Math Phobia

I have a math phobia. I didn’t always have one. I was good in math until it became abstract, mainly with algebra. I failed my first algebra class. My best friend, Wendy, was very good in algebra so my mom hired her as my tutor. She explained it in a different way and I got A’s after that. Even though I got A’s after the tutoring, I developed a fear of math from that.

Professor James Burke had two series, “The Day the Universe Changed” and “Connections”. In one of the episodes he used higher math to explain how wine merchants kept track of the amount of wine in barrels. Watching him use math in a real-world context, I totally understand it and could have figured out the volume of anything at that point. But still I considered myself bad at math.

I had to take algebra again in college. Elementary Algebra was taught by someone who had just been accepted into UCLA’s doctoral program. She didn’t understand why people didn’t “get it” the first time. She was a terrible teacher but by working very hard I got a C in the class. Intermediate Algebra was taught by an Aerospace Engineer. He saw math as a working tool, not as an abstract concept. He was great and I got A’s and B’s on all the tests and homework, and a B in the class (due to an unexpected event, I did poorly on the final, otherwise I would have gotten an A). But still my fear, and the idea that I’m bad at math, persisted.

I also had to take Statistics. Except for a very, very small percentage of the population, everyone hates their stats class. I failed the first half of the class. There were 3 formulas we were supposed to use but no one could explain the markers that would tell me which formula was the right one for each situation. When I asked the teacher, he said you just get a feel for it. Excuse me?! You just “get a feel for it”?? Luckily my boss at the time was a math genius (seriously) and when he found out how badly I was doing, he sat with me for 2 hours one day and went over the formulas. I still didn’t understand it but I went from picking the wrong formulas to picking the right formulas, and from D’s and F’s, to A’s and B’s. I finished with a B in the class. Yet I still considered myself bad at math.

Of course anyone reading this can see that I don’t do well with the conventional way they teach math, but that I do very well when it’s explained in an alternate way. So why do I still consider myself bad at math? I have to face this and figure it out because I’ve recently decided to double-major. I’m working towards Associate in Science degrees in Web Development (no math) and Computer Science (lots of math). In the next couple of years I’ll be taking geometry, trigonometry, calculus 1 and 2, and linear algebra. If I decide to continue on to a B.S., there might be other math classes I’ll have to take, plus physics.

So, it’s imperative that I figure out my phobia and get over it. And find tutors if the teachers focus on the abstract concepts instead of the real-world applications. I bought the Dummies series for geometry and trig, and will work through them this summer in preparation.

I’m not bad at math. I need to remember that.