I sucked at geometry as a kid. It destroyed my chances of going into any STEM field probably, just my total inability to do geometry.
Before that I'd done well and was potentailly considered "gifted" in math stuff because I would study ahead of the class in the elementary school textbooks... somehow, it all fell off by high school.
I remember developing a real disdain for math study and work of any kind. The same way some people learn to hate reading books due to bad experiences in school, I learned to hate math because I felt dumb and like I couldn't keep up in class.
Honestly, I don't know what it was. It just kinda happened. I did good in most of my classes and was a sober, mostly rule-following high schooler... I just sucked at math.
Khan Academy Saved Me
I'll say it a million times, I love Khan Academy. It is everything that my high school experience was not. Khan Academy lessons are structured in an organized way that makes it relatively easy to learn tricky new concepts.
For me, it was fun enough thanks to some mild gamification to stick with my earliest math "lessons" on Khan Academy.
I started at the absolute basics: Kindergarten level math. I wanted to begin from absolute square one, literally going through "quizzes" of 5+3=? and how to count the length of a 3-unit line segment. I just didn't want to skip any single moment where I needed to pay attention and learn something I'd missed in school.
Why did I fall off of math? What could have been different in my life so far if I'd recognized how valuable those math skills were?
So I went through ALL the beginner shit. Then I got to geometry and I knew this would be the turning point.
I'd either complete this whole geometry section of Khan Academy, or I'd probably be a math "failure" my whole life.
Fuck That I'm a Winner
WE DID IT!!
99% complete!! The only 1% missing is a few points that I couldn't hunt down, sometimes it is unclear which quiz or section needs to be revisited to find the last missing points.
I feel SO GOOD about this.
Fifteen years after falling off of my mathmatical journey in high school, I am back on. I've never known basic geometry as well as I do now. It might sound dumb, but just having confidence of how to use the pythagarean theorem is a big step for me.
All it took was a consistent effort of about 30 minute per day, most days, for maybe 4-5 months. If I had been more disciplined, I probably could have completed it faster.
Next up is "pre-algebra" which features the following list of subjects:
I'm pumped! I can't wait to keep learning.
Do you use Khan Academy or any other sites to study math outside of school? Feel free to recommend your favorites, I could always use more.