I got about 8 years into my four year degree program in between interesting part time and then full time jobs on the side, and recently came to a set of realizations:
1. I'm never going to finish this damn thing because I keep failing or almost failing math courses (and it happens the three required courses I have left are gated by math courses). All it does at this stage is make me feel inferior. (I do suck at thinking mathemetically, but I guess I've sucked at it for long enough I can deal with it in practice. Alas, they aren't buying it :b).
2. The only required course that remains which I'm really interested in doing is about writing a compiler, but I could do this myself. I'd miss having the excellent prof who teaches it, but that isn't worth the tuition until then. I already found my way into the others. There were some good ones which I'm really glad I did.
3. Upon graduating, my job prospects wouldn't change. Things are going fine. I might regret not having the piece of paper if I want to switch fields, but…
4. Outside of two or three excellent CS courses, the courses I have most enjoyed and grown from have been humanities and archaeology electives. They have a more interesting, diverse range of students; heaps of opportunity for cross-discipline thinking; and content I genuinely know nothing about, would like to learn about, and have no idea where to start. If I decide at some point I'd like to finish my degree, I'd probably take more of those courses and try to find an applicable degree than suffering through more CS.
The trouble with CS is (as a job training program, as opposed to a program about science and mathemtics), if you're the type of person who's doing the degree program because you're already doing this stuff, there's a decent chance you could find a relevant job while you're still at school. And that job _also_ provides educational opportunities, because that's how our field works. Unless you are in a place where that four year full time degree thing works for you, it makes itself irrelevant.
One of my professors I liked told me she “Will not start teaching a class until she can do 100 practice problems in the subject she teaches”. We had an 84 year old lady pass the class with us.
I don’t know what you’re struggling with but maybe retake a previous Calc 1 class to pass calc 2. Audit calc 3/statistics so it’s just practice.
Obtain a different book and do the entire thing on your own, not only the even or odd problems.
I had to hate math and the embrace the suck to start enjoying it.
Wolfram Alpha is a good friend in math.
Oh, I agree, I really would like to get better at math. I find usually this stuff makes sense for me after it's percolated for a while and I eventually find an application for it that I like, and _then_ it gets exciting and easy to sort through. (Which is perfectly normal, but I suppose I just don't have the patience for the first stage there, where the subject is more abstract). Indeed, Wolfram Alpha is awesome for working through problems. Perhaps having a book on the side for when I cross paths with discrete math stuff would help to connect the dots faster. Was there one that worked particularly well for you?
1. I'm never going to finish this damn thing because I keep failing or almost failing math courses (and it happens the three required courses I have left are gated by math courses). All it does at this stage is make me feel inferior. (I do suck at thinking mathemetically, but I guess I've sucked at it for long enough I can deal with it in practice. Alas, they aren't buying it :b).
2. The only required course that remains which I'm really interested in doing is about writing a compiler, but I could do this myself. I'd miss having the excellent prof who teaches it, but that isn't worth the tuition until then. I already found my way into the others. There were some good ones which I'm really glad I did.
3. Upon graduating, my job prospects wouldn't change. Things are going fine. I might regret not having the piece of paper if I want to switch fields, but…
4. Outside of two or three excellent CS courses, the courses I have most enjoyed and grown from have been humanities and archaeology electives. They have a more interesting, diverse range of students; heaps of opportunity for cross-discipline thinking; and content I genuinely know nothing about, would like to learn about, and have no idea where to start. If I decide at some point I'd like to finish my degree, I'd probably take more of those courses and try to find an applicable degree than suffering through more CS.
The trouble with CS is (as a job training program, as opposed to a program about science and mathemtics), if you're the type of person who's doing the degree program because you're already doing this stuff, there's a decent chance you could find a relevant job while you're still at school. And that job _also_ provides educational opportunities, because that's how our field works. Unless you are in a place where that four year full time degree thing works for you, it makes itself irrelevant.