The Frogurt Is Also Cursed

Math test score: 25 out of 66 (38%). Average was 50%.

Fortunately, the two exams together are 40% of the course grade. Homework is 30% and the final another 30%. My homework grade up to the assignment just turned in was close to 100% (and this latest assignment certainly won't be that), so it may all come down to the final.

Bleah.

If I don't get a 'B' (curved), I can't count the credit hours toward my M.S. I don't need the hours in the total, but I need six (two classes) outside EAS, and this was going to be three of them. And I don't want to take a second class next semester while trying to finish my thesis. Ah, well, I'll do what I have to do, I suppose.

PDE test was tonight.

4 Problems.

I finished none of them.

Not even sure about the parts I did.

66 total points possible. I suppose I'll find out how horribly I did tomorrow or Monday in class (two people still need to take it tomorrow).

Bah.

...but I'm seriously disliking this math class (PDEs).

Prof sticks to rigorous derivations in strictly general terms. Even when he gives a so-called example, it doesn't have numbers or even specific functions. It's still in a general sense.

For each of the homeworks so far, he's covered very little of the methods required to do the problems.

The official text is worse than his lectures in terms of generalities and mathematical rigor.

The latest assignment is due Friday. As of last Friday's class he had covered nothing directly applicable to any of the eight problems. And then he canceled class for today and Wednesday, without changing the due date.

I worked from home today and got maybe four and a half of the problems done (just over half the assignment) using the 'net, two other texts I got from the library, and three others of my own. I have no idea if they're even close to being correct, but IMHO they're done.

I've been to talk to the prof when I had trouble earlier. It didn't help much. His office hours aren't exactly at a convenient time for me, either. IMHO, seeing how bureaucratic the math department is here, I don't think it would help one bit to talk to the department head.

Math prof just posted the answers to the exam.

The proof? Forget about it. I have no idea how we were supposed to know to do what he did in the answer.

The other four problems, I think I was on the right track part of the way for each, but at some (varying) point, I went astray.

Come on, partial credit!

If you remember anything about PDEs, read on...

So, I'm sitting staring at much of this first homework assignment, and I think I'm missing something. All I've managed to complete so far is are the second [EDIT: and first half of the fourth] problems. I do plan on talking to the prof during office hours tomorrow, and am hopeful some of my drawing blank is from the fact that he's not covered all the required info yet, but I thought I'd throw it out there for anyone who remembers this stuff.

I still like math, in many circumstances, but I'm beginning to accept that I prefer learning ways to solve problems rather than generating proofs. And I have noticed I tend to feel a bit stuck at the very beginning of a class until I pick up the required mode of thinking. One big sign I've grown in the last two decades is that during my freshman year, I would not have gone (nor did I go) looking for outside help, even considering the possibility that it's not me. Which is what allowed my accelerated freshman math classes to get over my head and launch me down the academic spiral that year.

Course             Title                         Official Grade              Units Earned
MATH 262     LINEAR ALGEBRA & DIFF EQUATNS                A+                        4.00

After failing the accelerated equivalent 21 years ago, this is an accomplishment. :-)

Noodling on Mathematics while I take a break from reading about the annihilator method of undetermined coefficients (there's a mouthful - don't click the link if you're scared ;-)), I have come up with two most likely unoriginal theories:

Sliding Window Memory

As one learns more advanced information regarding a particular topic, earlier, fundamental information on that topic is forgotten. Not completely, but recall is less likely or at least more error-prone. Knowing that, especially as I progress through mathematics education, I have a higher tendency to make sign and/or arithmetic errors, I think I have this to some degree. Watching the professor I have for this summer class, he has it as well. He's much more educated in mathematics, and makes more algebra mistakes than I do, providing evidence for my theory that some subject memory acts as a sliding window - the farther along one progresses, the more earlier stuff drops off the tail end. :-)

F*cking Magic

I've always jokingly referred to mathematics techniques I don't understand as being FM. As I learn more advanced techniques (and, from what I've seen, even what I'm learning now is hardly advanced by comparison to what's out there), I have enough evidence in my opinion not to stop regarding such things as FM but rather to confirm them as such. For example, not to bore or cause headaches with details, but the topic I'm currently reading for class seems to me to be just a way some folks in the 1800s or since developed to play with the numbers to get a solution to some ugly calculus equations they couldn't work out otherwise. Yes, they follow mathematical rules, but I think a lot of these techniques come from a lot of playing around, seeing what works, and developing tricks (only be sure always to call it, please, "research"[1]). Sure, it works. And I get it. But it's still FM.

Anyway, back to it...

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[1] - From the song Lobachevsky by Tom Lehrer.