How to be a successful mathematics student
‘’ Practice makes perfect’’ is what my mathematics teacher usually quotes when he talks about being a successful mathematics student. Mathematics has always been a struggle for me ever since I could remember, way back in primary and even secondary school. I could never really grasp the concepts of the operations. It was never really one of my strong subjects like English was.
I sighed and slouched down into my chair as my mathematics teacher entered the class, and I thought to myself ‘’ this is going to be long and boring’’ but keeping an open mind I sought to trick myself into believing that this ,might be interesting an could actually be useful in the future. Being that optimistic didn’t last for long and I slipped back into disliking mathematics right after leaving the class. It wasn’t until I was told that I would be sitting the mathematics Caribbean examinations at basic proficiency that I changed the way I thought about mathematics.
In this essay I will seek to inform the readers on how I became and how they too can become better mathematics students.
I first had to start with the right attitude, and put aside any negative ideas/feelings about past experiences with mathematics. One of the qualities that will affect anyone’s ultimate success in any course, especially mathematics is the attitude towards that course.
I had to also think about mathematics as being fun, whether I believed it or not. Practicing and repeating mathematics as often as possible eventually lead, in my believing that it is indeed fun. Two ways in which I made it fun was creating games and formulating songs that helped me to remember complex operations.
However, recognizing that I had complete control over how well I did and deciding that I will make a serious effort to attain a passing grade, played an essential part in my success.
I decided that being successful is very important to me. I thought if I formulated reasons for...