I’ve started a Statistics class on StraighterLine and I’m rather excited about it. I’ve also started another English Composition class.
I’m using that “class” term pretty loosely. I’ve been asking folks I know with college experience about their time with it, along with study habits and stuff like that. Every response I’ve received has been interesting, but the most helpful have been those in response to more clear, direct questions. The types of questions that imply a more specific response. I had some friends with slightly more recent college experience than others recount some study strategies, which I found particularly helpful. A big bonus was how they each reinforced strategies independent of each, and how those line up with research backed advice. One takeaway emphasized in the book “A Mind for Numbers” (by Barbara Okaley) is to personalize things. I tried to take the advice from the book seriously, but I haven’t really been able to do much with it. The examples from the book and that I come across from other sources are always so hokey and goofball. Look, I can be a real goofus, and I’m not going to rag on someone else’s cornball humor. As dark as I can sometimes get, I am more commonly just teetering on a barely funny pun, and when I’m all on my lonesome, I’ll often say them aloud and get a good laugh out of the only audience available: me. But the weird, esoteric wordplay they site just never comes to me while I study, and when I try to force it, it does the opposite of help me remember my studies.
But the advice to personalize does sound good, and hearing from family and friends about their own experiences has shown me that they’ve personalized things without trying to be dad-joke factories. So it is possible, and I can reflect on my own well of knowledge and recognize just how many things I’ve internalized have been so mentally enshrined because they were, in one way or another, personal to me. So that’s something, I think, I can work with.
So that’s one of the pushes for starting yet another English Comp. class. It isn’t that I think the previous courses were bad, and one of them even earned me a voucher to take a test that could save me a fair chunk of tuition money. However, I don’t feel like I got out of the experience what I wanted from it. On the subject of the tuition, yeah, I could probably test out for free and that would be great. However, that specific class is often required by schools that students take their version of the class. This definitely stands to reason, less that they think the class is subpar, but that these classes also teach non-universal language rules, like what you might find in a Style Guide, and that those are the rules you are expected to adhere to when writing in other classes at the same college. So I have to keep in mind the expectation that I might have to retake the it, yet again, but this time at the actual school that I attend. I think there will be classes that I just can’t stomach such a blow, but for at least this one, I really don’t mind. It fits right with one of my goals, which is to actually be a better writer. So if I need to retake this class, I could just lay back in the cut for an easy A if needed, but I plan to juice it for every once of experience and feedback I can get.
This falls under some of the most consistent advice being readily given by professors, teaches, and writing coaches, that the writing process is best done iteratively. I have noticed this in my own writing, that it improves with iteration. I think I’ve been seeing this across my other subjects as well, that while there is definitely some property of diminishing returns, it still stands that at least some amount of repetition is helpful. My writing speed, though, is another place that I struggle. I have a variety of things that slow me down, and I’m pretty sure that each of those would improve with both practice and feedback. This class will offer me both, and that will still be true if I do need yet another retake. Plus, it would better help me set up for the next level classes. I don’t know, I don’t really have a lot of experience in the world of writing outside of production manuals and business communications.
The Stats class is a biggy for me as well. Similar to the English Comp. classes, I feel I would benefit from the repetition of practicing on the same basic math skills but from a different angle. I finally feel that I’ve adequately proved to myself I can understand the Algebra expected at my level, and that’s great. However, I still feel like I need a lot more practice. And I really don’t want to spend another two months retreading the same classes and same problems, though I do see exactly that as a likelihood just over the horizon. Though I don’t know by how much, it iss my understanding that there is a fair amount of Algebra in Stats. That makes sense, and if so, I could use some more examples to work through. Hopefully some of those will give me some of that personalization. I’d love to have that internalized understanding of the operations available to me that Math teachers so regularly demonstrate. I guess it doesn’t need to be that good, but you know, it’s a pretty good example to shoot for.
Also similar to the English Comp. study, Stats is a subject that I will almost certainly use. It’s also something that I enjoy, so I would like to explore it to a good enough understanding that I can mess around with the lessons in my everyday life. The various tastes of Stats that I’ve had throughout my life have already shown me its value. It’s always possible that I’ll take another regular Joe desk job, and if I do, I want to be better equipped to really excel at it. I feel like there were a lot of good people in my corner in my last job, people that I like and respect, and I think excelling at whatever I do next is the minimum I can do to repay the kindness. Speaking of excelling, I got pretty good at Excel in my last job, but that could use some polishing as well, and I’d love to learn some new tricks.
Anyway, I’ll report back on how things go whenever that’s, I don’t know, something I can do I guess. But that’s it for today.