This is close to my experience as well. Math, for me, wasn't super difficult, but it didn't necessarily come naturally either, and I got really bored with the tedious, mechanical aspects of it in algebra, college algebra, trig, etc. Geometry and Calc I were mildly interesting, but I was handicapped a bit in Calc I because my basic algebra skills weren't as strong as they needed to be... because I found basic algebra to be mind-numbingly boring.

Fast forward 20+ years and I'm not working on re-learning some lower level math + leveling up on higher level calculus and linear algebra. This time, it seems easier (although I might not go so far as to say "trivial") and I attribute that largely to the fact that I'm much more motivated now. Now I have specific reasons for wanting to learn this math (mostly to do with machine learning and AI) and that seems to make all the difference in the world.

I'm tired of hearing about "take the derivative" and "perform the integral" (or whatever), and not quite understanding it. Heck, just what I wrote probably indicates I don't quite get it!

Also, my intuition on probabilities and statistics isn't there either, so I want to do something to fix that as well. So, when I finally get done - that's my next goal (after a bit of a break).

It isn't that I'm terrible at math, I just never used much beyond basic linear algebra after leaving high school. I never went much beyond high school: I got an associates from a tech school (worthless, since the school is long defunct), and I've taken a few community college courses, plus my online MOOC stuff that's more recent.

I'm not hurting career-wise; in fact, that's never been an issue as a software engineer (started when I was 18, and just kept going, earning more over time and having fun). I'm not doing bad right now, living in Phoenix. It ain't SV - but then again, it doesn't have the downsides of it, either (not that there aren't certain downsides).

Now - after having done MOOCs in ML/AI - I am finding that I need more understanding and intuition about calculus and other mathematical subjects, so I can really apply what I have learned, and understand it at a deeper level, and perhaps do more with it. I've given thought to going back for a BS and maybe an MS (not that I need it - I just want to do it).

Good luck to both of you; I hope it all works out great!

should read

I'm now working...

In high school, if you can convince a single person that they need to know calculus, more power to you. 99% of people don't and it's literally a waste of time. Teach people finance though...suddenly we have math that people will know is important.

Why did I have to memorize all that shit if there's a simple way to derive the formula? Jesus.

"So, you still didn't have derivation in math class?"

We explained, that we will have it in the final month of the school year, if we are lucky. Her reaction was:

"But we kinda need it already. But I should be able to teach you that in 20 minutes."

And she did. And then she spent the rest of the lesson going through some old equations that she might have spent hours explaining: "Remember how long it took us to get to i.e: equation relating gass pressure and temperature? We always used that finicky helper variable. I think I even named it delta. In reality, you just derive this base form, and do a simple substitution."

Ok, my memory is a bit hazy. But she went on and on, through stuff we have been ehm, deriving without calculus for hours, that took with calculus around 3-4 steps.

The one thing I really wished I'd have learned more of, younger, is stats. Knowing how basic probability works would have been fantastic - it took a lot of poker theory to really understand it in my bones.

Parrots have deeper understanding than was required of us.

I didn't even get a cracker.

I've been playing with computer graphics recently; I've understood trig for a long time, but this is the first time I've actually felt a need to understand matrices. Exploring applications on my own is the only way that I've really felt connected to math since maybe late grade school or early high school.

If you're splitting the tip and the tax, and everyone is pitching in $3 to cover the Birthday Girl, that's more complicated than a lot of those problems they use that nobody cares about.

(In fact, I think if you put all of those math problems in terms of fairness, you'd get more kids to pay attention. Nobody wants to get cheated, and that's what happens when you're bad at math and/or finance).

That's quite insightful! I can think of a few related approaches that could round it out, like frugality (eg. only buy the paint/bugspray/lumber/etc. you actually need for your project), and laziness (do the least amount of work possible that still gets the job done).

I don't think it matters what ethnicity or race you are, it's good to be able to actually get things the right length. And it's a lot easier to do it on paper than run around for half a day with a tape measure.

i.e a common problem such as calculating the optimal blend of fuel in a reactor is done based on solving a system of linear equations with constraints such as Loss on ignition, maximum allowable ash content, minimum specific energy etc.

Industrial design as well uses simultaneous equations extensively. Do you want to build your aircraft wing out of CFRP or a titanium alloy? One way is to use a constraint based selection method something like strength to weight ratio vs cost.

edit: I should add 99% of the time these are solved programmatically with the aid of a computer. You do not solve these problems "high school math style".