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Reflections on 1,000 Days of Math
Early on in my journey I was a lot more aggressive with my XP targets, but settled into a low-volume rhythm as my goals evolved.
I worked from MF1 (Math Foundations 1, lowest level) into MF3, then about halfway through MF3 I started M4ML (Mathematics for Machine Learning).
But it got really hard and my progress started to slow as lessons took longer, which was problematic because I was trying to limit my math time to <20m/day.
That may have worked fine, but I really screwed myself by relying on notes/checks early on, which @justinskycak correctly advises not to do.
It started innocently, like I was towards the end of a lesson and short on time, so rather than risk extending it by getting something wrong, I’d check the answer before submitting. I was still doing the work, so no problem, right? Wrong, because the Math Academy system never got feedback on where I was weak. And that compounded over time.
Then there were things in trig like memorizing ratios and formulas. What’s wrong with a quick peek at notes? Same issue, weaknesses get papered over. I was trying to save time since life is busy with kids, work, etc. but the debt accrued.
Math Academy can give you the best learning system ever invented, but if you short-circuit the load-bearing parts you don’t build the prerequisites.
Suffice to say, I had gaps and it was my own fault. So I reset my progress and started over not too long ago.
I’ve never been strong at math beyond whatever I could naturally do in my head. So, the reset was quite eye-opening at how much progress I made. It’s incredible, there really is no way to describe it. I just…knew stuff I absolutely did not know before and could connect dots in unexpected ways.
And going through things the second time I’m building a deeper level of intuition, quiz scores are higher and it’s quite enjoyable. I have the prerequisites, as Justin would say.