>>11195860I failed twice before succeeding the third time.
Changes that helped:
Being totally meticulous about grabbing easy marks and only focusing on assessments
If it isn’t assessed, I don’t go, I don’t spend time on it
Getting a private tutor to go to on the weekends (wasn’t totally necessary, but he helped me get a better sense of how math degrees are structured, which give some meaning to what I was doing and helped motivation)
Being a truly obnoxious asshole at first in terms of badgering the tutors we had available. I didn’t care how rude they were, how discouraging, how much they wanted to be left to do their own work. They were obliged to do their job and they couldn’t refuse as long as I didn’t threaten them, swear at them, or be violent.
Make full use of all the available tutoring resources from the uni. Be there every day working on assignments and test prep. If I don’t understand anything in the questions, ask. If not understanding it, ask again. Again. Again. Try to figure out different ways to ask about something to try to shake out new answers. Express to them explicitly to assume that I know less when they assume too much (all uni math tutors do).
I didn’t find lectures or tutorials helpful.
I used people in the basement assigned to IT help for math help sometimes because they were less busy.
The only way I fucked myself in the ass this term was in not prepping for the exams from before the start of term. Next trimester my aim is to begin going over last term’s final exams before the term starts.
Also, you can ask the math department to give you a PDF of the relevant exams even before the semester starts. The math department is maybe 20% there to help you sincerely and 80% wanting to get on with their own stuff, but if you’re persistent you can make that 80% helping you. And just ask for things like templates for how to solve specific types of questions and be open that you just want the marks. I imagine this kind of...
