Saturday, September 20, 2008

Surviving Pre-Calculus

Well, for those who don't know I'm taking Pre-Calculus this semester, along with working full-time. It's a 5-credit course and crams two other Calc prep courses into one semester. This saves me both time and money in the long run, but makes for quite a bit of work in the meantime.

HOWEVER -- I must say, it is FAR EASIER THAN LATIN!!!! LOL Each time I get frustrated, every time I start to feel overwhelmed, I just remember last Fall and my foray into Latin 101 and I thank my lucky stars I'm only in Pre-Calc!

*chuckle* At any rate, that doesn't mean that my experience doesn't come with its own challenges and hard won battles. The picture below is of one such battle, where I worked really really hard to solve the problem and finally found success:

VICTORY!



It was having to solve by completing the square, when the first polynomial had a coefficient other than 1. They didn't cover this in class really well (the lecturer actually said, and I quote, "I don't recommend this method for when you have a coefficient, and I'll show you a different method to use when you have a coefficient." So imagine my surprise when the online homework then REQUIRES using that method with the coefficient!) and so I had to scour the book to find out the how the heck one goes about doing this. I found it, and figured it out on my whiteboard, as shown in the picture.

Speaking of my whiteboard, that was my solution to previously using tons of paper, going through pencil lead like mad, and having eraser shavings strewn about the house. After watching a gazillion episodes of "Numb3rs," my new favorite TV show, I realized a white board would make an EXCELLENT alternative to paper. So I hopped down to Walgreens, picked one up, and never looked back!

It's not good for the written homework (since those need to be referenced in class) but it's great for the online homework that never needs the work referred to again.

So this class is the first of two required to CODO (Change of Degree Objective) into the school of choice, which is Management. Under that college, I will be majoring in Accounting for my Bachelor's. From there, I am seriously contemplating going all the way to Ph.D in Finance. We'll just have to see where life takes me after Bachelor's. I would really enjoy doing research in ways to educate low-income people in finance and study the effects it has on their financial lives.

Til next time,

FLB

3 comments:

jenni said...

Yay Math - I <3 Math.
I <3 Math so much - i would totally marry it!

A little jealous you get to do math still.. maybe I should take a calc class so I can drool over my math homework.

I REALLY <3 math!

Fluffy Bunny Slippers said...

*chuckle* I could always post problems of the day for you...... :D

jenni said...

oooh that's tempting -- very very tempting