My plan to kill the "math person" myth (Math Immersion Month Day 2)

After realizing yesterday that my assumptions about myself were completely wrong, I spent some time learning about just how destructive the “math person” myth can be, and I created version 1 of my plan to squash my own “not a math person” myth once and for all.

My goals for this month

  • Publilsh a video every day to share my learning process
  • Publish a blog post every day to serve as a brain dump of all my ideas and questions and to compile a list of helpful resources
  • Improve my computational skills (starting with arithmetic)
  • Track my progress by taking pre- and post-tests
  • Learn more about real math – the more creative, abstract mathematics!
  • Interview at least three mathematicians or people who enjoy math
  • Interview a couple people who don’t like math
  • Explore connections between math and my other interests (like language, music, history, art, psychology, etc)
  • Make a couple small creative projects to explore mathematical concepts – maybe a small programming project or just some silly drawings!
  • Read math books, listen to math podcasts, watch math videos – really immerse myself in this fascinating new world!
  • Track how much time I’m spending on all of this!

Schedule version 1

  • 2 hours on math practice problems
  • 2 hours reading about math more generally
  • 2 hours making my daily video
  • 2 hours on my other projects, like a small freelance web development job and running Learn to Code LA, the meetup group I started earlier this year

If I feel like working more than 8 hours, then I will; otherwise, I’ll try to reserve time for working on my other goals like socializing and making more friends in meatspace.

Time breakdown

  • Video production time: 3 hours 24 min
    • Script writing/preparation: 1 hour 8 min
    • Filming/setup: 27 min
    • Video editing: 1 hour 23 min
    • Publishing: 26 min
  • Math study time: 2 hours 3 min
    • Practice problems: none
    • General research: 2 hours 3 min