Study Guidance needed (Engineering program)

[Acorns844]

Hello everyone

I am currently in an engineering program and would like some help regarding studying and such
I find it hard to understand math and such but everything else comes easily such as the physics side of stuff.
with the physics and engineering courses i can grasp the concept the same day and can remember it weeks ahead but math is the complete opposite ,i forget almost immediately and find it hard to focus when i try studying the fundamentals of the section.

I would like some guidance from people that have been through university/college on how to study math in a way i could understand it better.
Any Advice would be helpful!

P.S i am doing Electrical Engineering and am 19 years old if it helps

Thanks.

 

[cguy]

Practice, practice, practice.

For real. When you do enough examples, you see the commonalities, which allows you to extract the relevant abstractions. The more you practice, the less examples you will need to do to get to this point.

 

[phoneJunky]

I also did Electrical Engineering. You being 19 means that you are in first year now. Most of your later subjects will rely heavily on math so you will need to get that worked out.

You will probably be doing calculus right about now. So look at this series from 3b1b:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZHQObOWTQDMsr9K-rj53DwVRMYO3t5Yr

He explains the concepts quite well and it will help you when you tackle the book.

Hope this helps

 

[MR.C]

If it's not online, try to get help from a fellow student.

 

[MidnightZA]

First year maths is very overwhelming. Especially in the first semester with the amount of new mathematical concepts introduced to you for the first time.

First you need to change your perception. If you go in with a negative mindset you will always feel overwhelmed. You will focus more on "will I remember this" rather than focusing on the content itself.

Secondly, you need to practise a lot. Dont just do the bare minimum of what you do in the lectures. Use your textbooks, learn from them and do examples. Some people absorb knowledge better then learning from text while some find it easier to learn while listening to a lecture but everyone learns from practice.

 

[B-1]

I agree with the advise given so far. Maths needs to be practised over and over. If you are lucky enough to be able to grasp knowledge quickly and could get through school with little effort university is normally a bit of a wake up. Only way to overcome that is by learning study techniques and putting in the effort. Good luck.

 

[Cius]

Had a similar experience also doing electrical. As has been said before lots of practice helps cement it, however I get how hard that is as they load so much on you.

Only other tip I can give is I found I remembered the math far better when I understood its purpose. By third year electrical there was some crazy hard math in signals and systems 2. Failed it and had to write a sup but I had more time for the sup and got a better lecturer than the main course lecturer to explain the math to me and what he did was start with where you would use it and why and that just made it all click in to place. When you understand the task the tool makes sense. If you are trying to study a tool in isolation with no idea what it is actually used for in the real world you do forget that tool quickly. All math is just tools for solving problems somewhere in the world. Hope that helps.

If that fails study via past papers rather than notes. Far more effective at getting you through an exam. Only way i passed Physics 2. While I understood general and special relativity the course mainly focused on quantum physics and the people that tried to understand it (with that particular lecturer) failed it. If you parroted past papers you aced the course, so for all courses its good practice to do as many past papers as you can fit in before an exam.