Lemme tell you, I felt pretty damn useless with math after graduating with a BS (mechanical). This really hit me when I when I enrolled in a math intensive fluid dynamics course, and after the first class I realized that I could not teach the math to myself fast enough.

Multivariable / vector calculus should really be required at the undergraduate level, but it wasn't part of my requirements, so I never took the classes.

Cookbook math just sucks... For calculus 1 and 2, we had to do these stupid computer calculus problems (derivatives for calc 1, and integrals for calc 2) in order to be eligible for certain grade levels. They were a major pain and all that happened was that we learned how to solve textbook problems of certain forms.

When I got into differential equations, I went to every lecture and took tons of notes, but it really didn't register. The professor tried a more theoretical basis for showing how the methods were derived...but, for a large amount of information and a wide audience (probably a lecture of 200+ students), it just didn't work. I simply decided to "teach myself" how to solve the problems through repetition, but I really didn't understand what I was doing...

I'm pretty sure that I'm not the only person who's had this experience. It seems awfully common nowadays.

Math is the language of the sciences and engineering - you'd think graduating students would be fluent in it, but it doesn't seem to work like that.


Personally, I think the best math courses are the ones with a small class size and where the course curriculum is dependent on the classe's understanding of the fundamental principles. Don't teach to have students pass a test, teach to provide understanding.

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1982 240D, sold 9/17/2008
1987 300D TurboW124.133 - 603.960, 722.317 - Smoke Silver Metallic / Medium Red (702/177), acquired 8/15/2009
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