Physics and recreational mathematics + computer science improved my mental abilities.
I took Physics for Engineers as a freshman in college. It’s clear in retrospect that this class was designed to accomplish several things:
Force students who breezed through high school with little effort to work hard to maintain a good grade.
Weed out the students who don’t have the intellectual firepower or stamina for engineering.
Teach a particular problem solving methodology. To get decent marks on a problem set, you had to always draw a diagram, always start with appropriate equations, always derive the answer correctly (no numbers, just algebra + calculus), line by line.
Work quickly and accurately. Tests and problem sets were always difficult enough to require the full amount of time allotted.
Teach physics. Only this goal was ever mentioned explicitly, of course.
This was a difficult class to do well in, and probably the class most responsible for people leaving the engineering program. The default schedule also had it co-requisite with Calculus II, another demanding class, and the two classes used each others’ concepts—you’d have to understand one to do the other.
Going through this taught me all the intended lessons: I went through high school barely studying, but had to give up sleep to study and understand every homework problem to do well in this class. I wasn’t sure I had an A in the course until after I got the final back.
Internalizing the lessons of that course set me up for success in later courses, and now professionally. Physics courses aren’t about physics.
Project Euler is the other thing I think has changed my thought processes for the better. Being able to think of how to express an algorithm succinctly and correctly seems to help out in various situations, like training a new employee how to do a complex technical task.
Physics and recreational mathematics + computer science improved my mental abilities.
I took Physics for Engineers as a freshman in college. It’s clear in retrospect that this class was designed to accomplish several things:
Force students who breezed through high school with little effort to work hard to maintain a good grade.
Weed out the students who don’t have the intellectual firepower or stamina for engineering.
Teach a particular problem solving methodology. To get decent marks on a problem set, you had to always draw a diagram, always start with appropriate equations, always derive the answer correctly (no numbers, just algebra + calculus), line by line.
Work quickly and accurately. Tests and problem sets were always difficult enough to require the full amount of time allotted.
Teach physics. Only this goal was ever mentioned explicitly, of course.
This was a difficult class to do well in, and probably the class most responsible for people leaving the engineering program. The default schedule also had it co-requisite with Calculus II, another demanding class, and the two classes used each others’ concepts—you’d have to understand one to do the other.
Going through this taught me all the intended lessons: I went through high school barely studying, but had to give up sleep to study and understand every homework problem to do well in this class. I wasn’t sure I had an A in the course until after I got the final back.
Internalizing the lessons of that course set me up for success in later courses, and now professionally. Physics courses aren’t about physics.
Project Euler is the other thing I think has changed my thought processes for the better. Being able to think of how to express an algorithm succinctly and correctly seems to help out in various situations, like training a new employee how to do a complex technical task.