I hated math until I realized, late in high school, that I was actually pretty competent at it; I’d just had several rotten teachers. I quite enjoyed Algebra II and trig, but that was as far as I got and calculus probably would have been beyond me.
The intricacies of German proved to be difficult, though I can understand it fairly well, so I switched to Russian, which wasn’t really a clever move if I was looking for simplicity…but I liked it a lot.
I never took Physics, or any other high-level science courses, but they would probably defeat me.
To this day, however, when I have school nightmares, they are invariably about math. Usually I’ve signed up for a math class and then not gone all semester. (I graduated in '95. Apparently school nightmares last a lifetime, since my dad still gets them.)
So far, there have been few subjects that have presented a serious challenge. My Waterloo has been Spanish. I can read and write it with a pretty fair fluency, but my speaking ability is abysmal. My first semester, I got a B-; last semester I took it pass/fail and passed. I have one more semester to go, and I’m not looking forward to it. Of course, if I were graduating next May, I wouldn’t have to take that last course, since the rules changed. :mad:
My nightmares are about being back at University and not having passes the degree. Heck, even during waking hours I sometimes have to forcefully remind myself “You passed! that hell is behind you now” One of the few things I can derrive relief from is knowing that.
Anyway… my school nightmares were the standard kind… going to school in underpants and t-shirt.
I hate chemestry, biology and foriegn languages (not the languages themselves, just classes about them). Far too much memorizing in each of these courses, and I feel happy every time I realize that I haven’t had to advance beyond the most basic of understanding of any of them. My worst academic fear would be having to take advanced level biochem courses in a language I don’t understand.
Really, I do. I’m taking it this year, and though I’ve managed to get all A’s so far, there’s just something about it I just don’t get. It can’t think out of the box the way it demands me to. The main reason I do well is because I memorize every frickin example in the book ( :eek: ). I have a test this Tuesday on work, energy (kinetic and potential), and of all things, the physics of springs. I suppose I understand it well enough, but if I think about things too hard (for instance, trying to figure out just WHY the kinematic equations are the way they are) my brain just goes BOOM.
Did I mention I hate physics?
Hey, wait a minute. I got it! You can derive V=Vo+AT from .
Failed French and nearly failed Latin. This is proving to be an issue as I am now discovering I will need to be at least competent in a foreign language to even be considered for a PhD.
AP Calculus. My senior year, I chose to sit through the 7th period offering again in addition to my regular morning class to get extra help from the teacher – in effect, I was taking the class twice.
I was always very good at math, all the way through differential calculus in college. Then came the second semester. Integral calculus. I managed to pull a C in it, but to this day (over 30 years later), I have absolutely no idea what it was all about.
Any class that requires the memorization of facts… i can remember processes with out a problem and putting mechanisms together is not difficult for me, but i really really really hate having to memorize facts.
My worst subject ever was history… i could remember the order in which things happened but not the exact dates.
I haven’t been to school for 30 years, but the subject that always eluded me was math. In Grade 8 we were doing fractions and long division. The first day of Grade 9 math, three walls of blackboard were covered in algebraic notation. The teacher said, quote, “Do this.” I had no idea what it was, and I still don’t. I got zero on every assignment and test all year. At the end, the teacher had mercy on me and gave me 51 so I would pass and not have to take it again in Grade 10, where math was an elective.
So I’ll try to break the trend. Math and Physics were my best subjects. History was my primary weakness, with biology a close second–I saw both as primarily taxonomy and fact memorization.
Yes, I know that a lot of people feel that way about math and physics, but I didn’t do terribly well there when I had to memorize things. If I could understand a process or derivation I’d be set. To this day have to double-check the quadratic formula (or re-derive it quickly).
Math has always been my academic problem area. Not so much the basic understanding of the concepts- that’s not a problem. It’s always been the actual arithmetic and mechanics of arriving at a solution. In other words, I can tell you how to set up the equations, what to do, but have the damnedest time actually working out problems.
That, and non-geometry style proofs give me the cold sweats.
Third-semester calculus and discrete/combinatorial math were by far my worst college subjects, while algebra was my worst high school subjects. Finance was my worst graduate school subject. They were all my worst for the reason listed above- I knew what I wanted to do, just had fits getting it to work out right.
Which is pretty funny since my boyfriend is a CSE major and I recently bought him a whiteboard so he could do his equations for homework in bed. Good lord differential equations, integrals, bah. He tries to explain things to me, but as soon as I look over at his whiteboard full of calculus problems, I’m out like a light.
Oh dear Lord, I hate biochem. I failed one biochem course in university and had to take it over again, and from that point, just the word “biochemistry” makes me twitch. And now, studying medical lab technology, I get to do tons and tons of biochem! But oddly enough, I get wonderful grades, despite voicing my hatred for the subject near-constantly.
I’m one of those annoying people who’s fairly good at most subjects. I never took any sort of music courses and don’t seem to have any aptitude for them, though, so had they been required at any sort of advanced level I might not have done well in them.
In University I did struggle a bit through Statistics, but this was more because the professor was a patronizing jerk who graded on a curve which was ruined by a small group that cheated. I think Statistics might actually be quite interesting with a good teacher. I never did much care for classes where teachers/professors just dumped data at you to be regurgitated later for tests.
Languages were always the worst for me…and unlike previous posters, I loved Physics. Physics somehow just fit my mind; I could close my eyes and “see” the model and the math that applied. But give me German, and I am lost. The only thing (almost) that I can remember of German is “Ich wiess nicht” or something similar, which means “I don’t know.” Oddly enough, I rather enjoy language in general…
Having said all of the above, I enjoyed Latin, and have benefited from it over the long years since High School. Latin classes were the place where I learned grammar. Thanks, Mrs Smith!
Sometimes I wonder…do we enjoy the subjects for themselves, or do they seem enjoyable because they strike a chord of resonance in the basic structure of our thinking?
Right now my tough school subject is whether to back the city school board that wants to close some smaller schools or back my local community which likes the intimacy of the small neighborhood schools.
Calculus and phys ed. Oh, the joy, the joy when I walked out of the last calculus class I would ever have to take in my life, when I put down my pencil on the last calculus exam of my life and immediately forgot every single scrap and fact of calculus I had been forced to retain.
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