Inability to memorize anything-starting to haunt me

[MarneMath]

Is college just what happens in the classroom? I've always felt college was more about talking to people with similar interest, having access to professors who have, at the least, a mild obligation to provide assistance, and a chance to learn the basics of research. I can honestly say, the majority of my education did not occur sitting in a class or talking to a professor. The majority of my education occur at the library with a pile of books, and a group of like minded students asking each other questions.

 

[Arsenic&Lace]

Rote memorization can be efficient, but I would suggest attempting to have a sketch of derivations in your head; this can reduce the "cost" of remembering something. If I remember what I'm trying to do, I can usually figure out what it takes to get there.

Take the center of mass. I understand what an average is, that's a simple definition and idea. I know that the idea behind center of mass is to average the masses of several discrete masses weighted by their distances. I know that for a continuous distribution of masses I need an integral. From these basic ideas I quickly reconstruct the formula.

For trig integrals, I know that the idea is to say that some expression under a radical is either a leg or a hypotenuse of a right triangle. I write down the triangle and decide which it should be through simple geometric reasoning (i.e. if it's an a -b it has to be a leg, or an a + b oh that's a hypotenuse). Then I know to find a differential for any unit substitution I can take derivatives.

EDIT: For arc length I just remember that any curve looked at close enough is just an infinitesimally short line segment, and I know how to find those with the Pythagorean theorem.

EDIT 2: I personally enjoy finding a private place where I read a derivation, and then stand up, and lecture (out loud!) attempting to reproduce everything I just read, using a whiteboard, and taking an explanatory tone. I also like to take a textbook and paraphrase a derivation line by line on paper. I've filled notebooks this way. This is exceptionally useful (for me, at any rate) when faced with long passages of confusing lecture notes, immediately after the lecture. Doing each of these at least once or twice can be useful; more times, and you'll know it excellently.

 

[symbolipoint]

According to the ideas mentioned in the video, good memorization in Mathematics uses, or can often use pictures. Pictures can show information that can be developed or later redeveloped into things that you wish to memorize.

 

[ZombieFeynman]

This defeats the purpose of a college then. I am willing to bet the only reason they never got fired is because most students are not willing to make legal complaints with the department of education. Gradschool, is entirely different then undergraduate.

Legal complaints?
LEGAL complaints...?



I had a teacher, in a sophomore level course for physics majors tell us, explicitly, on day one:

1. That he had tenure and the only thing that could get him fired was committing a felony.

2. That 90% of his pay came from research obligations and only ten percent amounted to teaching.

3. That anyone interested in signing up for his intramural sports team could do so after class. (admittedly, they were pretty good...)

Now this was a fellow of a large national science society (to be vague). He pulled in an incredible amount of grant money. He had a large group of both grad and undergrad researchers.

He was the worst teacher I ever had.

Nonetheless, I learned much from his class. Why? Because I studied. I read the book. I talked to fellow students. I worked tons of problems.

Looking back, even if he had been a great lecturer, it wouldn't have made much of a difference. I NOW realize that most of my learning comes from outside the class. Pretty lectures are icing on the cake, but fairly useless in the long run.

But his tests were really easy, so if you got a 100% on the homework you did well on the exams. I guess perhaps you might have liked him.

I always found that knowing a professors exams are miserably difficult made me overstudy. THAT's how I learn. The fear that the professor's exam is NOTHING like the homework. Knowing you have to search every book, every crevasse for an extra problem to work on. Scrape for every last drop of understanding.

 

[MathWarrior]

I had a teacher, in a sophomore level course for physics majors tell us, explicitly, on day one:

1. That he had tenure and the only thing that could get him fired was committing a felony.

2. That 90% of his pay came from research obligations and only ten percent amounted to teaching.

3. That anyone interested in signing up for his intramural sports team could do so after class. (admittedly, they were pretty good...)

You can have tenure dismissed in many cases other then a felony, especially now of days. Regardless of the point tenure laws are individualized by state, my state for instance has abolished tenure.

 

[csnoob]

How diligently did you pore over flashcards? I have a relatively decent memory, but still had to spend a great deal of time with my fat stack of derivatives/integrals/identities for calc 2.

If you say you knew them by heart the day prior to the final, maybe you have an anxiety issue? As in, you end up blanking on the final because of stress?

 

[ZombieFeynman]

You can have tenure dismissed in many cases other then a felony, especially now of days. Regardless of the point tenure laws are individualized by state, my state for instance has abolished tenure.

Id be interested to know what states have done this. I searched google, but can't find any states that have done this at the college level.

Regardless, I don't think this is the way to go either. In my example above, even without tenure he would not have been dismissed. He was one of the best researchers in the department.

You keep ignoring the fact that ultimately each student is responsible for his or her own learning.

And, to bring it back to the province of the thread, that includes deciding how much to memorize and how to do it.