During my senior year of high school, I almost failed my pre-calculus class. I would average around 50 to 60 percent for every single one of my exams, and if the grading system did not become lenient because of the COVID-19 pandemic, I would have legitimately failed the class. In all honesty, when it came to any math class in high school, I did not try that hard; I mainly did whatever I needed to in order to get by. For me, that simply meant looking at an example and then trying to figure out how I could manipulate that example for the problem I was working on. For this reason, I absolutely did not know what I was doing. This worked for my first three years of high school, but unfortunately, it did not for my fourth…and I had no clue why.
Given my long and atrocious history with the subject of mathematics, I was not happy about having to take two sections of calculus for my major once I began college. In fact, I was extremely scared that I would fail. Therefore, I decided to retake pre-calculus my freshman year and I’m really glad that I did. I ended up going to my lecturer’s office hours, who would spend time not only teaching concepts relating to pre-calculus but also how concepts from algebra contributed to what we were learning in pre-calculus. This essentially allowed me to better understand the background for the problems I was working on and in turn guided me to a deeper understanding…I realized that I most likely should have changed my study habits when it came to pre-calculus during high school.
As you move forward in the subject, math does get more difficult. So regardless of what you’ve done in the past, you may have to readjust yourself when you’re advancing from one class to another or even from one chapter to another. Initially, I would get so frustrated that it felt like I was taking a math class and studying the same way I did before, but something was still wrong. However, change and growth in any aspect, whether it is about math or not, require readjustment from time to time. And I have realized this more than ever during my third year as a college student.
Currently, I am taking fewer units than I have ever had in my college career, and I still feel extremely overwhelmed by my course load. I originally felt as though I should be less overwhelmed as I’m taking fewer units and that since I’m a third-year, I should also be used to the college work. Although, I know many of my friends feel similarly going into their upper-division courses. Mathematically speaking, however, change and growth are never linear. So when you do feel overwhelmed by the fact that you are struggling with something you should not be, it’s always okay to take a step back and try to understand why.