- #1
Ntstanch
- 82
- 0
Try and make this short... starting with the fact that I never attended in any way shape or form 6th-8th grade. Bullying, family (or lack thereof) issues, was depressed and ended up being "home schooled". Except after like two weeks my dad gave up and I just stopped studying anything school related. Played video games, woke up around 5-6pm and went to bed around 4-8am. Best years of my life really.
So then I decide to go back to high school. Interestingly enough, if you want to go from being home schooled in middle school to home schooled for high school you need to take an exam, but if you go from home schooled in middle school to public school (small town... three hundred students in high school on average, generally a good school). My main concern was the math, as I hadn't touched the stuff since 5th grade.
Regardless of the whole gigantic gap in education, I managed to barely pass pre-alg. Then I failed algebra twice, took intermediate math junior year, passed with a poor grade. And when it came down to the wire senior year (having to pass algebra) I finally put a small amount of effort into it and passed with I think a B-. Given the contents of this paragraph, you may have noticed that I never really put forth any real effort. Partly on account of being convinced that I was dumb, and part loathing of just core math (the step by step system of it all).
Anyway, I enjoy science... primarily physics. And parts of chemistry. I can also do the math in those classes which involved trig and calculus, but in college I struck out in pre-calc. After you fail it three times you're not allowed to take it anymore. However, the first time I failed (keep in mind that I'm omitting a lot of situations and time spans) I should have passed with at least a B... but apathetic would best describe my approach. If I had just done the online homework and not been irresponsible I would have passed with a 64%. If I had gone to class during group sessions I would have passed with a 72%. If I had gone to class like a mature student (which I was not at the time) I could have refreshed the parts which had become fuzzy over the years and received an A. However after that the core math classes and everything else just spiraled down.
The last thing I had done was teach myself, according to the suggested prerequisites, what was equal to two years of fresh high school chemistry knowledge and at least a B+ in pre-calc, AND the very heavy workload of the class itself, in roughly 40 hours spread out over a week before the first exam (it was sort of a last ditch effort, encouraged by my ex-girlfriend to prove something to myself). After the first exam my grades were slightly above the average of 250 UNIV chem I students. During that semester I never went to my pre-calc class minus the exams and ended up with something close to 50%.
Skipping approximately 1.5 years of (mostly) not being enrolled but studying on my own and speaking with a physics professor, some graduate students and a chemistry professor about ideas of mine and quite a few topics in general... I'm 'here'. Here is more or less dropping out, which is happening now. What I had retained from the core math classes is all but gone. On top of that, I never really understood the 'pure math', likely because I had never learned it. I would just visually memorize things over the course of a night or two before the exams, not knowing why it worked or even what I was writing, but knowing that it's what the exam wanted me to write down. Same went for the online homework... you were allowed to do the problems over and over. A little pattern recognition and cramming and I knew what question *insert trig function* was asking and could answer with no idea what was being answered. Didn't even know trig involved a circle until after my 2nd F in the class.
So... heart of the matter. I can't decide if I'm just too poor with math and should ignore physics because the math will shove me out. Or if I just need to start strait from the 6th grade and up, redoing classes I've passed and all of that while just drilling until I comprehend the math like I comprehend English. And if I were to do that, what would be the best way?
Side note: I'm not great at general computation, but I'm not an idiot. The physics professor I talked to the most admitted to using his fingers to keep count (his words: I consider myself a physicist in spite of my mathematical ability). Either way, before realizing that I needed to understand and be able to do the math (fill in the giant holes) I was consistently happy and excited about both chemistry and physics. And right now there's no real way for me to be sure that I could restart and get the math down easy, or if it would just be a waste of time. Also coming to a bit of a rock and a hard place where I need to do something or not do it... no more of this jumping all over nonsense.
So then I decide to go back to high school. Interestingly enough, if you want to go from being home schooled in middle school to home schooled for high school you need to take an exam, but if you go from home schooled in middle school to public school (small town... three hundred students in high school on average, generally a good school). My main concern was the math, as I hadn't touched the stuff since 5th grade.
Regardless of the whole gigantic gap in education, I managed to barely pass pre-alg. Then I failed algebra twice, took intermediate math junior year, passed with a poor grade. And when it came down to the wire senior year (having to pass algebra) I finally put a small amount of effort into it and passed with I think a B-. Given the contents of this paragraph, you may have noticed that I never really put forth any real effort. Partly on account of being convinced that I was dumb, and part loathing of just core math (the step by step system of it all).
Anyway, I enjoy science... primarily physics. And parts of chemistry. I can also do the math in those classes which involved trig and calculus, but in college I struck out in pre-calc. After you fail it three times you're not allowed to take it anymore. However, the first time I failed (keep in mind that I'm omitting a lot of situations and time spans) I should have passed with at least a B... but apathetic would best describe my approach. If I had just done the online homework and not been irresponsible I would have passed with a 64%. If I had gone to class during group sessions I would have passed with a 72%. If I had gone to class like a mature student (which I was not at the time) I could have refreshed the parts which had become fuzzy over the years and received an A. However after that the core math classes and everything else just spiraled down.
The last thing I had done was teach myself, according to the suggested prerequisites, what was equal to two years of fresh high school chemistry knowledge and at least a B+ in pre-calc, AND the very heavy workload of the class itself, in roughly 40 hours spread out over a week before the first exam (it was sort of a last ditch effort, encouraged by my ex-girlfriend to prove something to myself). After the first exam my grades were slightly above the average of 250 UNIV chem I students. During that semester I never went to my pre-calc class minus the exams and ended up with something close to 50%.
Skipping approximately 1.5 years of (mostly) not being enrolled but studying on my own and speaking with a physics professor, some graduate students and a chemistry professor about ideas of mine and quite a few topics in general... I'm 'here'. Here is more or less dropping out, which is happening now. What I had retained from the core math classes is all but gone. On top of that, I never really understood the 'pure math', likely because I had never learned it. I would just visually memorize things over the course of a night or two before the exams, not knowing why it worked or even what I was writing, but knowing that it's what the exam wanted me to write down. Same went for the online homework... you were allowed to do the problems over and over. A little pattern recognition and cramming and I knew what question *insert trig function* was asking and could answer with no idea what was being answered. Didn't even know trig involved a circle until after my 2nd F in the class.
So... heart of the matter. I can't decide if I'm just too poor with math and should ignore physics because the math will shove me out. Or if I just need to start strait from the 6th grade and up, redoing classes I've passed and all of that while just drilling until I comprehend the math like I comprehend English. And if I were to do that, what would be the best way?
Side note: I'm not great at general computation, but I'm not an idiot. The physics professor I talked to the most admitted to using his fingers to keep count (his words: I consider myself a physicist in spite of my mathematical ability). Either way, before realizing that I needed to understand and be able to do the math (fill in the giant holes) I was consistently happy and excited about both chemistry and physics. And right now there's no real way for me to be sure that I could restart and get the math down easy, or if it would just be a waste of time. Also coming to a bit of a rock and a hard place where I need to do something or not do it... no more of this jumping all over nonsense.