basic math to pre calc in 6 months: inclination towards math?

College Confidential Community
#1

<p>First a little backstory, and you know this one. Broken home in highschool, didnt pay attention in class, dropped out, got GED etc. I went to college immediately after, got about 30 credits, dropped out too. </p>

<p>8 years later...</p>

<p>About 8 months ago I decided to buy some math tutoring dvd's, and in about 3 months I was working on quadratic functions. I know this isn't very advanced, as my friends have told me, but they have said its pretty impressive that I came from not knowing how to do long division to this in a few months by myself. When I took a placement test I placed into pre calc, but my advisor recommended i take intermediate algebra, so im there and on a full schedule. I have an a in all my classes. Im gonna succeed this time! </p>

<p>But...! Now im wondering if i should still major in psych or not... Could this pace of improvement be reason enough to maybe major in CS? I feel like I'd like that. Or are these concepts most people learn quickly? Am I being unrealistic?</p>

<p>So far the only thing ive really had trouble with is knowing how to apply the math that Ive learned to real life situations, unless the word problem is provided to me to solve.</p>

#2

<p>First, good for you. That’s some dedication.</p>

<p>From a purely pragmatic perspective, majoring in CS makes sense because it has better job prospects. If it’s something you think you might be interested in, I would try out some programming and see how you like it. You don’t even need a class to do this! There are lots of free resources online. I would try out Codecademy, which interactively teaches the basics of programming in a variety of languages. It’s pretty straight forward and fun.</p>

<p>A lot of CS only requires algebra, not super advanced math. So if you’re putting in the effort to learn the math now and doing well at it, I think you’re OK on that front. You will still need to take more advanced math, but I wouldn’t let you lack of past experience in math hold you back from this if you really want to pursue this.</p>

#3