Most people hate math

[JisthenewK]

How are you at math? It seems like I have always been bad at it! No matter who teaches me (or how good of a teacher they are), I'm always stuck when it comes to math. Are most people bad at it? Most of the people I talked to hate it or are terrible at it, but that's just where I live. I can pass with a good grade, but at the test time, I forget most of what I learn and never retain it for when I need it again months later.

[Bowyn Aerrow]

I hated math early on, then I got to like it.

I think around the time I stopped asking 'why does it work' and just accepted it does is about the time I came to like math.

I used to be able to multiply and divide 4, 5 and 6 digit numbers in my head. Used to. Lately its been hard for me to work with single digit numbers :biggrin: Well 4 digit numbers.

But then I stopped using math in my head and started relying on machines to do maths for me - HUGE mistake.

[JisthenewK]

I wish I will get better at it.

[ceez]

I hated it in high school and loved it in college. there's a crap ton of math involved in engineering degrees so I had no choice but to love it

[myapple]

Math is my worst subject lol not worse enough that I've had to take it over like a lot of people I know though. I'm glad I got it out of the way early.

[Chase]

I have to learn very high level mathematics for my major. We're talking Beautiful Mind, Dexter's Laboratory, Star Trek math.
In high school I was put in honors algebra in freshman year, sucked at it, the teacher liked me and I did a lot of extra work even over spring break so I got to stay in honors and go into honors geometry sophomore year (there was one ultra higher level honors math class one class above me, it was AP not IB). I did good, not great, but good. In my high school my teachers would always let me retake quizzes and even test. Junior year I had honors Algebra II, for the first few weeks it was brutal. But again, they let us retake it. For once I had to form a study group. My grandma just so happened to be like, a top mathematician, like she worked with statistics or something, and she would help with my homework and stuff, just take it slow. All my other classes that year were a breeze, 100s, but in that class I had to work for my A's. Senior year I had honors precalculus, it was easy as can be. Never had to study. 100 every semester.
Then, life at a university. Calculus. Horrible. The university did everything it could to make things challenging. According to my calculus professor, calculus in high school messes you up and they are the ones who do horribly. Calculus isn't hard, the algebra you do to get the answer is hard. I'm in engineering, where we're joyfully going to have to use calculus in our everyday lives (well mostly calculus based physics), and writing it is the most important part. You really have to write your down as if it were printed in the book without leaving out any method etc.
Calculus was to hard for me and I needed to keep my GPA up so I put myself back a bit. Fell a bit behind the math is coming to me now.

[Blue]

I always liked math, and English. I remember being thrilled that I got into calculus my sophomore year of high school. It's always come easy for me, not as easy no - same mistake Bowyn made, I let machines do it for me and lost my touch for doing it in my head.

[juaid]

I hated math in high school, though i was good at it.But i like it since i gratuated from college

[Pix]

I taught myself basic multiplication and division with flashcards when I was 6, I found it a fun puzzle game. I didn't need school (I also taught myself to read when I was 5 though I'm not certain how).

But when I was 13 I got locked away for months and missed a lot of school. I'm not sure how or why but after I got out I was sent to Granny and I was promoted to the next grade anyway, and though I did fine in most classes I found myself failing math horribly. No matter what I just couldn't get it and I started to think I was going to fail the semester and then the year. It was a strange experience because normally I'd finish before everyone else and read & write but I couldn't do that in math. In desperation I started from the beginning of the textbook and followed the example. And to my surprise I found it easy. I continued, page after page, and I quickly took to picking it up. Like with the flashcards it became fun as I figured it out. And that's when I had my revelation:

to learn math I had to ignore the teacher and follow the book.

I went from making Fs to As in like a week. I tuned her out when she explained it and simply focused on the book and then I started jumping ahead of the class. And then with the semester exam (I think less than a month after it started clicking for me) I was the only one to make a score of a 110 because I not only got it all right but I was also the only one to get the bonus question right (and she told me that not only was I the only one to get it right but that college students sometimes messed up on it, I'd figured it out on my own). Right after she had me tutoring the others not getting it and I told them ignore the teacher, follow the book (the double standard still annoys me to this day that when we fail it's OUR fault, but when we succeed then THANK A TEACHER).

Then (over a year later) I missed the end of my high school freshman year and the beginning of the next (as I ran away from home) and when I came back the school put me through a bunch of tests to figure out what to do with me. I figured I was average and as I seemed to get along best with those in "resource" (between normal and special ed) I tried to do worse than I could. Basically I did the IQ and academic testing as long as it was easy and then I just started checking randomly (disclaimer: it was all multiple choice so it's possible I just made very lucky choices, you know, the kinda luck a major lotto winner gets), even getting a few wrong on purpose (I was careful as I didn't want to get put all the way down into special ed). Despite this the results came back that I was a borderline genius who was where I was "supposed to be" for math and college level for everything else. I don't know who was more shocked, me or the counselor who gave me the tests.

And I used to be a lot better than I am now about doing math in my head and doing it so fast that I could figure the tax and have the exact change (if I had it) ready before the clerk gave me the final total (I, too, got lazy and started using calculators and my ability has diminished).


Years later I had a girlfriend who LOVED higher mathematics (she made me think of it as actual mental masturbation that gave mental Big Os) and she believed that if there was a God/dess that It would be found in math. She made it seem like such fun that I thought about taking classes myself. But her enthusiasm did die down after a few years.

[Lilitu]

I used to be okay at maths, but that was in primary school.

As soon as I got to high school maths just moved way too fast for me, and even when I could understand it the tests always mixed it up in a way that it wouldn't work in my mind properly.

It's also that it's such a tedious subject, because everything looks alike and it doesn't have finality, to me. It seems like just moving numbers about, that is learning or rather memorising the process rather than experience and understanding things.

So... with a score ranging between 41 and 60 I quit after year 11 o.o but I was forced to do advanced so I technically ended at year 12. I think had I not been forced by the school streaming system to do year 12 maths I might have enjoyed it a little bit more. This year was my first all-humanities subjects year and I've been enjoying it so far.

Maths is also the only subject I've ever failed in a test.

i guess it really depends on the person