. The only reason I learned any calc in high school was because I was in MAO-- still, that year I stopped winning stuff. I had a really good calc teacher last semester of college though. It's a bit sad, maybe if I had had a good calc teacher I would have ended up an engineer. What happened was they did not assign my precalc class to me first year like they should have. I took Calc and PreCalc already in high school and passed with a B or better, and discrete math i just passed freshman yr 2nd sem with a C+. Idk why they are making me take out time of my own during the summer over a mistake they created...
Why didn't you complain to them and raise a fuss? It takes like 2 seconds to give credit to a student with the database schools run. o__O
Though tbf it is just pre-calc, you should be able to breeze through the problems like they're nothing. Either complain to the school or just do the problems or hire someone to do the problems for you, lol idk. I'm sure there are some smart HS students who'd love to make a buck off mindless precalc problems in the summer; a lot of them have nothing better to do.
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On May 24 2012 05:51 babylon wrote:Show nested quote +On May 24 2012 04:50 InseKtSC2 wrote:On May 24 2012 03:13 ticklishmusic wrote:
Pre-cal and you're a rising sophomore? Did you not ever take it in high school? Have you taken actual calc yet?
While discrete math is technically a "higher level" class than pre-cal or calc, it's also kind of elective-y and more geared toward comp sci majors and people who are interested in that area. I won't say it's easy (though a couple of my comp sci friends tell me compared to linear its a joke), but its very different from the more common math track. Honestly, if you have trouble with pre-cal, you might want to rethink all the math classes you will probably be taking as an engineer.
I can't think of any problem (even from MAO competitions) that would have taken more than a couple minutes to solve if you knew how to do them, unless the course is giving you some of those ridiculous plug and chug substitutions or something. Even if its an online course, treat it like a real class, write down your problems and do them on paper. Math is one of those things that it helps if you write it all out.
You could try Wolfram and KhanAcademy-- those have lots of good info for math. Wolfram can actually do problems for you if you can figure out how to input them. It worked pretty well for me up to multi-variable, so pre-cal shouldn't be a problem for it. Also, a lot of really good colleges are giving away lectures and stuff from classes online. You could take a look at those too.
I had a pretty crappy calc bc teacher. The only reason I learned any calc in high school was because I was in MAO-- still, that year I stopped winning stuff. I had a really good calc teacher last semester of college though. It's a bit sad, maybe if I had had a good calc teacher I would have ended up an engineer. What happened was they did not assign my precalc class to me first year like they should have. I took Calc and PreCalc already in high school and passed with a B or better, and discrete math i just passed freshman yr 2nd sem with a C+. Idk why they are making me take out time of my own during the summer over a mistake they created... Why didn't you complain to them and raise a fuss? It takes like 2 seconds to give credit to a student with the database schools run. o__O Though tbf it is just pre-calc, you should be able to breeze through the problems like they're nothing. Either complain to the school or just do the problems or hire someone to do the problems for you, lol idk. I'm sure there are some smart HS students who'd love to make a buck off mindless precalc problems in the summer; a lot of them have nothing better to do.
I tried but they wouldnt do anything. Im trying again as we speak.
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On May 24 2012 05:01 djcube wrote:
You can major in Software Engineering? What school do you go to? I didn't even know they offer PreCalc at the University level. The lowest offered for me was Calc I and many exempted from it with AP coursework from high school.
I attend Monmouth University in New Jersey, USA
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EPT
