- #1
QuantumLogic
- 2
- 0
Hello all; as I'm sure many of you have ascertained from my join date and post-count, I am new to this particular forum -- what I've seen from here so far has been great, though, and I am looking forward to delving into the wonderful world of physics with the rest of you :)
That being said, I have a question for those of you who are more acclimated and more experienced in the world of physics than myself, and I am hoping to get some good advice on the matter. My utmost apologies if this is a redundant topic (which I'm sure, to at least some degree or variation, it is) but if I could have a few moments of your time, it would be HUGELY appreciated!
P.S: Feel free to skim through this and touch on whatever points you feel are most necessary to reply to the topic at hand -- I have tried to outline my post so that the most important information is easy to pick out from the rest of the post...so please don't let the wall of text frighten you away. I have tried to provide as much information about the situation as possible so that you may assess the circumstances and render your own personal opinion on the matter.
A Little Background Info
I was one of those people who was not so well-suited for High School. Whether it was the environment not allowing me to flourish or my own lack of motivation disabling me from being an effective student (I would suspect that it was some combination of the two), the bottom line is that my grades were absolutely horrible in school, and I barely managed to squeak out of graduation on time with a 2.1 GPA (mostly due to the fact that during my senior year I got a wake up call that caused me to slap things into high-gear.)
This senior year was somewhat of a revelation for me that really caused me to re-evaluate where I was in life and what I wanted to do. After graduating, I took my first semester of college off and was toying with the idea of whether or not I was going to start in the Spring Semester; this was until the very unfortunate and tragic passing of my best friend made me realize that my time was not as infinite as I would have liked to imagine. He was always pushing me to apply my intellect while I was always struggling to be something else...
I enrolled in classes at the nearest community college about a week after his passing, and started my academic journey. I had decided some time in High School that I wanted to be a teacher, and perhaps a college professor some day. After I witnessed the immense discrepencies between high school and college I revised my dreams strictly to wanted to become a college professor. But...of what?
So far, the wondrous world of academia has changed my life; I am thrilled to wake up each and every morning and embark on the challenging and captivating trek through the world of knowledge. Things that I once suspected I was not so good at, I have realized that I am rather good at. One such thing is Math.
My Love-Hate Relationship with Mathematics
So far, I am currently taking my first semester of math in college. Throughout high school, for the most part, I despised math. It is because of this that I utilized my efforts to finish up my math credits as early as I possibly could in high school, in order to get them out of the way. Oh, how things have changed...
Having not taking math in three and a half years, to say that my math skills are rusty and unpractised would be an incredibly understatement. Math was not my strongest subject in high school (I slept through almost every class) and having not taken it in what seemed like eons, undergoing the placement test was like taking a test in a foreign language. Incredible frustrated and stressed about the situation, there were many moments during the test-taking process where I resorted to christmas-treeing the it.
So here I am in Pre-Algebra thinking that I am going to hate myself for the next several semesters while I run the mathematical gauntlet, and I realize that the numbers look different. The way they speak to one another, the way I remember them, the way I think of them, what they mean, how one concept relates to another...it's all different.
I am LOVING math, and am utilizing the time I would have spent studying were the class not so incredibly easy to study and review higher concepts of algebra.
Is There Such a Thing As Too Late When it Comes to Chasing Childhood Dreams?
I am 21 years old and in my Sophmore year of college after taking the first semester off, and only taking a half-load my second semester. After this semester is over I will have completed 35 credit hours. As previously aforementioned, this is my first semester of math, and due to my less-than-adequate placement test scores via not having practised math in years, I am only taking a trivial and meaningless Pre-Algebra class.
Philosophy and Physics are two subjects that have always dominated my imagination. Ever since I was a child, I dreamed of becoming a scientist and writing about the philosophical implications of my work. Astrophysics and Particle Physics were always favorite topics of discussion between me and many of my greatest friends, but I never had the appropriate understanding of mathematics in order to fully comprehend the depth and magnitude of ideas that are relevant to the field of physics.
Things are changing; after reading books like "The Langauge of Mathematics" by Keith Devlin have opened my eyes to the world that is waiting to be discovered via the rational application of numbers. Needless to say, Theoretical Physics is starting to look more appealing than it did once upon a time.
My Question To You...
Are these dreams foolish? Are they unattainable? Am I at a time in my life where I should usher the fanciful world of physics out of the window of my mind?
Most importantly, with the right drive and motivation, is it possible to make-up the knowledge in mathematics that is necessary to major or perhaps minor in physics?
More and more, I am feeling like I really want to explore the relationship between physics and philosophy in a professional setting, but can I do this without having to wait twenty years for my math to catch up?
Theoretically if I skip the Basic Algebra class like I am planning, I could take Intermediate and College Algebra in the summer, and start Trig in the fall, and Calc in the Spring semester. I realize it may not be advisable to do so, but if I put the right amount of time, work, and effort into increasing my aptitude for math, is this possible?
My Utmost Appreciation
Thank you all SO much for your time and effort; it is greatly, greatly appreciated. I always value the opinions of those more knowledgeable than me in a given subject, and I look forward to hearing from you all. I apologize for the rambling...I sometimes have a bit of a tendency to get off-topic.
Once again, thank you, and any advice you have to offer is very much appreciated :)
That being said, I have a question for those of you who are more acclimated and more experienced in the world of physics than myself, and I am hoping to get some good advice on the matter. My utmost apologies if this is a redundant topic (which I'm sure, to at least some degree or variation, it is) but if I could have a few moments of your time, it would be HUGELY appreciated!
P.S: Feel free to skim through this and touch on whatever points you feel are most necessary to reply to the topic at hand -- I have tried to outline my post so that the most important information is easy to pick out from the rest of the post...so please don't let the wall of text frighten you away. I have tried to provide as much information about the situation as possible so that you may assess the circumstances and render your own personal opinion on the matter.
A Little Background Info
I was one of those people who was not so well-suited for High School. Whether it was the environment not allowing me to flourish or my own lack of motivation disabling me from being an effective student (I would suspect that it was some combination of the two), the bottom line is that my grades were absolutely horrible in school, and I barely managed to squeak out of graduation on time with a 2.1 GPA (mostly due to the fact that during my senior year I got a wake up call that caused me to slap things into high-gear.)
This senior year was somewhat of a revelation for me that really caused me to re-evaluate where I was in life and what I wanted to do. After graduating, I took my first semester of college off and was toying with the idea of whether or not I was going to start in the Spring Semester; this was until the very unfortunate and tragic passing of my best friend made me realize that my time was not as infinite as I would have liked to imagine. He was always pushing me to apply my intellect while I was always struggling to be something else...
I enrolled in classes at the nearest community college about a week after his passing, and started my academic journey. I had decided some time in High School that I wanted to be a teacher, and perhaps a college professor some day. After I witnessed the immense discrepencies between high school and college I revised my dreams strictly to wanted to become a college professor. But...of what?
So far, the wondrous world of academia has changed my life; I am thrilled to wake up each and every morning and embark on the challenging and captivating trek through the world of knowledge. Things that I once suspected I was not so good at, I have realized that I am rather good at. One such thing is Math.
My Love-Hate Relationship with Mathematics
So far, I am currently taking my first semester of math in college. Throughout high school, for the most part, I despised math. It is because of this that I utilized my efforts to finish up my math credits as early as I possibly could in high school, in order to get them out of the way. Oh, how things have changed...
Having not taking math in three and a half years, to say that my math skills are rusty and unpractised would be an incredibly understatement. Math was not my strongest subject in high school (I slept through almost every class) and having not taken it in what seemed like eons, undergoing the placement test was like taking a test in a foreign language. Incredible frustrated and stressed about the situation, there were many moments during the test-taking process where I resorted to christmas-treeing the it.
So here I am in Pre-Algebra thinking that I am going to hate myself for the next several semesters while I run the mathematical gauntlet, and I realize that the numbers look different. The way they speak to one another, the way I remember them, the way I think of them, what they mean, how one concept relates to another...it's all different.
I am LOVING math, and am utilizing the time I would have spent studying were the class not so incredibly easy to study and review higher concepts of algebra.
Is There Such a Thing As Too Late When it Comes to Chasing Childhood Dreams?
I am 21 years old and in my Sophmore year of college after taking the first semester off, and only taking a half-load my second semester. After this semester is over I will have completed 35 credit hours. As previously aforementioned, this is my first semester of math, and due to my less-than-adequate placement test scores via not having practised math in years, I am only taking a trivial and meaningless Pre-Algebra class.
Philosophy and Physics are two subjects that have always dominated my imagination. Ever since I was a child, I dreamed of becoming a scientist and writing about the philosophical implications of my work. Astrophysics and Particle Physics were always favorite topics of discussion between me and many of my greatest friends, but I never had the appropriate understanding of mathematics in order to fully comprehend the depth and magnitude of ideas that are relevant to the field of physics.
Things are changing; after reading books like "The Langauge of Mathematics" by Keith Devlin have opened my eyes to the world that is waiting to be discovered via the rational application of numbers. Needless to say, Theoretical Physics is starting to look more appealing than it did once upon a time.
My Question To You...
Are these dreams foolish? Are they unattainable? Am I at a time in my life where I should usher the fanciful world of physics out of the window of my mind?
Most importantly, with the right drive and motivation, is it possible to make-up the knowledge in mathematics that is necessary to major or perhaps minor in physics?
More and more, I am feeling like I really want to explore the relationship between physics and philosophy in a professional setting, but can I do this without having to wait twenty years for my math to catch up?
Theoretically if I skip the Basic Algebra class like I am planning, I could take Intermediate and College Algebra in the summer, and start Trig in the fall, and Calc in the Spring semester. I realize it may not be advisable to do so, but if I put the right amount of time, work, and effort into increasing my aptitude for math, is this possible?
My Utmost Appreciation
Thank you all SO much for your time and effort; it is greatly, greatly appreciated. I always value the opinions of those more knowledgeable than me in a given subject, and I look forward to hearing from you all. I apologize for the rambling...I sometimes have a bit of a tendency to get off-topic.
Once again, thank you, and any advice you have to offer is very much appreciated :)