A community of 30,000 US Transcriptionist serving Medical Transcription Industry

Finally going to conquer my fear - sm

Posted: Feb 05, 2014

of math, going to take a college course, face it and move onto my 4-year degree..I gotta get out of here!!!

Yay! Feels good doesn't it? - ME

[ In Reply To ..]
In January, I started learning Spanish after being afraid for a long time. I am actually enjoying it. I thought it was going to be hard, but I just focus on my lessons for 1 day, not learning the whole language or feeling overwhelmed. I surprise myself at how far I've come. You will too. Nobody says it's going to be easy, but it's not as hard as we think sometimes. Change is hard at first, but once we get going, we wonder why we stayed here so long. Good luck!

BTW, I am using Duolingo online and it's free, if anybody is interested.

Good luck! - justalittleMT

[ In Reply To ..]
I wish you all the best. I wish I was able to go to school.

I can't go back to college because of math, but my problem is not an actual fear of math. I have passed the ACT and entrance exams twice with no problems except the math sections. I failed math miserably both times. I have dyscalculia and they want me to pay for the learning disability testing, which they would reimburse after I was enrolled, but I can't afford it. I have the numbers on my keyboard color coded to be able to type numbers correctly. My brain doesn't process numbers very well at all. I wish they would quit changing how the money looks because the picture is how I know what bill I have.

Suggestion - Old Educator

[ In Reply To ..]
You said you wish you could go to school, but that you "can't."

I will admit that you might not be able to get into whatever college you are speaking of, but that is not the only college experience available today. Ten years ago, you had to go to a brick-and-mortar college to get a college education, but that is no longer true.

Just in the last few years, it has become possible to take courses from Harvard, Stanford, and a long list of other major universities, complete with video recorded lectures by world-class faculty, online, at your convenience, and FOR FREE. In addition to that, there are loads of other college courses available online, some of them organized into degree programs, and they are mostly FREE, too.

If your goal is LEARNING, I recommend that you start working on a course today. It is really easy. No admission requirements, no cost, no hassle, and you will learn no less than what you would learn in any other college, and possibly a lot more.

Coursera, www.coursera.com, has classes from 80+ universities. Some are at a level you could handle.

OpenCulture, http://www.openculture.com/freeonlinecourses, has more than 800.

EdX https://www.edx.org/course-list

Udacity, www.udacity.com

Open Education Database, www.oedb.com

MOOC LIST, www.mooc-list.com

Those are just a sample. For some good degree programs, see www.saylor.org. Google Saylor to read articles about it on Wikipedia and in Forbes.

For more options, just google "free online courses."

I also want to note that math is not a part of EVERY college course. You are not going to run into it over and over, so don't approach these courses thinking you are doomed from the beginning.

Some of these courses do offer transferrable credit, so you could collect some credits and get a sense of accomplishment from it.

I will look into these. - justalittleMT

[ In Reply To ..]
The cost prohibitive part is what keeps me from paying for courses or the testing they wanted before they would enroll me.

I will definitely be checking these out. I desperately need to be able to get a job where I can work away from people so I don't have panic attacks on a daily basis. Even when I was on meds they only helped a little.

Another suggestion: About math, find out exactly what - you may have to take before SM

[ In Reply To ..]
starting any courses at any school, then get a tutor to help you and get help NOW before you even start classes.

My experience: Signed up for basic algebra class (read 8th grade level) at local college. Was excited to start and try it though I knew it was going to be extremely difficult for me when math was difficult all my life, not just a fear.

I got into that class and the teacher was nice, patient, and answered questions.

However, class is very fast paced at a 9-month high school level and being crammed into a 5-month crash course. It was designed to learn a new lesson/chapter every day. You were expected to read the next chapter later that day/evening and learn it to discuss in class the next day.

I couldn't get past the PEMDAS theory thing very well and the theory of something or another, and failed when it comes to the formulas with letters and symbols which were completely confusing and made no sense at all to me when trying to simplify and/or solve.

I spent hours with a tutor at the school after class. That was a crapshoot, you got good people but some were there on different schedules. Couldnt always guarantee getting the one you wanted when you were available.

I still work MT here, around school. I found it impossible to try to study at home without any help and figure any of this out by myself.

Long story short: I needed VERY intensive tutoring and help to get through this class that was going at way too fast a pace for me. I simply could not keep up. I tried it for 2 weeks, talked to the teacher, went to the tutoring center, but could not manage at home without extensive help to explain things.

I had to drop the class, might try to go back next fall if I can figure out how to manage this work/tutor/homework issue.

Get a tutor, go to a used book store and get math textbooks, watch videos on youtube, look at internet websites on math - anything you can find to help yourself get a head start before you get into a class and find yourself drowning the first day.

I hope someone else can make it. I couldn't.

Math Fear - anon

[ In Reply To ..]
Wow...the post about the math class is spot-on! I tried a college algebra course, dropped it, took a refresher course, and now in the college algebra again and struggling. Some people just don't have a "math brain!" The bad news is that every degree requires you to take some form of math. Very disheartening. Good luck to you!

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