How do you learn new math?

[giblets]

I usually study math by reading the stuff in the textbook and then doing some practice problems.

[Heraclitus]

I usually study math by reading the stuff in the textbook and then doing some practice problems.

First on topic response of the thread.

[Hauldren Collider]

new math

SP

Tom Lehrer

[Hauldren Collider]

I used to learn math from my dad because my math teachers were ****ing useless. Since high school however I've actually had competent teachers.

[Kuciwalker]

How do you go about it? And how did you come up with your current learning process?

1) Professor assigns problem set.
2) ~Midnight the day before it's due, I look at how many questions there are.
3) If it looks hard I read the chapter and then do the problems, then email the hw in and sleep.
4) If it looks easy I play video games, then sleep, then do (3) in the morning.

[Kuciwalker]

That was in uni, of course. Now it's just "order textbook, read chapter, do exercises, repeat until book is done, then do practice exam questions until day of".

[MikeH]

I didn't go to any maths lectures at uni, the teacher was really boring and gave handouts with all his lecture notes out so you could catch up. The fewl.

So I just read the text book and did some example problems. *shrug*

I did some maths tutoring of a 10 year old a couple of years ago, that was cool actually.

[Al B. Sure!]

I'll actually answer seriously.

I suck at math. One thing that I can handle though is when I can map it out on paper or have things attached to the variables. Abstract reasoning, I can't handle.

I struggled in all my stat classes in college and it was just stat so nothing complicated (although, granted, my struggling was good enough for B's so go figure). I didn't understand statistics until I took econometrics and everything just clicked and I was like the only guy (literally guy; there was one broad in the class) who got it and excelled. Having it not be so abstract made it easy to understand even with our elderly Soviet Russian econ professor.

Besides stat, I haven't taken any pure math classes since high school. I placed out of all the required college math courses just off high school calc, which I honestly have zero understanding of

I know KH would nod his head to this, but you really don't need more than a basic math foundation for undergraduate Finance and Economics.

[Jon Miller]

We know that. That is why graduate economics and finance look for math majors more than economics and finance majors.

JM

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

At this point I'll just announce that I've learned no new maths since the age of 14.

[Al B. Sure!]

We know that. That is why graduate economics and finance look for math majors more than economics and finance majors.

JM

not for an MBA

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Seriously, one time this bloke tried to tell me you could have sums with Greek letters in them. Letters! And Greek ones, at that!

Needless to say, I treated him to the curled-lipped snarl of utter contempt, and stalked away to rejoin the company of gentlemen.

[Cort Haus]

I'm ****ing rubbish at maths. I'm not looking forward to the stats lecture tomorrow on my Research Methods module.

I could do probabilities, but nothing else. The symbols made my face melt, and I couldn't follow the arcane recipes and spells. I could write a program to calculate the area under a curve, but I couldn't handle all those terrifying squiggles. :shudder:

[MikeH]

Seriously, one time this bloke tried to tell me you could have sums with Greek letters in them. Letters! And Greek ones, at that!

Needless to say, I treated him to the curled-lipped snarl of utter contempt, and stalked away to rejoin the company of gentlemen.

If it only includes numbers it's merely Arithmetic, and therefore barely worthy of consideration as part of Maths at all. I mean, if it's just plugging numbers into an equation and doing the arithmetic you could get an accountant *spit* to do it.

Once one has arrived at an elegant solution where it's just arithmetic there's no need to do the actual sum.

[N35t0r]

Silly people who 'calculate' results like 23*sqrt(2)*pi to 102.186