Re:Ask HN: CS students/graduates, Did you struggle with Math?
by tptacek on Wednesday March 14, 2018 @06:01PM
(#16588706)
Hah. I didn't get more than a D in any high school math course, failed 2 of them and had to retake them in summer school, and didn't go to college.
I work in cryptography engineering today.
The routine algorithmic work we do in the industry may be rooted in somewhat sophisticated math, but in reality even if you're doing somewhat advanced work you're not engaging directly with that math. If I read through the OCW 6.006 curricula I see lots of topics that are important in practice, but none of them really involve deeply understanding complexity math.
If you have an intuition for why sort tends to be nlogn and search logn, I think you're probably doing fine.
I work in cryptography engineering today.
The routine algorithmic work we do in the industry may be rooted in somewhat sophisticated math, but in reality even if you're doing somewhat advanced work you're not engaging directly with that math. If I read through the OCW 6.006 curricula I see lots of topics that are important in practice, but none of them really involve deeply understanding complexity math.
If you have an intuition for why sort tends to be nlogn and search logn, I think you're probably doing fine.