<p>The approach you’re taking makes it seem like math is this huge memorization drill. When you really understand how to learn the material, this will cease and you will learn to trust your logic. You’ll understand eventually. This happened to me once I started my actual engineering courses. Even though I got an A in all pre-requisite math courses, I didn’t fully understand the concepts until I was forced to apply them to all sorts of situations. You often hear people say “the exam was nothing like the homework”. If you truly understood the material, the exam is EXACTLY like the homework and all ‘twists’ were expected.</p>
<p>I’ve been thinking recently why I enjoy my math courses, and how I do well in them. I’m taking Linear Algebra as a visiting student at a different school, and I’m not enjoying it as much, even though I watched the MIT video lectures and enjoyed them. After thinking about it, I’ve realized that it is because of the style of teaching. At my school, the concepts are introduced intuitively, which makes it much easier to learn, while at this other school, they are taught very formally, making it boring and difficult to understand. Therefore, to enjoy and learn mathematics well, you need to intuit what exactly is going on rather than memorizing the formulae. Check out the link below for what I mean.</p>