After years of wanting to but never really being disciplined or motivated enough, I have finally been able to tackle math. My math skills stagnated in high school and then I went on studying computer science (avoiding almost all of the math) and came out pretty good in programming but still bad in math. I tried to read books like calculus made easy but it was still too dry and too hard.

How I fixed it:

1. I learned to become bored and be okay with it. I sometimes lie on the ground for 15 minutes to an hour and do nothing (and that's different than meditation!). I feel incredibly bored, bored to tears actually. I have noticed when I'm in this state, I'm in a much better position to do math or anything else that I slightly find boring but also really interesting.

2. I went to the root of my problem. I'm Dutch. I failed a course in high school called wiskunde B (math B). It teaches calculus, vectors and trig. I'm currently doing that [1]. It's been a few months, but it's going well.

Results and observations:

I think I'm almost at the level to do actual college level math. It helps that I studied CS, because I know a ton of math channels on YouTube and they are now immensely helpful. The thing is the course I'm following isn't explaining the theory well. It is amazing in making me practice, so fortunately I just need to go to good YouTube channels such as 3Blue1Brown or Khan Academy for an adequate explanation on theory.

Another observation is that it has made me a better programmer. My debugging style has always been "turn on the debugger". Now my debugging style is: think deeply about code execution first. Math makes me comfortable with "code execution" because with math you have no choice!

__Looking for a math tutor (email in profile)__

I'm looking for a math tutor. I'd love to ask questions during the week that I don't need an immediate answer to. I think it'll take about 1 hour per week for you. I have noticed I'll need one after the wiskunde B course because I have asked about 100 questions to them in total over the duration of 4 months.

Edit:

To add. I think for me what made calculus so hard was not having a strong understanding of the fundamentals. The gist of calculus of slope and area is easy. Manipulating the equations perfectly 100% of the time. That used to be really hard and it is getting easier the more I practice.

I just happen to watch a YouTube video where a math professor mentions the same thing [2].

[1] The math course I've followed (400 euro - includes exam): https://kdvi.uva.nl/nl/onderwijs/wiskundecursussen/e-winterc...

It's in Dutch, but they have an English version in the language settings.

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7febmLhS6E&ab_channel=BigTh...