(23/04/2012 07:03 PM)ZiNgA BuRgA Wrote:  

(21/04/2012 05:23 PM)Tetris999 Wrote:  This course is pants on head confusing, or at least from what I'm getting so far.

Algorithms can be confusing if you haven't really done them before.  Though if you're doing computer science, you should get comfortable with them cause you're probably only going to get more...

(22/04/2012 08:13 AM)Tetris999 Wrote:  Man what? I haven't even gotten around to doing things like this, just math, math and MOAR MATH (then again I only did 3 courses in my term due to my chocolatety choice to switch majors). This is why comp sci at my uni sucks, should've just stayed with their traditional sciences (where they are 1337 in) than try out their take on computer science.

Hopefully I see stuff like this later on in my year :/

Computer science is somewhat more geared to maths, algorithms, abstractions etc - it isn't particularly that practical, so don't expect to do too much of that sort of thing...

Well, I'm only complaining about it because of the slur of information when reading any scientific text documenting areas of mathematics. Not to seem like some poser or anything, but I really like math, I just don't like to struggle to understand the jargon that many experts use. It's almost like every mathematics professor/person believes that people cannot have a learning curve into understanding something and must take it for what it is. It's as if you walked into a language course and the professor taught the course in french, assuming that this "immersive" approach is something that people can understand right off the bat (some courses actually do this, later when you are at third year or fourth).

Of course, understanding mathematical jargon comes with time, but it is frustrating nonetheless when all explanations are extremely linear and straight forward, as soon as you don't understand a piece of information in a math textbook (and ESPECIALLY an algorithmic course), it's very hard to be able to interpret the ideas and techniques into something that you can understand.

A math textbook assumes that you have MASTERED concepts before going on to the next concept and therein lies the problem, math, in general, for me has never been _taught_, rather my life's approach to it is that it needs to be researched itself.

There's never been a single math textbook that has explained things rationally to me, ever, it was usually myself looking at reading things that made no sense, me playing around with the equations and then formulating my own theory on what the chapter is talking about.

In short, I just thought that this was the way it was and that if I didn't want to seem incompetent, I would be able to struggle past it. That was, until, I got into my statistics course this year and the prof made the WORLD of explaining mathematical concepts through repetition, different takes on the information and the break down of jargon so that people who are unfamiliar with the subject can understand. Fuck, that's the REASON why people go to school! It's someone holding your hand through territories that are unfamiliar to you as the student, that's why math professors suck because they never seem to try and put themselves into an "idiots" shoes.

I digress though, there HAS to be some point where you can become fluent in understanding mathematical ideas, but I don't believe that time comes when you're out of highschool, or even when you are doing your bachelors (for me, I've only done second year courses so far and I still find some speech as "foreign" to my understanding).

(This post was last modified: 23/04/2012 09:58 PM by Tetris999.)