Starting BSc Mathematics and Physics




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 So I finally enrolled in Math and Physics Bsc degree.
This has been one of my passions in life, and a pending subject for my personal development.

 I am so excited I woke up at 6am this morning, sorted out a few things for work and home, made a cup of coffee, and sipped while logging into the math subject web-page.
Of course I was met with the first exercise, a quiz. One of those "let’s see how rusted you are"-quiz .

 Actually, the course will be starting in October, but there is some introduction material to review, and to make sure all the basics are in place in one's head. I find this really cool, especially for a distance learning degree.

So how was my first day back to school?

Well, lately, I have been checking quite a few of Math videos in the internet. Very interesting are those from PBS infinite series, 3Blue1Brown, Khan Academy and MIT OCW. So I gave the quiz a go.

 I believe my understanding was good enough, and this quiz was not too difficult, high school level math.
But I did fail more questions than I expected. I am so rusted!
But why did I fail? While I gained a lot of understanding of algebra, basic calculus, trig, etc via internet learning; my arithmetic skills were terrible. I haven’t done much beyond basic sums and multiplications during my “adulthood”.

Time to improve my skill set.

I will take the summer to review my arithmetic. And develop both skill and intuition about numbers and operations. I can’t believe I have forgotten so much.

 One big insight I got from the quiz is the concept of knowledge vs skill: knowledge and Math concepts vs Math skills.

 That on its own is a big lesson learnt.

 I can’t wait to see the next chapter in Math!

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