Woggy Project #3: Learning Calculus

So, I believe in my last post I mentioned a point which in certain company is embarrassing to mention due to my lack of education, yet in other company is embarrassing to mention because it makes me look like some kind of nerdy freak. that point would be my desire to someday learn calculus.

"Calculus is the mathematical structure that lies at the core of a world of seemingly unrelated issues." -- Great Courses Catalog

Back in high school, I was advanced enough in math to be a year up on the "standard" math track, but a year behind the most advanced folks. This left me in a position where having finished my graduation-required math at the end of my junior year, I had the choice to opt out of math for my senior year. While I had been pretty good at math when I had been younger, several years of drudgerously-taught geometry and advanced algebra coupled with a general math-testing anxiety I had intermittently struggled with even in elementary school had left me eager to dispose quickly of any and all math duties, despite a rather enjoyable final year of very well-taught pre-calculus. I knew by this point in time that I was destined to be a great writer, or musician, or both. What did I need any more math for? So I opted for Creative Writing and Music Scholars instead.

Later, in the midst of college Physics and Stats classes, I finally realized after observing my study partners (something I never had in high school) that there was basically a whole different style to learning these more empirical sorts of topics that would allow you to succeed in learning a subject, and even excelling at that subject, even when it was one that didn't instantly make sense to you the first time you looked at it. My previous lack of understanding on this matter was something I realized had caused in large part my assumption by the 9th grade that I was simply "no good at math", putting a nail in the coffin of my grade-school astronomer aspirations.

This realization in college helped me see that in fact, I did still have, as I thought I did way back in the sixth grade, a pretty good head for math and science. In the way that I had to prepare for my humanities learning by sitting down and reading, reading, reading, I could prepare for math and science by doing problem sets, problem sets, problem sets. And having teachers who actually knew how to show me the bigger picture every now and then certainly helped fill things out. When I did these things, everything fell into place, the fog lifted, and these topics were challenging and fun again, instead of dreadfully boring and painfully futile. But of course, by the time I had realized this I was not only waist-deep in fulfilling my other childhood vision of becoming a writer, but lacking in, among other things, one key essential required for any program of study in the sciences, which is to say, high school calculus. I secretly considered switching to Physics but stuck doggedly and mostly happily to my English-degree path.

I entertained the idea while I was still in college of taking some sort of Calc class as a means to simply round out my education, in the way I had taken, say, Russian when I already had fulfilled my language requirement, but given my always-full schedule I continued to reason that at this late date, what would be the point anyway? I knew it would probably require alot of hard work and I might not ever end up using it anyway.

Fast forward some many years into the future, where I find myself getting more and more interested in topics of physics and astrophysics, especially where it concerned the nature of time and space, so much so that I begin writing a novel that has this as a general theme, and I found myself running headfirst into that large wall of obstacle called "never took high school calculus! d'oh!" I literally found myself having to stop cold in my reading of various physics texts over and over again because "the next section of this book assumes you have a familiarity with integral calculus", etc.

While I got quite adept at identifying the few physics writers who made it their business to explain things to the "laypeople", trying as best they could to help the calculus-impaired understand certain basic elements of the calculus as it relates to physics without our having to actually, er, learn calculus, I could tell there was still always some basic fundamental understanding missing due to my lack of knowledge. So I set out again to tackle this mathematical obstacle. I poked around in the community college and adult education catalogs, I grilled my math-degreed husband over exactly what parts of calculus did I really need to learn to understand all this stuff here on page 132 of this book and page 8 of this article over here. Finally one day I was in a used book store and saw a little booklet titled Calculus by and For Young People: ages 7, yes 7, and up. I thought well, if a 7 year old can do it...

I did start to read the booklet, and started to understand it a little bit. But it did take concentrated effort and I eventually ended up putting it back on the shelf for a later day. Truth be told I was a bit embarassed to be reading a book designed for 7 year olds. Then another day I saw a book called Calculus Refresher. I thought, now here's something that should boil down all those basic concepts for me, yet still talk to me like I was an educated adult. Although, that book too has sat patiently waiting for me on the shelf. The times I have thought to pick it up I've felt like a sham, like someone who was trying to pass herself off as someone who used to know calculus of course, but had simply gotten rusty over the years, and was looking to brush up the old noggin. What do you know about calculus, the book seemed to say to me. Who exactly do you think you are fooling?

Ultimately, while I do think I might actually read these books someday, the conclusion I think I've come to about this is that I really just need to take some sort of a class. But of course the embarrassment of actually having to sit in a class, at this point in life, and admit to a whole classful of people that I, an educated person, with two degrees, happened to have never learned calculus, has been a difficult hurdle for me to overcome.

A possible solution came in the mail a few weeks ago in the form of a catalog at The Great Courses University, a place that offers online and video lecture "courses" in various subjects taught by real actual college professors. They actually have a calculus class. It's designed exactly for people like myself, it seems. And no grades, tests, imagined snickering of classmates or teachers. So, who knows, maybe I'll actually get to it this time? A girl can dream!!

Things left to complete this woggy project:

• order calculus video class
• open packaging, etc.
• actually begin watching calculus class
• with a notebook and pen!
• repeat until calculus has been learned

or...

• read calculus books
• take notes
• repeat until calculus is learned

or...

• wait for magical calculus knowledge food to be invented
• choose flavor and buy calculus-knowledge food
• eat tasty, tasty calculus knowledge
• instantly know calculus!