Posted by alexandra_k on February 18, 2015, at 14:29:33
In reply to Re: No more physics! » alexandra_k, posted by Tomatheus on February 18, 2015, at 11:28:51
Hi. These were at Uni - but they were High School level courses. For students who wanted to get into Engineering, but didn't have the GPA and / or relevant physics background. Most were in a similar maths position so we mostly used algebra / trig. I never thought of a circle as a rotating triangle before. I find most of maths / physics to be... Backwards. I mean... To figure out change by taking the final and then subtracting the initial... I never would have thought to approach it like that. It... Felt wrong, somehow. Then we get this horrible problem of needing to ignore - signs sometimes... And I find it fairly upsetting, actually. And 'forwards'. I guess I thought that 'forwards' was a vector. And I got really hung up on that... Whether 'forwards' and 'reverse' were a change in direction... So... What it meant to continue on in the same way (Wittgenstein digression). But, of course, a hammer throw... And you let it go... And it keeps going straight. Of course it does. Huh. Turns out... I'm the one who's a bit backwards. Oh well. I would need to think about this stuff over a period of years before it was properly automatic. As it sort of needs to be, at this stage. And, uh, yeah... I'm glad I got to do it. But I'm also glad I don't actually have to do very much more of it. Mostly because it isn't fun to feel stupid / not be able to do it / to always get stuck on 'simple' mistakes.
I do feel badly that I didn't do better in the exam. I think the first guy really (really really) tried to teach me well. And I sucked at algebra... And the exam was mostly asking us to draw little graphs / sketches. But I still couldn't do most of it. It isn't just that I can't do the math... The concepts... Sit oddly... As well. It is a very different way of thinking... And it seems I'm sort of naturally inclined to get it all backwards / the wrong way around. I remember grading critical reasoning papers and wondering how students can consistently (so very much better than chance) get multi-guess questions wrong. And, well, now I know how that can happen.
Ah well. It was mostly to help me feel better about the odd equation that pops up in biology. And I've looked at those equations again (and the magnification calculations and the scale bars for our drawings etc) and I do feel a lot more confident about all of that. I get little glimmers of... Insight. With respect to seeing how an equation can be rearranged (I don't really follow the steps of the proof / derivation). But sometimes I can just 'see' how to rearrange it to solve for the different variables. I need to practice that a bit so it is automatic / reliable / consistent). But I think that means I'm starting to see what an equation means / be able to read it. I can do (very simple) 'when this variable changes by a factor of x what factor does this other variable change by?' Actually... No... I'm really bad at that. And square roots frighten me. For some reason... Even though I can write an essay on what they mean (sort of, sometimes)... Ak.
I got 97% on my dyscalculia screening test... So... Apparently that means I don't have trouble... The bits I got wrong were 'conceptual', though. And I do think I'm lacking fundamental maths concepts. My method is... Odd... Mostly backwards, it turns out. Pretty much everything I have figured out myself (even if I get to a right answer). Every single proof / derivation I see... I have this weird... Upset kind of visceral reaction to... Like... Why on earth would they think / want to do it that way? I mean... The obvious answer is 'because their way works whereas yours pooped out by the end of primary school'. But... My way was natural to me up until then and I never... Like... Never... Managed to learn any other.
I do have to get through the second part of Organic Chemistry where we do Ph and Kinetics... Fingers crossed for me... Fortunately, there is a bunch of good stuff up on Khan Academy and I did have a bit of a primer with some of it last year...
P.S., Law sounds a lot flasher than it is. In this part of the world it isn't a graduate degree - it is a 4 year undergraduate degree then you need to do a graduate professional course for a year or something before you can sit the bar / practice. Even med... I guess, is more like that, too. So... Doing first year anything is pretty much a matter of getting entry to university (not so hard in this part of the world) and you can borrow your loan costs / fees from the government for any accredited course... Getting entry to 2nd year is much more difficult... And I'm in the financial center, here, with respect to the law school... And our population only supports 2 medical schools in the country... So... Fingers crossed. I will need more than a little bit of luck. Especially for medicine... Which is what I most want.
poster:alexandra_k
thread:1076818
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20150214/msgs/1076876.html