Intensive Math Training: Get Tutored & Study 14+ Hours/Day

[terryphi]

Hi,

Is there somewhere I can go and get tutored in math/study math/do math 14+ hours a day 7 days a week for a few months during the summer? Sort of like boot camp but with math.

I'd do it my self, but it's really hard to exert that kind of motivation, especially for months at a time, and I think I'd do much better if I had some guidance.

Harvard has Math55, but I don't think I can get into Harvard.

I'd even pay a private tutor to do it, but I don't know how to get a tutor like that.

 

[deluks917]

Do you live near a university with a phd program? If so you could get a grad student to tutor you for about 20-30 bucks an hour (you seem rewarding to tutor so somebody will do it). Even if study 14 hours a day (please cut in down to like 10 which is reasonable) you probably only need at most 12 hours a week with your tutor. I'd get 2 PHD students one to teach you algebra 6 hours a week and another analysis. This will run between 240 and 360 dollars per week. Over a summer that around 3-4 thousand dollars which is not unreasonably high if your parents will pay.

 

[DrummingAtom]

A couple of summers ago I did something like this. I had a lot of catching up to do in math when I decided that I was going to go back to school so I worked very hard to get up to speed. I met with a tutor only once a week and dedicated every second of free time to studying math. My tutor was a great teacher and he guided me very well in what I needed to really focus on and what I could brush aside. For this reason I know my time was always well spent on skills I would need when I was back in school. That, to me, was the exact motivation I needed to be able to push myself at that time.

Even though I worked very hard on a bunch of problems I found my best practice was done when I just played with the math and ideas. I might not be "getting things done" but when I had fun with math is when I felt I learned the most. These were the deep interesting problems that I could let simmer for a week (or longer) until I came up with a solution.

To the OP, what kind of "training" do you want to accomplish? Do you want to learn like 3 different topics or want an in depth study of just one? These are questions you want answers for to find the best tutor that will fit your needs.

If you did have a tutor with you 14 hours a day pushing you I'd think it'd become unproductive. Real learning occurs from within, not from help. Like I said earlier, use the tutor as a guide and not a crutch.

 

[terryphi]

Well, I'm 24 now, so I don't have much time left before I go through the long decline, so I figure I should spend the time now, and get my math skills up as best I can, and hopefully I'll have an easier time as my brain ages.

I want to see how far I can get before I'm too slow to grasp these concepts easily.

I don't really know where I'm going to end up in life, but I'd hate to be limited by my mathematical capabilities.

 

[Ryker]

use the tutor as a guide and not a crotch.

I think you might want to rephrase that http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=crotch

 

[chiro]

Well, I'm 24 now, so I don't have much time left before I go through the long decline, so I figure I should spend the time now, and get my math skills up as best I can, and hopefully I'll have an easier time as my brain ages.

I want to see how far I can get before I'm too slow to grasp these concepts easily.

I don't really know where I'm going to end up in life, but I'd hate to be limited by my mathematical capabilities.

I commend you for your initiative, but I just wanted to point out something I feel you should know.

At some point you will get to a stage where the math is so abstract, so broad, so deep to understand properly or make the right connections, that it will take time to really understand it deeply and don't feel bad about it because it happens to everyone at some point no matter how apt they are.

It happens in every field. You'll probably look back in maybe five to ten years and understand something about math you did back then that eluded you when you were actively studying it. It probably seemed obvious when you thought about it and wondered how you could have missed it, but that happens especially in a field like mathematics.

If you do some kind of bootcamp in math, then I would also recommend to take a step back and think about what you are doing and reflect a little bit on the philosophy of the method and the meaning of framework and its techniques that you are using.

 

[DrummingAtom]

I think you might want to rephrase that http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=crotch

LMAO. I didn't get a lot of sleep last night, thanks Ryker I owe you one.

 

[elfboy]

Hi,

Is there somewhere I can go and get tutored in math/study math/do math 14+ hours a day 7 days a week for a few months during the summer? Sort of like boot camp but with math.

I'd do it my self, but it's really hard to exert that kind of motivation, especially for months at a time, and I think I'd do much better if I had some guidance.

Harvard has Math55, but I don't think I can get into Harvard.

I'd even pay a private tutor to do it, but I don't know how to get a tutor like that.

it's called motivation...it's why you spend 2 weeks on one part of problem with no guarantee of even solving it

 

[Skrew]

You don't do that.

There is an optimum amount of time you spend on a subject each day(1-2 hours, maybe a little more for some people) afterwords the return you get for the time spent starts to decrease.

A more realistic goal is to select one or two books and work through them.

 

[victor.raum]

What's your background I'm curious, how much math do you already know?

 

[terryphi]

What's your background I'm curious, how much math do you already know?

By the end of this semester I'll have had 3 courses on calculus, 1 one ODEs, one on statistics, one on linear algebra, and one on monte carlo methods and finite difference approximations.