Electronics > Beginners

Maths in Engineering

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rstofer:
Many universities have a web based rating system for professors and while the results tend to skew high, it is still worth investigating.  If there are multiple professors for a given course, it might be better to select the one with the higher rating.

Alas, some courses only have one professor.  The early courses (first 2 years) tend to have multiple professors simply because of the number of students.

Or, you can go to a university where the courses are televised and there will be hundreds taking the class from a single professor with a herd of teaching assistants.

Recon!  Know before you go!

nigelwright7557:
Learning can be hard work.
I recently converted a 500,000 line program from wpf .net to .net core 3.1.
Some of it was just straight copying of code but other parts were quite different and I had to rewrite chunks of code.
At one point I was doing 15 hours a day converting code.
I was going to bed afterwards and having long nightmares about my code not working !
But if you keep going you eventually get there.

Rick Law:

--- Quote from: anvoice on December 30, 2019, 10:33:34 pm ---...
...

--- Quote from: Rick Law on December 30, 2019, 07:07:47 am ---If the college already accepted you, it is the college telling you they think you can and they are giving you a go at it.  If there is any chance at all that you can push yourself to the finish line.  Go for it.

--- End quote ---
I agree that is a bit off the mark. Colleges accepting people doesn't mean a thing if people aren't willing to put in the work to pass their courses. Especially if you have a huge handicap like the OP does, you better be prepared to put in five times the effort of everyone else to pass.

My concern here is why the OP has a problem with math. If he knew he was bad at it, but is extremely driven and wants to do hardware anyway, he might have found a way around this issue already, by working with a tutor, taking extra classes, or putting in extra work in general. If he isn't particularly driven in the first place, and bad at math, he won't fare well in university. Finally, if he is extremely driven but still unable to do math despite trying harder than anyone, it may again mean he'll face difficulty in class.

--- End quote ---

The "why" is my concern too.  I am being repetitive here just in case the OP read this thread.  That "why" was the reason much of my original reply was to encourage an exploration and think about why the lack of confidence when it comes to math.  Most important perhaps is to take the practice SAT, feel the pressure and actually think about what how it felt.  That is a good way to see if it was pressure, foundational knowledge, or whatever may be driving that lack of confidence.  Can't solve a problem that is unknown so knowing it (defining it) is step 1.

Math is intimidating.  I hope that is the main hold back.  That can easily be fixed: courage and working harder.  Make yourself do it, and then you know you can.  Once you know you can, it is no longer intimidating any more.  You become the boss.  You control it then.


--- Quote from: rstofer on December 30, 2019, 09:57:53 pm ---
--- Quote from: coppice on December 30, 2019, 10:48:56 am ---
--- Quote from: Rick Law on December 30, 2019, 07:07:47 am ---I am with those who have been saying "go for it."  If the college already accepted you, it is the college telling you they think you can and they are giving you a go at it.

--- End quote ---
That's a very naive view. In much of the world colleges will accept practically anyone, and expect a huge drop out rate at the end of the first year.

--- End quote ---

And yet thousands of others make it through the program.  It is a matter of interest and drive.  All of the other students passed, there is no reason the OP can't pass also.  But it's going to take work.  All that math he didn't take in High School is going to jump up and bite him in the butt.  Just the way it goes...

--- End quote ---

Coppice :  You do have a point there.  In my eagerness to encourage the OP not to ignore an opportunity, I overlooked how much downward spiral our colleges have suffered.  So, I assumed (and hope) OP did his home work and made sure that it was a reputable college.

I agree with rstofer here.  It is a matter of interest and drive.   "Gut check" time - how much of yourself are you willing to give to get this goal done.

Nominal Animal:

--- Quote from: NANDBlog on December 30, 2019, 11:29:30 pm ---University math is different than high school math. Profs have a lot of possibility to be crazy, both ways.
--- End quote ---
Very true.  There is also a huge difference in "math" math and "applied" math; i.e. between math as a research subject and math as a tool.  I'm horrible at the former (I fail at proofs, for example), but pretty good at the latter (using math to describe and solve problems), myself.

I was almost 30 when I realized I really like using math to find solutions for types of problems, rather than using math to find an answer to a specific problem.  (When I first told a friend I had realized I love this meta-problem-solving aspect of applied math, they called me a pretentious fool and laughed at me.  Fair enough, but my point was that although I am not that good at mathematics as a science, I really enjoy helping others find tools that allow them to solve and construct things neither of us could do alone.  Nothing pretentious in the idea, just poorly expressed.  I'm like a cook that has specialized in helping others learn how to create new recipes, instead of making new recipes, or just cooking the same dishes every night.)

As a personal example, I failed the first part of a split math course at university (applied math; about mathematical methods for physicists), but got a good grade (4 out of 5) for the latter part.  The difference was that I wrote my own "lecture notes" for the latter part.  (The structure of the course was more about math as a science, involving classes of special functions, with tools for solving different types of differential equations as side notes, scattered all over the math-as-a-science text.  My own notes skipped all the history, and instead concentrated on the solution methods, starting from how to determine which approach was likely to yield a solution, and so on.  Because that's what a physicist actually needs; math-as-a-science being useful and one possible approach to practical solutions, but non-critical.)

All the above is to illustrate to the OP, that their own work to find maths resources that helps them find the approach that works for them to learn the mathy tools they need, is absolutely crucial.  Nobody will "offer" it on a plate; it will be completely up to you yourself to find them.  It will take a lot of effort, but my own example is proof that it is not only possible, it can even become very easy.

As a corollary, I personally don't even remember Maxwell's equations by heart. I do understand their context and meaning, and given a problem, I can usually immediately see if (one or more of) the equations can be applied to solve the problem.  I just don't remember the details -- or I do not trust myself to remember the details correctly.  (I've always been poor at memorizing things like names and equations, but that hasn't been a hindrance: instead of memorizing things, I learned to instead understand them, and look the details up quickly and efficiently, at a young age.  It takes more time and effort, but the results speak for themselves.)


--- Quote from: NANDBlog on December 30, 2019, 11:29:30 pm ---Others will fail you on the same exam, if you write a + instead of a - somewhere.
--- End quote ---
And that really annoys me, especially since there isn't usually enough time to double-check ones own work!

One extremely useful method, often ignored by engineers, is dimensional analysis; essentially, keeping the measurement units with the numerical values within equations.  This has been extremely useful for myself, and made math so much easier/understandable for me.

As an example, consider a problem where you are given a circuit of some sort, and you need to find the power consumed in one specific component of it. You solve the current passing over the component [in amperes, A] and the voltage drop over it [in volts, V].   Let's say the current is 0.300 A and the voltage drop is 4.9 V. If you were used to using only the numerical values, you might simply multiply 0.300×4.9=1.47, and give that as the answer.  But, because of dimensional analysis, when seeing 0.3A and 4.9V, you know that to obtain the power, you need to know if the voltage is relatively stable direct current (in which case [VA] = [W]) or not; if not, you need to additionally know the waveform and phase difference of the voltage and current, to find out the true power.  A short note in the solution, say "because power P = U I for constant direct current, power P = 0.3 A × 4.9 V = 1.47 VA = 1.47 W", will not only show that you understood the situation correctly, but also remind yourself that for alternating current, you'd need to either know more about the voltage and current, or make assumptions about them, to be able to give an answer.

WattsThat:
Interesting question on that test document. I’m wondering what it has to do with math, logic or anything other than holding a license to operate a motor vehicle in Australia:

15 Sam is the driver at fault in a car accident.
Which of the following is covered by Sam’s compulsory third-party (CTP) insurance?
A. Repairs to Sam’s car
B. Injury to the other driver
C. Damage to the other driver’s car
D. Cost of repairing a building damaged in the accident

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