Strategies That Worked For Me (Veteran Voices)
Strategies That Worked For Me (Veteran Voices)
Transcript
I had quite a long break between high school and college of about 13, 14 years, maybe more. Don't even really recall what I did in high school for mathematics. But coming to the four year college, and starting with calculus, pre calculus in the summer, then calculus in the fall. It was difficult, to say the least. So I had to come up with creative ways to take notes. Know when to stop taking notes and pay attention to what's going on in the classroom. Because sometimes the professor may be saying or doing something and you're so busy just trying to keep up with them that you miss something important.
And in a technical course especially in mathematics courses it's the little details that you need to be really, really focused on. So I had to, like I said, create strategies that worked for me. And one of them was just taking very meticulous and partitioned notes. When you, you develop a sense for when the subject matter is kind of going in another direction and you can block off what you were just talking about in the lecture and move on to the next thing. Just separate it with a thick line. Headers on all the notes, always. That way for quick referencing, if I wanna go back and find a specific formula or a specific theorem that we were talking about I can always find it because I have everything referenced with headers. And then another thing is utilizing office hours. Office hours, even with the TA can be incredibly productive and clarify things that are confusing.
And if that still isn't enough then I use a lot of online resources. I use YouTube religiously. There's a few channels that I like to subscribe to and watch their videos about mathematics.
And I won't say specific ones, just because everybody has to find their own YouTube, whatever it is, whatever their online resource is, and whatever works for them because for difficult concepts in math, science, engineering, all the STEM stuff. Hearing it explained in many different ways is what helps you understand it.
So if your professor explains it one way in lecture and your TA explains it in another way in their office hours, and then maybe one of your peers who's very, very well versed in whatever the technical course is explains it in yet another way, you can always find more ways that these concepts can be explained by people who have YouTube videos. So these are like, and they're free, so free resources are always good.
And in a technical course especially in mathematics courses it's the little details that you need to be really, really focused on. So I had to, like I said, create strategies that worked for me. And one of them was just taking very meticulous and partitioned notes. When you, you develop a sense for when the subject matter is kind of going in another direction and you can block off what you were just talking about in the lecture and move on to the next thing. Just separate it with a thick line. Headers on all the notes, always. That way for quick referencing, if I wanna go back and find a specific formula or a specific theorem that we were talking about I can always find it because I have everything referenced with headers. And then another thing is utilizing office hours. Office hours, even with the TA can be incredibly productive and clarify things that are confusing.
And if that still isn't enough then I use a lot of online resources. I use YouTube religiously. There's a few channels that I like to subscribe to and watch their videos about mathematics.
And I won't say specific ones, just because everybody has to find their own YouTube, whatever it is, whatever their online resource is, and whatever works for them because for difficult concepts in math, science, engineering, all the STEM stuff. Hearing it explained in many different ways is what helps you understand it.
So if your professor explains it one way in lecture and your TA explains it in another way in their office hours, and then maybe one of your peers who's very, very well versed in whatever the technical course is explains it in yet another way, you can always find more ways that these concepts can be explained by people who have YouTube videos. So these are like, and they're free, so free resources are always good.