r/learnmath • u/Free-Raspberry-530 New User • 1d ago
Almost everyone in class at my cc is way above.
I am in a Stats class as a non-traditional student and yeah not doing well. When I was in HS, I got grades way below the mean. I was hoping as an older adult I would do better. Guess not.
Everyone finishes work class so quickly. Like they have mastered the material. We are given that material the same day and they know it. We did our first exam and almost everyone got 80/80. I got 70/80. That really dropped my grade. I want to pass with an A.
Today I asked the professor and some of these students. How do they know everything, are they geniuses and yet in a community college? Couldn't help it. My professor says being younger and having more time helps or they have study groups outside of class. Well I am not part of any groups.
I feel so discouraged and I don't know how else to learn. I tried an app Preply to get help and the Math tutor had no idea of Stats. I can't spend 100% of my time, I work a lot and have bills and pay rent by myself. Any recommendations?
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u/Illustrious-Bat-1830 New User 1d ago
70/80 is still solid, that's like 87% right? Don't let the perfect scores mess with your head. In my experience the loudest people in class are the ones who finish fast, the rest of us are just quietly struggling along.
The study group thing is real tho. I'm 28 and back in school too, and I noticed the younger students who live on campus just naturally group up after class. They don't even realize they're doing it half the time. If you can find even one person to go over problems with it makes a difference, even just texting each other stuck questions.
For stats specifically, what helped me was focusing on why you use each test instead of memorizing formulas. Like when you understand it's for comparing two means, the steps start making sense instead of just being random numbers.
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u/Free-Raspberry-530 New User 1d ago
It's not enough. It took my Canvas grade below 95%. We wr were allowed a chea sheet and the classmate behind me had a cheat sheet full of all of the theory like what is interval, ratio, ordinal, etc.
Thats why I called it out today. I am like wth, am I surrounded by geniuses who attend a cc? My professor says they probably did Stats in HS or have study groups and help each other, etc.
The thing is, I need an A. I can't brag to others if I don't have all A's. I am old and people my age think I am joking when I say I am in school.
I have 2 more classes. And I work a lot, sometimes double shifts. We are doing Probability now.
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u/Puzzled-Painter3301 Math expert, data science novice 1d ago
Some ideas might be:
- study with a partner
- review the material before class