Engineering/maths/brain melt etc

[killa]

Here’s the thing.
I’m currently 27 years young. 3-4 years ago, reluctantly I wondered back into college to gain an ONC in Engineering. I say reluctantly as I could foresee how it would pan out.
Disorganised, often condescending tutors, trying to teach people in their late teens early 20’s.
I battled through poor classroom conditions and kit eventually being relocated into the new building where I finished the course with a merit overall.
Now in 2011 I have been offered to go back and do my HNC in engineering. I started Monday. Things didn’t go so well.
First, some background...

My school life was good, simply put, I mean I left with ok, overall grades. Due to certain instances through my life my maths has always suffered, not due to the fact it’s not an enjoyable subject. I tried hard to gain ground with it. I stayed after school sometimes in the first couple of years, i was put in the bottom set for maths with the kids that were as bad or just trouble makers. Learning in there was impossible at times. I never reached a decent level of understanding with it...my GCSE paper required 80% or higher to gain the highest mark of the paper which was a C. I think. I got an F.
In A levels I took Engineering, I.T and Technology as my brain seems to be wired to pick these things up easier than most subjects. I got on well, so I took after school lessons for extra maths. Again, didn’t do so well, the level in that class was above what I had previously learnt.
When I left education to go and get work, the next time I’d face any math’s would be during my ONC, some 4-5 years later. I did struggle but I grasped enough to get through some of it, I was helped out by a colleague of mine at my last job.

Back to the present day. I was handed an assignment from the college, to see if I could cope with the level of maths for the two years. Seems a lot of previous stuff on there but juggled about a bit. The thread asking for help is in this section. I’ve come to be in this new job, on a decent wage, after self teaching myself AutoCAD in 2001, I’ve levelled up to now use Inventor 3D CAD over the years.
Math’s I’m no good at, but software wise I get on fine. Engineering issues in my line of work I’m currently learning. So it almost balances out.

So this is a good job, I enjoy what I’m doing and I couldn’t turn down some training.
Monday was awful. The tutors weren’t organised and to top it off my science lecturer is Asian and has terrible English, I mean bad.
The math’s well...the assignment wasn’t going to help. This was well above my station and i seemed to be struggling the most. The lecturer was late and she proceeded to blast through some maths leaving me behind. I was too overwhelmed to ask for help as the rest of the class got on ok.
Numbers go in my eyes and ears then my brain automatically decides to hide all the of the solutions leaving me with a empty void.

I’m not giving up, I’m going to give this a go like I did with my ONC. The thing is, in my current position, what do I do if I fuc** up? They’ll know i can’t do it. I know I can’t become Carol Voderman in this short time.
I don’t know where my career is going now. I can use 3D CAD, i could probably visualise what I want to design, it’s just I’m useless at calculations.

WHICH IS WHAT ENGINEERING IS ULTIMATELY.






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Cleverly disguised as a responsible adult.
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[Rogerborg]

All I can do is sympathise. People who can do maths are freaks, who seem as a whole utterly unable to teach the subject to those who don't have computer-brains.

"And so we can clearly see...", "It is trivial to show..."

No, we can't. No, it isn't.

I struggled with the maths parts of a physics degree, ballsed it up, and had to switch to computer science, where it's less obvious that I'm a maths spacker.

However, long, long after graduating, I decided to buckle down and get to grips with some of the stuff that had always eluded me, by working on the maths part of a 3D engine.

Stuff me, but it's brain aching stuff. I just can't "see" the solutions the way that a freakbrain can, so I had to point fingers and talk out loud and just dick around with equations and plug numbers into matrices more or less at random and see what vomited out the other side to try and get an idea of how wrong I was.

But it did work. I got everything done, eventually. I didn't enjoy one second of it, other than the moment of relief when things finally started spinning the right way.

So I guess what I'm saying that you may just have to put in a lot more hours of independent study than the freakbrains in order to keep up. It's not going to get easier, but you can get it done, even if it means sweat and constipation-face.
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[stinkwheel]

One wee tip.

Try doing your maths problems on a blackboard rather than on paper. Can make them easier to "see" and if you make a mistake you can just rub it out and it's as if it wasn't there. If you have your own wee systems and helpers, you can chalk them up there then rub them out again.

Einstein came up with relativity on a blackboard.

As one maths spacker to another, it helps.
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[The Artist]

One piece of advice, DON'T ask CHRI5 for any help with maths.

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[Charlie]

You need to speak to your tutor about it. The college/university in general will probably do a maths drop in session, unrelated to your course. That way you can get extra help. At least that was what my university did.

It is hard, but like you said you just need to battle through it. Keep doing it again and again. If the teaching is consistently bad complain. The tutors can get fired pretty easily and they won't be as protected as high school teachers. People have complained about a lecturer who had such a thick asian accent you could barely understand. The following week he started speaking much slower and with a microphone to make it louder.
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[Bru]

Some get it. Some don't.

For those of us somewhere inbetween, there is this:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Engineering-Mathematics-K-Stroud/dp/1403942463

I have done every single question in that book. Every. Single. Question.

It may seem intimidating, and about as understandable as something you don't understand. Start at the beginning of the relevant chapter. Do every exercise. Stare at it. Work through it.

If you feel uncomfortable asking 'stupid' questions in class, pursue the tutor afterwards. It's your future.

[herulach]

How mathsy do you need to be? Get yourself a copy of maple from the uni shop, if you can program you can do any maths you wan.t
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[Ariel Badger]

There should be some kind of support in place for people with problems with things like maths and dyslexia. I am back in study and such provision is promoted in the university.
Speak out now or what is a bit of a problem will turn into a massive obstacle to your future.
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[killa]

Thanks for the input guys.
I find the difficult bit, knowing where to start. As soon as i start to get a little familiar with something, the goal posts are shifted and it’s onto something else.
Engineering maths is massive. When faced with new equations and new ways of solving maths, some people have the ‘rules’ in mind and therefore can see what would fill the gaps. I do enjoy the solutions but I’m often left at the starting blocks on very simple issues.
I guess I’m hoping the tutors or course leader will take pity and offer me something extra during the course, i don’t want to jeopardise the whole thing.
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[Charlie]

[killa]

[Rogerborg]

Reset brain: they're your employees. If they can't do the job, why are they getting paid?
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[multijoy]

https://www.khanacademy.org/

Heard some good things about it - bloke has a knack for getting concepts across.
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[Rogerborg]

[SoND]

[Nick 50]

Unfortunately with Engineering there is no way of getting away from the Maths.

I done an Access course in Engineering. It had been 15 years since my GCSE's and I got an A in maths back then. I found it pretty hard going Maths wise too. I hadn't realised just how much maths would be involved at the start.

It is very hard to find an excellent teacher for the subject in my opinion. Most teachers are up at say Level 7 and I think find it incredibly difficult to undo it all so they can then teach back at say Level 3 stuff.
My Teacher for my Level 3 maths Had a Masters in Maths from Cambridge and a Ph.D in Engineering and before teaching was project lead on designing Jet Engines. He flew through a lot of stuff which just went over my head.
Most of the time I had to write notes as best as I could then take them home and try and unravel.

The best way for learning a particular part is plain and simple repetition. Start of easy and then when you can do it blindfolded, then make it a bit harder and repeat.

If you have a specific problem let me know and I may be able to help via video tutorials.
Tomorrow I start my Mechanical Engineering Degree so am probably just a bit further down a very similar path so hopefully what you cover will be fresh in my mind.

[Villers]

This is so familiar to me, you are describing the exact way I was a few years ago and in pretty much the same situation.

Im am an engineer but I specialise in maintenance, repair and projects on evacuation systems, radiometrics and gaseous effluent systems. I have an ONC and I somehow managed to get the HNC, mainly due to the same issues you have described.

Similarly, at school I was a high flyer especially in written subjects, science and maths. When i started senior school I had a real hard time of it in maths, due to the attitude of the teachers etc and I began to hate it. I would just try to be elsewhere in my head because I found it so unbearable, I ended up with a bad aversion to anything mathematic. Fast forward a bit and I lost interest in everything when girls came along but I scraped my GCSE's. My apprenticeship went on the same lines, I enjoyed being at work all week and hated the college bit, as there was lots of maths. Sound familiar?

In the end up a group of us had to work together to get through the maths stuff, basically just scraping a pass. I simply couldnt do it because I had the completely wrong attitude to it and feared it. I still cant do it, but then again I dont need to be able to do a quadratic equation or integration to be able to get a piece of kit working again!

I can't really offer any practical advice but what I will say is that maths gets infinitaly harder when you start to think you cant do it, Im not one for 'positive mental attitude' but I think it helps here. Get on with it the best you can in the short term and then spend the rest of your life forgetting about it and living in bliss!
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[killa]