In high school, I got a D in first semester calculus, and declared myself "done" with math. Up until that point, I had used a calculator as a crutch, but calculus required symbolic manipulation that could not be faked. My dad's influence was stronger than my mom's -- she was fearless, but he frequently spoke of how "bad at math" he was. And that was an easy out. I was just taking after my dad, "bad at math!"
Around that time, I went from noodling around with programming, to taking it seriously. I learned a bunch of programming languages, and landed a web development job straight out of school. I wasn't just done with math, I was done with school, too!
After a few years of that, I got bored with web dev, and decided I'd rather try my hand at engineering of some sort. I enrolled in community college, and quickly discovered that all of the engineering courses had... math prerequisites. So I bit the bullet, and for the first time, applied myself. Turns out that I wasn't intrinsically bad at math; I just hadn't been sufficiently motivated! I was paying my own way, so I ended up taking a job in the tutoring center. As I transferred to university, I found myself taking more and more of these math "prerequisites" and not following through on the engineering courses. I matriculated as a math major, and today I've got a PhD in math.
In my mid-20s, I didn't even believe that I could be Math A person. But I got good at that stuff, for the sake of engineering! And then I went straight through to Math B (and, almost amusingly, forgot most of those Math A skills -- watch out, unused skills get rusty!)
I actually credit my programming experience for the intermediate transition from my "bad at math" late teens to my "willing to try Math A" mid-20s. Programming taught me to think rigorously, and abstractly. So I must push back on the notion that this is intrinsic to a person, and must be learned at an early age: I wasn't doing Math B until after 25 when my brain was supposedly fully mature. And while I did have the benefit of a formal education, I would assert with some confidence that the relevant detail there was that I was in a cohort of students who were working together, beholden to homework deadlines and exams -- because math is hard and it's really easy to get demoralized without that external reinforcement.
> So I bit the bullet, and for the first time, applied myself
This is what I would tell people, but just use a weight lifting analogy. If you're out of shape, of course you will struggle to do any sort of exercises. But if you keep working at it in a disciplined way, while being kind to yourself and praising your progress, eventually you can get good at it.
Calculus is a tiny bit of new material plus a shit ton of rote algebra. Even undergrad prob and stat was 80% algebraic manipulation.
I have also found that programming is the gateway drug to Math B. Thanks to Functional Programming and Type Theory I eventually found may way into Abstract Algebra, Topology, and Category Theory... Wish I had time to go back and study these with a mentor, though!
Around that time, I went from noodling around with programming, to taking it seriously. I learned a bunch of programming languages, and landed a web development job straight out of school. I wasn't just done with math, I was done with school, too!
After a few years of that, I got bored with web dev, and decided I'd rather try my hand at engineering of some sort. I enrolled in community college, and quickly discovered that all of the engineering courses had... math prerequisites. So I bit the bullet, and for the first time, applied myself. Turns out that I wasn't intrinsically bad at math; I just hadn't been sufficiently motivated! I was paying my own way, so I ended up taking a job in the tutoring center. As I transferred to university, I found myself taking more and more of these math "prerequisites" and not following through on the engineering courses. I matriculated as a math major, and today I've got a PhD in math.
In my mid-20s, I didn't even believe that I could be Math A person. But I got good at that stuff, for the sake of engineering! And then I went straight through to Math B (and, almost amusingly, forgot most of those Math A skills -- watch out, unused skills get rusty!)
I actually credit my programming experience for the intermediate transition from my "bad at math" late teens to my "willing to try Math A" mid-20s. Programming taught me to think rigorously, and abstractly. So I must push back on the notion that this is intrinsic to a person, and must be learned at an early age: I wasn't doing Math B until after 25 when my brain was supposedly fully mature. And while I did have the benefit of a formal education, I would assert with some confidence that the relevant detail there was that I was in a cohort of students who were working together, beholden to homework deadlines and exams -- because math is hard and it's really easy to get demoralized without that external reinforcement.