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/sci/ - Science & Math

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2101823 No.2101823 [Reply] [Original]

I'm 29. I have a degree in English and Socio-cultural anthropology, with a diploma in Professional and Corporate Writing. You may notice that there is no math or science needed in any of these, per se. I have a job in my field (editing) and make a fair living.

/sci/, science and math have always been to me like the weird girl who you're attracted to at the party that you just don't know how to approach.

I've never passed grade twelve math, but through a loophole, got into University.
But I want to know. With a logical mind, is it possible, or am I past the point of nor return?
Where do I start?

tl;dr: old guy wanting to learn math/computing language/science, where start/should start?

>> No.2101857

you're fine.

a lot of people are gonna be like "khanacademy, go," but honestly just go pick up a textbook and start reading. if it's been that since you've done math, start with algebra and trigonometry and work your way up.

http://www.amazon.com/Algebra-Trigonometry-James-Stewart/dp/0534380298

my school uses this book for undergrads in precalculus.

also consider taking courses at a local community college. that's why these schools exist.

>> No.2101860

bamp

>> No.2101864

It's not impossible, most people just seem to be afraid of it. OP, what do you do with your education if I may ask?

>> No.2101920

>>2101857
Thanks for the heads up. My interest lies in logic and, with barely any computer or mathematics or science skills, I feel limited in how far my imagination can take me in many avenues. I appreciate the link.
>>2101864
No troubles. I edit for a living. Magazines mostly, but copy-editing is my passion-- I can do it for hours and it seems like minutes. I was different from a sizeable portion of my English graduating class in that I was not only interested in explicating bodies of literature, I felt deeply interested in grammar, logic, technical history, rules and behaviour of English.
In short, my goal is to make things clear. It's what I do with my job and its that faculty (of explaining, or running with an idea, or breaking down a notion into its parts) that I feel I lack without proper education.

Wow. Sorry for the novel; strange things come out when one asks something that's been on their minds for years.

>> No.2102343

You can do it! I concur with previous poster. Textbooks are your best bet. Start out with algebra and trigonometry, and once you feel very, very comfortable with those, you can move on to calculus. From there, it's really your choice regarding where to branch out... complex analysis certainly is a fun tool to learn.

Good luck, sir!

(But Khan Academy is pretty good for a lot of people, and so it worth a try.)

>> No.2102368

>>2101920

" felt deeply interested in grammar, logic, technical history, rules and behaviour of English. "

These are all traits that will help you excel at math.

>> No.2102382

>>2101920
Because you like rules of grammar and logic and so forth, you might really like Godel, Escher, Bach by Hofstadter. It's formal logic + computer science + foundations of math, but it talks about ties to language and biology and so on. Also, it's a fairly clever presentation.

>> No.2102387

>>2101920
why not go into linguistics?

>> No.2102445
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2102445

>>2102368

Not OP, but I am a physics undergrad, and linguistics is pretty cool. Save for the parts where we talk about how ebonics is just as good a language as anything else and we can't tell illiterate fucks that they're wrong, but merely just different. Relativist bullshit :\.