Note: This piece is rather choppy and needs to be cleaned up pretty substantially, because I wrote this well past my bedtime. I couldn’t sleep until I typed these thoughts down.
Well… I just got my final results for my 3rd precalculus exam and…. I failed. Well… I technically got a D (63.8%), but I still ate shit. As did the rest of the class, which means I'm not alone in my failure.
It’s a little demoralizing because I studied pretty damn hard (perhaps, a little too hard) for that exam. I did the extra quiz portion which evidently added a few extra points to my exam grade, but not enough to get it to a passing grade (even if I got all of the questions 100% correct, it still wouldn't have added enough points to my final grade to get it to a 70% or above). But, at the end of the day, I tried my best. I studied. I went to office hours and asked for help. I left office hours with a couple of textbook recommendations and reassurance from my professor that I wasn’t “doing nearly as badly…” as I thought I was. And, I’ve since moved onto the next unit, which, so far, has been making much more sense.
Even better, I can look back at exactly what I did wrong on my 3rd exam (because the prof gave it back to us with comprehensive feedback on what we did and didn’t do right), and I ordered a couple of precalculus workbooks to give me more examples to work through, so that I can gain a much more solid understanding of this stuff in preparation for the fall where I plan on taking calculus one. If, for some reason, I fail to get a C or above in this semester’s precalculus course, I’ll take precalculus again in the summer (perhaps I’ll take trigonometry too, but I haven’t decided yet).
But, hope is not lost for this specific class. Despite my failing exam grade, I’m still holding a 75.6% in the class, which is a solid C. I’m doing a hell of a lot better at this point in the semester than I thought I would be doing, but I’m still determined to understand math in such a way that I don’t feel like my understanding of it is as shoddy as it currently feels.
To achieve that, I have to put in the hard, hard work of figuring out how math actually works. I’m not sure how close or how far I am from figuring out trigonometry or advanced algebra, but I’m determined to figure that stuff out no matter where I am. Even if it takes me forever to learn it.
In other words, I want to learn math and science like I’ve learned writing and playing the piano. As an adult, I have the power to do just that! I just have to put as much time and effort into learning math and science as I’ve put in to learn writing and music.
However, I learned writing and music completely on my own, without any outside pressure or scorn for “playing the wrong note.” or forgetting a typo. If school was the place that primarily taught me how to write and play the music, I probably would’ve learned to dislike writing and music, just like I unfortunately learned to dislike math and science.
Now, in college, the thirst for knowledge is there. But, the stress of exams and deadlines is also starting to get to me.
I don’t do things very well under pressure. When I write, I write alone without a time limit. When I play music, I play music alone because I can’t do it when other people are watching me. So why do I expect myself to learn math and science very well in a college classroom? Let alone master it in sixteen weeks at a time?
In other words, I don’t think it’s the math itself that’s getting to me. At home, I’m able to learn math very fast on my own, with very little anxiety. I think I’m having an issue with the environment in which I’m expected to learn/perform math and science in college. I was basically given sixteen weeks to master precalculus enough to handle calculus one, when I didn’t even have trigonometry under my belt! That’s almost like expecting me to learn how to write a dissertation in sixteen weeks as a beginner writer! If I learned to write like that, I’d hate writing, too!
Given all that, the fact that I’m still holding a C in precalculus is quite impressive. But, I’m starting to buckle under the pressure and anxiety that come with the last several weeks of the semester, and the deadline to withdraw from classes is just a couple short weeks away. Oh… is that “Withdraw” button so very tempting! Especially since I recently learned that a failing grade will end up on my transcripts no matter what, and impact my overall GPA from here on out.
Why does that matter? Because I’m saving a shitload of money on car insurance by keeping my GPA above a 3.0. If it was just the GPA, I wouldn’t give a shit. I’d gladly take an F or a D, especially since I don’t plan on going to a prestigious university (why spend an egregious amount of money wracking up student loan debt, when my dad can afford to put me through a state school?). But, an extra two-hundred bucks per month is on the line! Letting my GPA get below a 3.0 would literally be like setting two $100 bills on fire every month, which would just be too much to bear.
So, I’ve made a deal with myself (and with my parents). If I pass my next math exam, I’ll stay in the class and give everything I’ve got to pass precalculus so my car insurance doesn’t cost an extra $200 a month. If I fail it (or get just a 70%), I’ll withdraw and (hopefully) knock out precalculus over the summer.
Either way, I’m determined to learn precalculus, as well as calculus, and all other sorts of math and science. I’m determined to learn how numbers work, whether they’re abstract or grounded in real-world examples. Just like how I’ve learned how grammar rules work, to the point I feel comfortable deviating from them in my writing.
That, of course, leads me to question why am I so determined to understand math in the first place. Well… aside from the fact that STEM majors don’t tend to have as much trouble finding well-paid work, which to me means I can live a rather secure and comfortable life, I’m also interested in learning math for scientific, philosophical and, dare I say, theological reasons.
I mean… math is the language that the universe speaks. It’s basically the language of God. It is everywhere we look. The Fibonacci Sequence is as apparent in abstract math as it is in pinecones and flowers. The way the wind blows and temperatures fluctuate can all be measured (and even predicted) by numbers. I know every buck in the valley by how many antler spikes they have. My house, my Xterra, my electronics, my medications, the roads I drive on, the clothes I wear, the pens and pencils I use; All of that has been created using humanity’s collective understanding of math.
Math even plays an important role in art, music, and writing. Poems and songs that aren’t “mathematically sound” (for lack of better words) sound significantly worse than those that follow mathematical rules. Paintings that feel uncomfortably imbalanced feel that way because they’re violating some mathematical rule. The coziness of a bedroom can be completely thrown off by a picture that’s tilted too much to the right by a fraction of a centimeter. I could go on, and on, and on.
Knowing all that, instead of asking, “Why do I want to learn math?”, I should be asking, “Why wouldn’t I want to learn math?”
I’m sure the answer to that question lies somewhere within my K-12 education, which is sadly where most people who hate math learn to….well… hate math! But, I’m not stuck in K-12 anymore. I’m a college-attending adult, holding solid A’s in all of my other classes (which goes to show that either I’m freakishly good at taking tests and writing papers, or I’ve developed really strong study habits that are holding up in even my more difficult classes, such as precalculus).
In other words, it’s not the math itself I don’t like. I’m much more offset from math by the shitty environments in which I’ve been expected to learn math, as well as by the general arrogance that a not-so-insignificant number of teachers and math nerds seem to have (but those are topics for another blog).
To be continued… I think…