Just a warning for everyone.

I'm currently trying to read a Japanese book. Be prepared for a wave of questions.

haha

Math just got indeterminate times harder. I no longer understand what I'm doing.

@Flaw What level?

University

the math.... calc?

I don't feel confident of scoring A anymore. Erm, it's not one thing, so far I have fundamental theorem of calculus, limits, L' Hopital's rule, Fourier series, Taylor's series

I couldn't do the practice test paper to a standard that I'm satisfied with.

Meanwhile, instead of revising my math topics I'm trying to figure out the meaning and usage of いいか, いい加減 and いい加減にしろ

I'm now even more confused after finding いいかげんにしたら駄目よ

I was reading the original discussion from yadokari

@Flaw heh... yeah... calc.

Part of the problem is that Calc isn't really a coherent class (or anywhere near the right place in the progression of your math education)

As a result, it tends to be alot of "memorize this because you need to know it", you don't get to the "why" for several years

That's how I'm dealing with it now

Well this part here works because of some math magic

and lets leave it at that since it seems to get me the correct answer.

Why? Well it works because of reasons.

¯\(°_o)/¯

@Flaw: Fundamentally, the other problem is that calc is a new layer of mathematics. Arithmetic is calculation/manipulation of known quantities. In Algebra, you start to manipulate unknown quantities. In Calc, you start to manipulate equations at once... that's actually quite strange until you get used to it.

I don't know what high school is like over there but I think here at least the idea is that students should know algebra before entering uni.. (though most people completely miss the point and rather see it all as magic instead)

@gibbon Kinda depends on your major. Technically-minded students are expected to do Calc 1 at university, first semester of the first year. (Although if you go to a good high school, you might have done that in high school already)

I mean the most people I studied with wasn't even comfortable with treating 1/x as x^-1 and things like that..

If someone is going into a non-engineering/science major (like Japanese!), then they'll probably take "College Algebra" sometime in the sophomore-junior years

And why you'd take algebra when studying Japanese is something I'll never understand. :P But that's how college works I suppose.

Because otherwise you end up rediculously narrowminded >_>

People have lives outside of college though

If I'm there to study something I want to study that something.

And broaden my views on my own time.

then study it... but don't expect a degree out of it

The degree certifies more than "you studied X"

If you want a certification that "I studied X", that's what certifications and exams are for (like the JLPT)

If you want a degree, you have to show that you can handle actually learning something. (theoretically, anyways)

Sure, I just think that "something" shouldn't be a bunch of stuff unrelated to your major. I too was forced to take at least one such class and it just felt pointless.

You can see this clearly when you compare it to the advanced degrees, where the university is certifying that you not only have studied physics (for example), but are an 'expert' at some particular area for the Master's degree. Different purpose, so it doesn't require the same "broadening" courses.

"Sustainable development" or something.. A bunch of hippie stuff about how we are affecting the environment etc.. Apparently important because I went to an engineering uni and engineers should know that stuff.

I studied quite a bit of History, Philosophy and English when I was an undergrad physics major.

None of it changed the way I think as much as the Physics degree (fundamentally... the whole point of college), but it was quite worthwhile.

Which is all fun, interesting and in some ways useful.. but did it make you better at understanding physics?

right

Actually there are some odd parallels

There always are :)

(particularly in philosophy)

And I suspect it would make the technical subjects MUCH stronger if they focused more on the "who" of their fields... shared a bit more of how some of the decisions and experiments were made.

I say this all with the caveat that your odds of avoiding a worthless classical liberal arts department are not very good.

When? And I didn't get what you were trying to say about the "who", but I suspect it had some tie to some "philosophical ideas".

@gibbon I just mean that if you take a random philosophy 101 course at your university... it's likely to be junk.

I bet.. I'd never try such a thing. :P Actually we don't even have it at the uni I went to.

..though of course we could take classes from the other big uni in this city which is a bit more humanities-oriented. And sometimes have the credits counted towards our degrees. But philosophy? I don't think so.. don't know.

I've often felt that students build up this wall between "college work" and "real work" that really doesn't need to exist. Technical students, in particular, overstate the similarity between what they're doing in school and what they'll do in the 'real world'.

definitely

It sounds a bit like I'm contradicting myself... so I should probably clarify. The point of the school work is NOT to teach you how to calculate boundary conditions for electron probability densities in highly artificial scenarios. (which... technically... is the only thing they teach) The point is to teach you how to think about the problem.

Students overconcentrate on the "You solve this problem by doing things that make math majors cry ('dx is a variable'!!!)", rather than on setting up the right framework and vocabulary. A little more focus on people who are trying to solve these problems for real (or who originally solved the problem) might help to make it more obvious.

jkerian, do you know vi heart? from youtube?

no

maybe I spelled her name wrong

hart

she's just really cool to watch, and she's really smart, and you end up learning math things just by watching her doodle

haha... that is quite excellent