L33t Learning

Since I missed out on my calculus mark by 5%, the school of computer science looked at my application and saw that I had very high marks for programming, so they said if I hit 40% in the resit, I'd progress to year 1 of the degree this September.

This was a mixed result for me. Having been out of education for 16 years and having never studied maths to FE level, I have struggled to get my head around Calculus and Algebra as well as square away my subjects every three weeks for this year.

So for the last three to five weeks I have been on calculus overdrive. I've pushed my brain through real life pain; through threshold after threshold in a relatively short amount of time to arrive at a point where I would actually be comfortable starting the course again. I've inflicted such guilt on myself when avoiding study, that it made me quite difficult to live with I imagine.

Each tiny step up the Calculus mountain took me hours or days of study to get my head around, and during the last week I bashed said head against every past paper I could get my hands on over and over again. I studied the papers, and the solutions trying to reverse engineer the lecturers answers. Occasionally I'd hit a wall, when I could not see how the lecturer made some magical leap in his/her working out. I shed actual tears digging through notes looking for specific axioms that I had missed in the lectures. I scoured the internet, and notably bugged one of my maths lectures with (I estimate) close to 50 emails.

I sat the paper on Tuesday, and I have to say I'm really confident. I completed all 18 questions and did not hit a single point where I felt utterly lost. I couldn't believe it when I came out. It could still all go pear shaped, but I think I've done enough.

EDIT:

I passed with 68%, so the school has accepted me. :)

Studying the hard way?

A huge challenge for me during this year at uni (termed year 0, programmers will be pleased to know) is working out how best to study. Ironically the 'study skills' module has helped exactly 0% with this. 

I think that studying is a very personal thing. If, like me, you find that just reading and writing and going through exercises is very difficult and demotivating I have a few tips.

Replace the act of writing with the creation of something. Your own 'study system' if you will. For me I use a third party PDF reader (foxit) to speed read and annotate my lecture notes, copy the highlights onto a pad/whiteboard and summarise them and the formulae in aural notes that I then upload to www.meds-place.com/maths.php. The next day I listen back through, copy out all of the formulae and add as many as I can in the same fashion. After this ritual is performed I attempt example questions and then exam papers. 

This daily ritual can be split, shrunk, expanded as I need; depending on the events of the day. I also repeat this daily (if there's time) for maths revision. The priority being which exam is the closest, or which I feel weakest on. 

I can happily study 4-8+ hours straight in this fashion. Of course I take breaks at convenient intervals and make sure I get outside and get exercise. 

I also find that it helps to change my scenery sometimes. Considering all I need is my laptop, notepad and pencil case, this is really easy. 

Some other things I've discovered:

- Get Evernote and keep your notes there. You can access PDFs from smartphones in this way.

- Get a mini whiteboard to do practice questions on. You'll save a buttload of paper. The act of writing it down is way more useful than the act of reading them again. 

- Combine rote learning with understanding. If you are overwhelmed by something learn the formula/equations by rote, then read each day on it and attempt questions. This will lead you gently to the lightbulb moment.

and last but not least:

- Don't procrastinate too long on random blog posts...

Boiling an Egg; As taught by your Calculus lecturer...

"y = C*E+(½E)
a = π(x/2)^2 v = ( ∫(C+E+(½E))dy)x OR ay
t = 60*3
T = t+1/10t
b=s*v*z (z = equation for boiling one unit of water)

b+T = |Yummy|

OK, that is the technique for boilination, now you try with examples 1-50!!"

While this is probably innacurate, some of it estimated and some of it is undoubtedly incorrect. It serves to demonstrate the point.

If at some point in the lesson the teacher would actually say the words; "this is applied to the real world and is not just an abstract set of numbers and letters and long words..." mathematical studies would probably be more populated at higher levels.

Now I know WHAT integration, differentiation, limits etc are defined as, (discoveries I made independent of my lectures) I feel like I've lost a lot of time for something that could just have been explained a little differently.

Any way.. back to studying.