I’m finding this discussion very interesting because of my personal background. The general population would describe me as “good at maths”. I would describe myself (because of context) as “bad at maths”. I was one of the best all the way through high school and then started an undergraduate maths course known for being challenging. After a few weeks I completely hit a wall and couldn’t progress any further with it. (I changed course to music.)
My sister, father and brother-in-law all completed a whole undergraduate course in maths—I couldn’t finish the first year. So I think I am bad at maths.
Following on: I think I have a much deeper aesthetic understanding of music than my father and sister. They, the “better” mathematicians, are excellent musicians, but in a functional sense. I’d say that I, the “worse” mathematician, have a much more profound insight into music than they do.
And I failed my first go at Machine Learning, and nearly failed my first go at Intro to Statistics!
(Because I hadn’t taken continuous probability first, and was depressed.)
What was it like from the inside, hitting that wall? Math is a particularly easy subject to hit a wall in, because if you’re lacking a prerequisite of some sort, all of a sudden everything you’re seeing turns to apparent nonsense.
Actually I found it very difficult to understand how it had happened. At school I was one of the best, I enjoyed maths, I understood the concepts and mostly found it easy. At University that all reversed: I was one of the worst, I couldn’t do the assignments, I found the lectures boring, and I thoroughly disliked it. I found it very hard to comprehend how such a complete reversal had happened. And more than 15 years later, I still don’t really get it… It’s rather destabilising when you can’t do the thing you expected to devote three years of your life to!
I’m finding this discussion very interesting because of my personal background. The general population would describe me as “good at maths”. I would describe myself (because of context) as “bad at maths”. I was one of the best all the way through high school and then started an undergraduate maths course known for being challenging. After a few weeks I completely hit a wall and couldn’t progress any further with it. (I changed course to music.) My sister, father and brother-in-law all completed a whole undergraduate course in maths—I couldn’t finish the first year. So I think I am bad at maths.
Following on: I think I have a much deeper aesthetic understanding of music than my father and sister. They, the “better” mathematicians, are excellent musicians, but in a functional sense. I’d say that I, the “worse” mathematician, have a much more profound insight into music than they do.
And I failed my first go at Machine Learning, and nearly failed my first go at Intro to Statistics!
(Because I hadn’t taken continuous probability first, and was depressed.)
What was it like from the inside, hitting that wall? Math is a particularly easy subject to hit a wall in, because if you’re lacking a prerequisite of some sort, all of a sudden everything you’re seeing turns to apparent nonsense.
Actually I found it very difficult to understand how it had happened. At school I was one of the best, I enjoyed maths, I understood the concepts and mostly found it easy. At University that all reversed: I was one of the worst, I couldn’t do the assignments, I found the lectures boring, and I thoroughly disliked it. I found it very hard to comprehend how such a complete reversal had happened. And more than 15 years later, I still don’t really get it… It’s rather destabilising when you can’t do the thing you expected to devote three years of your life to!