I’m afraid I disagree, based on my own experience with calculus in university. In high school, I took algebra (mandatory) and geometry and trigonometry (both electives). All three were fun. I enjoyed doing those classes, especially geometry, because it was learning a new way to think and to construct arguments, via proofs.
None of that applied to calculus in university. I just never got it. And it wasn’t for lack of trying. I worked hard at it. I did all the assignments, on time. A senior student with a physics major in residence took me under his wing and gave me informal tutoring. The prof teaching the class was very supportive, and gave me one-on-one sessions to try to help me. I could sense his frustration, not with me, but with himself, because he just could not help me understand the concepts. Something just wasn’t there for me. It ended up being my worst grade in undergrad, and was the reason I dropped a science major and switched to history.
I tried very hard “to put my mind to it”. It just wasn’t there for me.
I agree. Letters and words make sense in my head, numbers don’t. I generally can spell almost anything, but anything above 2+2 and I want a calculator handy.
My husband is the opposite - he can’t spell for shit, but he can look at a column of figures and add it in his head.
I’ve come here again and again hoping that @puzzlegal has posted here. Either about her hobby (I assume puzzles) or her profession (which I will leave up to her to specify)
Or maybe puzzles are her profession.
Anyway, in my profession, Corporate Finance, we constantly gave people assuming that we are Investment Banker types or accountants.
My late father used to do crewel work, which nobody else ever seemed to have heard of. Whenever I described what he did, people would say, “Sounds like embroidery.” I’d say, “No, it’s crewel!”
Turns out that it is a type of embroidery, and the word “crewel” refers to the type of wool yarn being used. I never quite understood that when I was a kid.
The misconception that probably annoyed him was that it was a hobby that’s only for women. He was very good at it, and I still have some of the pieces he made.
Perhaps not anyone, as in every discipline there are folks who just don’t get it. In music, almost anyone can pick up the basics of an instrument after some investment of time, and most folks can sing in a congregational setting, but there are people who just can’t hear the difference (or similarity) between two notes.
With regards to math struggles: I found that there is a huge difference between studying at university and at a community college.
I first started taking calculus at a proper university (Rutgers)–it was awful. The pace was quite fast, the professor explained things once, with lots of hand waving that made sense only at the moment, and then we had to flesh it all out through our studies and the recitation periods, where a grad student with an impenetrable accent who may or may not have been a good instructor would review the material and help us.
For work-related reasons I had to put college on hold after only a couple of weeks, and when I resumed, I opted to do my first two years at the community college level. The courses were friendlier, the material wasn’t so fast paced, and the instructors explained it quite well.
I wouldn’t want to have junior-college courses for my core courses in my major, but for ancillary stuff (to me) like calculus, it was perfect. And in the end, Rutgers accepted all of the junior-college credits that I needed them to accept.
Yes, i collect and play with puzzles. The most common misconception about that is that i love word puzzles. Actually, I’m really bad at word puzzles, and the puzzles i collect are mechanical. My avatar is a photo of one of my favorites. (Each color is a different piece, and they can be put together in several geometrically pleasing ways.)
My profession is actuarial work. There aren’t a lot of common misconceptions about it, because most people have never heard of it. I once told a kid i was interviewing for college that “an actuary is where you bury dead actors” and he took me seriously, which i felt terrible about. (Interviewing for college is stressful enough without that kind of thing.) But when i give the really short description of my job (i crunch number for an insurance company) people often ask me how an actuary is different than an accountant. I tell them that an accountant has to put all the numbers into the right boxes. And when there’s a box that needs a number, but no one knows what that number is, it’s my job to make it up.
“You’re an immigration paralegal? All you know how to do is fill out forms. Lawyers do all the work.”
Don’t start me. I’ve been doing this for more than 20 years and had several years of immigration-related professional experience before that. I train junior lawyers on things all the time and have caught many a lawyer’s near-fatal mistake. Law school isn’t the only way to learn things. For many of the cases I work on, I literally prepare everything and the lawyer just reviews and signs it.
It was like that in the Navy. At the beginning of the fiscal year the chop was saying “Stop spending so much!” The last couple months of the year he was saying “Spend it! It doesn’t carry over – if we don’t use it we’ll lose it!”
When I was in high school, it was not unusual for the heat to be on in May or June ( when it absolutely wasn’t needed ) Problem is that often the way government budgets work is if you don’t spend the whole budget in 2023, it gets cut in 2024 so if they didn’t burn that oil, there wouldn’t be enough next year.
I cannot argue with this. If this is your experience, it is your experience. I always appreciate your posts, so I do admire your general intelligence. I do not understand it.
One thing I will say, specifically about calculus. Originally it was called infinitesimal calculus, the ways of reasoning with infinitesimals. It was, in its own way, quite straightforward. Newton did some amazing things using it. Then along came some 19th century mathematicians, A-L Cauchy mainly, who said, “Hey, what are these infinitesimals?” and proceeded to make calculus infinitely more complicated. A. Robinson, around 1960, actually found a consistent model of infinitesimals but it has not caught on. We do ordinary arithmetic without giving any thought to what is a real number. Infinite decimals, you say? Leaving aside the occasional ambiguity (.999… =1) would you know how to add two infinite decimals? Multiplication and division are beyond hard. So just accept infinitesimals and learn to calculate with them.
Incidentally, while Cauchy was one of the greats of his generation, he pretty much ruined the career of the really greatest of the era: E. Galois.
My God, I could have written this! I entered college with aspirations of being a math teacher, but when I couldn’t grasp calculus, I switched my major to history.
QFT. I was in advanced math classes in high school up until Calculus. At that point my brain shut down. I’ve never used anything more advanced that Algebra 1 or Geometry in my life anyway, so no big loss.
Mechanical puzzles are great. I also have a best friend that loves them. If you happen to know a good web site for them please share it (or as another friend says I’ll just GTS - Google That Shit.)
Ever own a puzzle ring? They where all the rage back in the 70’s and 80’s. Very cool really.
And your an Actuary? Very cool, and I’m sure a bit scary at times. Any relationship to Chandler Bing?
I was in the military for 23 years. I am in no way qualified to act as security at a school or pretty much any place else. I was an avionics technician.
Did one of the characters in Avenue Q have a Master’s in social work? I completely forgot about that. Because my sister has a Master’s in social work, and she used to live near where Avenue Q would be in Brooklyn if it was a real street. I just made fun of her for (almost) living on Avenue Q, but I could have worked her degree into the reference too!
CHRISTMAS EVE
Your lives suck?
I hearing you correctly? Ha!
I coming to this country
For opportunities.
Tried to work in
Korean deli
But I am Japanese.
But with hard work
I earn two Master’s Degrees
In social work!
And now I a therapist!
But I have no clients
And I have an
Unemployed fiance’!
And we have lots
Of bills to pay!
It suck to be me!
I don’t have that experience really. Maybe I’m just not big enough!
But, what does annoy me is when people assume that I’m the guy who wants to lift heavy things when I’m not in the gym.
Have some boxes to be moved at the office, or a water cooler that needs refilling? I’m in a dress shirt and slacks; I don’t want to do physical labor for you. I’m trying to avoid sweating right now, or get these clothes wrinkled.
And, no, carrying that heavy box for you wasn’t my “workout for the day.” If anything, it threw me off.
