Before I switched my major to cognitive science, I was a double major in statistics & math for 2 years. Don’t ask why, I don’t know either. My brain thanked me when I switched it to a minor. That being said, I’ve had the humbling experience of taking my fair share of math & stats courses.
Lucky for me, my professors were very helpful in their teaching styles and their advice, so I didn’t immediately flunk all my math courses (Save for that one first-year calc class I had to retake.. We don’t talk about that).
So here I’m going to share a few tips from my professors and peers that helped me! Hopefully, they’ll help you go from this:
to this:
Don’t fall behind
I cannot stress this enough. As one of my professors put it, learning a new topic in math is like building a house. A strong foundation is imperative, and every building block thereafter supports the next. Similarly, in every math class, each week’s topic builds on the previous week’s content.
Basically, learning how to integrate won’t make any sense if you don’t know what differentiation is and how it relates to integration! You might be able to regurgitate a process seen from an example, but until you fully understand the theory behind it, it’s going to bite you in the butt when trying to apply it to new problems later on.
Practice regularly
Easier said than done, I know. But this follows from the previous point. Exercising your freshly gained knowledge on novel problems is imperative to truly master a new topic. There’s only so much strengthening of the connections between your neurons your brain can do before it literally needs to take a nap. You need to space out your learning and reactivate it over a period of time to strengthen your understanding.
You can watch your professor do problems on the board all day, but looking at your notes later won’t make any sense if you haven’t tried solving it yourself. Remember, most professors leave a problem on the board for a minute or two before walking through them, so use this time wisely and try to go through it yourself first (even if it’s just in your head).
Don’t be afraid to look up answers
I wish I had learned this earlier and allowed myself to look up solutions instead of forcing myself to focus on one single problem for a whole hour. Many times a question was written wrong and simply impossible to solve (WHAT WAS THE $200 I PAID FOR THIS TEXTBOOK FOR??). Other times, the question required knowledge of something we never touched on in class. So, don’t beat yourself up if you can’t crack a problem at lightning-fast speed — some topics are harder than others!
Start by trying to figure out the problem yourself — but not longer than 15 minutes. Then, look up the solution, and really try to understand it. Then find a similar problem online, or in the textbook, and try applying the same logic yourself, without looking at the solution.
Remember: math is full of patterns, and you’re going to come across a lot of similar questions, just written a little differently (which is why it’s important to practice a lot, so you’re exposed to all the variations!).
Train yourself in the art of problem-solving, not memorization
As stated in the syllabus of my first math class in university,
“We want to train you in the art of problem-solving. In your future career, we would like you to be able to attack new problems that you have never seen before, to figure out by yourself how to adjust old methods to new situations, and to learn how to be confident with your answers. You will achieve this not by memorizing a lot of formulas and methods, but by understanding why they work.”
Make cheat sheets — even if your class doesn’t allow them
This might sound sus, but hear me out. From my first introductory calc class to my last statistics course, we were allowed to bring a handwritten cheat sheet to midterms and final exams. Needless to say, every student (me included) tried to fit as much as we could onto our 8x11 papers.
In some special cases, we were allowed to write on BOTH sides. Oh my god, can you imagine the excitement?! The most surprising thing, however, was that I never actually used my cheat sheet on an exam (Save for one stats course that had really obscure formulas). I’d spent so much time making this cheat sheet that I had every single part of it burned into my brain. Once I realized this, I’d make cheat sheets for every single math course I took, even if the class didn’t require it for an exam.
So, make a cheat sheet, and use it while you’re doing homework and mock tests! This might seem contradictory if you want to remember how to do work without a reference, but I assure you, the more you use it, the less you’ll depend on it as time goes on.
Ta-da!
That’s it. If you’re struggling with a college-level math course you’re currently taking, Professor Leonard’s videos on Youtube will likely be helpful.
If you’re looking for solutions to the textbook questions you’re doing, check out slader.com.
If you have any questions about this article, feel free to hit me up! If you have life questions, I have no idea — I’m just as lost.
Good luck, and may the math gods be with you.
