Have I mentioned this before?

[feuervogel]

I don't know if I have, at least not outside of comment threads or personal conversations. It's kind of an important entry in my man page.

I cannot deal with abstraction. I cannot process abstract concepts.

An example: in the stone age, when I was in high school, I took calculus in 11th grade. I used to be good at math, see. I got a 4 on Calc AB, even. I had trouble with integrals and the like ... until we got to the applications for them, like calculating the area under the curve. Then I did fine, got an A in the class, and a 4 on the AP exam. Yay!

I got to Calc BC, and I couldn't get it. I got a 2 on the AP exam. I took calc 3 in college (uh, multivariable? ider.) I got a D. (I also got a C in first semester physics, then dropped second semester at midterm with an F. I took it again the next year, with a different prof, and got a B. It was required.)

So, if you ever find yourself discussing something with me, be as specific as possible. Give examples. Also, don't link to people who make their arguments in academic prose laced with jargon, who go even further into the abstract. You won't get anywhere.

Comments

[leora.livejournal.com]

I often forget to use specific details. I'll try to remember you do not like abstracts, but realistically, I am likely to forget. I've had others complain about my lack of specifics before. However, if I am being too abstract, feel free to just remind me at the time that more specifics would communicate more effectively. I assure you I'm not being abstract to be annoying; I just often don't communicate very well.

[feuervogel]

I can usually follow your arguments. You use a lot of analogies, which is cool. Analogies are fairly concrete.

[feuervogel]

Not at all! *hugs*

[feuervogel]

I understand. It was a bit without context, but since it comes up in several places, and I mentioned it in comments in two different posts yesterday, I thought I ought to make a post.

[smarriveurr.livejournal.com]

If it's any consolation, our colleges "Calc III" wasn't, from what I understand Proper Calc III. Calc I was regular calc, Calc II was multivariable, and Calc III was "Parts of the Calc I and II texts we never got around to teaching in Calc I & II, and some stuff." IIRC, anyway. I was notorious for cutting MA/CS courses. That's actually how the math chair ended up knowing me before I recognized her.

[feuervogel]

Someone told me Calc 3 was a pre-req for a different class I had to take. They lied. It was actually calc 2, which I got a B in. Somehow.

[smarriveurr.livejournal.com]

Heh - I'm pretty sure the only tracks where you needed Calc III were Math, Physics/Engineering, and the Scientific Research subset of CompSci. I took it for kicks, and so I could shift to the scientific CS if I decided I wanted to. Only tested out of Calc I, though.

[feuervogel]

Come to think of it, it was a physics major who told me it was a pre-req for p-chem. :P

[smarriveurr.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure it was the case anywhere else, or at any other time, but I seem to recall my Database course had different pre-reqs depending on whether you took it as part of the CS track or the IT track. IT was brand-spanking new as a track at that point, though, so it may have been some confusion.

All I know is that all of us CS majors had taken Discrete Math to get in, and all of the IT majors were confused as to what union, intersection, and complement might mean. So we spent two of our three weekly classes watching the poor adjunct go over things everyone should have known already.

Well, some of us did. My friends and I cut two thirds of the lectures.