<p>What does it mean when you find yourself in a situation where your in a college math class and you have absolutely no idea what the teacher is saying? What does it mean when you look at the textbook and it doesn't make sense?</p>
<p>By working backwards and looking at how examples are solved, I can usually figure out how to solve the problem sets and that helps me a little bit, but overall, I'm often completely clueless on the concept behind them. Am I supposed to hack at it until I understand it or is there nothing wrong with letting the concepts go unknown?</p>
<p>For those of you 3 or 4 years into engineering/math or even graduated, and when you think back to not understanding lectures, what did you do? Did the junior/senior coursework help smooth out the creases from misunderstandings in prerequisite classes or did you have to take extra time to understand the concepts fully. </p>
<p>thanks for helping me out.</p>
<p>I’m just in HS, but I’ve self-studied a good deal of math besides what we do in school. In general, I find it useful to work through the proof or derivation of each major concept (with help from the book). I find it much easier to apply concepts on problem sets after I understand what the concept comes from and therefore exactly what it means.</p>
<p>The good news is that a lot of engineers these days just get by as best they can in math without ever understanding the underlying concept. They can bang out solutions just using the canned methods in the book. In other words, you should be able to do just fine as long as you keep it up.</p>
<p>The bad news is, this isn’t a great way to go about things, and in my opinion, the people that use that method are not typically the best engineers I have dealt with. Understanding the underlying math is not 100% necessary, but it is 100% helpful. You will find a solid understanding of calculus, differential equations and linear algebra will help you a lot in understanding upper-level classes.</p>
<p>My best suggestion is that if you can’t figure out the concepts on your own and find that you just have to resort to pattern matching no matter how hard you try, you ought to go into office hours with the professor and try and get some help in a more intimate setting where there are fewer people. You will be more apt to ask questions in that setting, and he/she can try and explain it in different ways.</p>
<p>Other than that, just keep at it.</p>
<p>thanks for the responses guys. Bonehead, did taking junior/senior classwork help you understand the underlying concepts better? Also, I’m thinking of doing computer science, I assume that its probably the same in the math aspect at least.</p>
<p>I suppose that the upper level engineering classes help some since you see some applications that can help illustrate the math. However, if you use that approach you have to work twice as hard to use the material to understand the math AND the material simultaneously.</p>
<p>The good news is that in CS you will almst never have to use calc again. Mostly liner algebra and discrete math.</p>
<p>oh I see. Seems like a double edged sword whichever way I turn. Guess theres no other way than to…study.</p>
<p>Well calc isn’t that bad overall. And since linear algebra and discrete math are higher level, they must be harder too. What about diff eq? Also, is there any relationship between calc 3 and differential equations? (like if it is similar to algebra I and algebra II where you HAVE to know a good deal of algebra I to do II)</p>
<p>the secret to understanding math concepts:</p>
<p>read the motivating text and derivations in the book or pay attention in lecture when the professor isn’t doing an example. if you are still having trouble understanding, consult review material or go to office hours. </p>
<p>have you tried to do any of those things?</p>
<p>noimagination and silence_kit. you are spot on and i would encourage collegebound to follow their advice.</p>
<p>my son benefited greatly from working on derivations in physics and came away with better grades than ever before on his last exam.</p>
<p>thanks guys. When you say “derivations” you mean the example problems in the textbook or the proofs?</p>
<p>
The proofs. If your book is unclear, there are some good ones released by their authors for free online.</p>