Comment by scarecrowbob
6 years ago
I've been doing Khan academy most days (like, 28 of 30) for the last year. It's been super friendly and I've moved through the algebra, geometry, trig, precalc, and differential material... I'm currently working through some integral calc stuff. I'm planning on doing the stats and linear parts of kahn before trying to take some of the online college-level courses; Sal Kahn is super great as a teacher but I am starting to feel like I can now benefit from some more difficult to digest material.
My hope is to generally increase my math abilities so I can do some electronics design classes and some study about how to start applying ML/ AI tools.
But I've found studying math to be quite fun and useful in its own right. It's fun and I feel like it's helped my general intellectual abilities.
Khan Academy is great, the only issue I have with it is it's too long-winded sometimes. Taking much longer than necessary at the cost of maintaining that comfort level of a beginner student. There is something to be said about struggling just enough according to your proficiency level (the idea of Flow in psychology).
I too would like to work my way up to calculus and beyond.
What sequence of courses do I take on the site to get to calculus, starting from the beginning with the basics?
How familiar are you with algebra? The stronger you are with algebra, the easier you will find Calculus. You will also need a relatively strong understanding of trigonometry, but I've mostly been able to review the trig I need as it comes up. That being said, don't feel like you need to be an expert at all prior math before jumping into Calc. In fact, Calculus might be the class you finally grok algebra since you'll use it so much!
Here is a good review of the algebra you'll use in a Calc I course: http://tutorial.math.lamar.edu/Extras/AlgebraTrigReview/Alge...
I had a humbling experience last year when I browsed the available courses until I found one that only contained math I'm already familiar with and I had to go all the way back to fourth year elementary school. :/
I went back to school for CS, and ended up taking courses starting at Grade 10 math as prereqs so that I could rebuild my math knowledge. Even the start of that was rough, since I hadn't done math in a long, long time. By the end of the course, I was much stronger.
What I'm trying to say is that you've made a good decision by jumping way back. Once thing I realized pretty quickly is that to do well in math, you need to know the prior content pretty well. And for the next thing, the current content pretty. And so on. If you can stay on top of it, it 's a lot less challenging (and more interesting).
How were you able to determine what level you were at?
9 replies →
What was your math background before you started Khan?
20 years ago I flunked out of a Calc 2 class in college and (unrelated) never got back to it because I changed my major to Philosophy.
I program for a living, but was having trouble, like, with multiplying fractions and that basic level. But it's not hard to learn if you do it every day.
I mean, it's slow going, and I am certain that there are folks who think that integrals are pretty basic math, but its fun and interesting to me, and derivatives have helped me understand quite a few things I never quite groked already.
University CS programs are designed to produce professors, not programmers. Many students who graduate from these programs and go into software development are over-qualified. Many students that flunk out of them have their careers needlessly derailed for a few years.
3 replies →