Self Education Help: Advice for Starting Over in Math

[Envade]

Hello,
I'm in a particularly difficult educational situation. I was "home-schooled" my whole life, and I essentially wasn't taught anything. I was allowed to do whatever work I wanted, whenever I wanted to do it. I never realized how important education is until I got out in the real world. I'm 19 years old and working a dead-end job at a factory I hate, and I'm feeling like this is where I'll be at my whole life unless I change things. I've recently got a desire to learn all the things I missed from school, and attempt to get into college.

I am wanting to start over from the very beginning of all subjects and re-learn EVERYTHING that I missed with a focus on Math. I feel incredibly overwhelmed by all this, and I don't even know where to begin. Was hoping someone might have some advice as to how to go about this.

Thanks so much for any help that can be offered.

 

[Evo]

Hello,
I'm in a particularly difficult educational situation. I was "home-schooled" my whole life, and I essentially wasn't taught anything. I was allowed to do whatever work I wanted, whenever I wanted to do it. I never realized how important education is until I got out in the real world. I'm 19 years old and working a dead-end job at a factory I hate, and I'm feeling like this is where I'll be at my whole life unless I change things. I've recently got a desire to learn all the things I missed from school, and attempt to get into college.

I am wanting to start over from the very beginning of all subjects and re-learn EVERYTHING that I missed with a focus on Math. I feel incredibly overwhelmed by all this, and I don't even know where to begin. Was hoping someone might have some advice as to how to go about this.

Thanks so much for any help that can be offered.

You might want to start at a community college, they offer many excellent courses and are more like a big high school than a University, after you get the knowledge you missed being home schooled and feel ready, many Universities will accept credit transfers so that the courses you took will count toward your university degree, but even getting a Community College degree can get your foot in the door with many employers.

There are also a lot of what we at work refer to as "strip mall colleges", they are little known tiny "colleges", many of which are really located in strip malls, like next to a convenience store/gas station, one here took over a closed grocery store space. But you need to be careful with these, many are not accredited and the courses you take will not be accepted by real colleges and you'll have wasted your time and money. We'd have people sending in job applications showing degrees from these bogus "colleges" and they'd get thrown right into the trash.

 

[Mark44]

Many students who graduate from regular high schools in the US are not prepared for college-level courses, particularly mathematics courses. Community colleges often have refresher courses in mathematics, from plain-old arithmetic on up through algebra, trig, and precalculus. Community colleges are usually accredited, so you don't run into the problems that Evo mentions about "strip mall" colleges. Community colleges also have relatively small classes with lower tuition rates than four-year schools and universities. Be advised that some of the math classes I mentioned aren't considered college level courses, but they would get you to a point where you could successfully take college-level courses.

 

[symbolipoint]

Hello,
I'm in a particularly difficult educational situation. I was "home-schooled" my whole life, and I essentially wasn't taught anything. I was allowed to do whatever work I wanted, whenever I wanted to do it. I never realized how important education is until I got out in the real world. I'm 19 years old and working a dead-end job at a factory I hate, and I'm feeling like this is where I'll be at my whole life unless I change things. I've recently got a desire to learn all the things I missed from school, and attempt to get into college.

I am wanting to start over from the very beginning of all subjects and re-learn EVERYTHING that I missed with a focus on Math. I feel incredibly overwhelmed by all this, and I don't even know where to begin. Was hoping someone might have some advice as to how to go about this.

Thanks so much for any help that can be offered.

The community adult schools will help you. A community college is another alternative. They ALSO offer basic education.

 

[tzonehunter]

Where are you located? I agree with others that the public community college / tech school route is a great place to start. The prep courses offered there are often of very high quality. I am close with two different individuals that started out working towards an associates degree at a local public Tech school, then went on to complete a 4 year degree at one of the state's public universities. One works as an analyst for a fortune 500 insurance company, the other is a software engineer at a large software developer. Both had somewhat lackluster high school careers (the software engineer actually had to take summer school to graduate).

For self learning, you might consider the free courses offered on eDx, Yale open courseware, or Stanford open courses. Unfortunately they won't earn you credit, but they are self paced and risk free. You could buy an older edition of an appropriate textbook to read prior to watching the lecture videos. I completed MIT's Classical Mechanics Review on eDx and found it to be very high quality, challenging, and rewarding.