If you get the concepts and can slowly do the problems, it likely means you need to work on "internalizing" what you know, or teaching your type 1 systems (instincts) to direct your type 2 systems (thoughtful logic) to look in more fruitful directions earlier. The only way I know to really get good at this is practice, preferably with the involvement of other people who you can race with and against (and who can show you where you're going wrong when you spend time on a bad path).
Finding people doing topcoder or other programming/puzzle contests would likely make short work of this.
Yeah, that sounds like it makes sense. Thank you.
Hi everyone,
I am graduating as a philosophy student shortly, and want to pursue computer science / programming/ something-of-that-sort.
I am currently taking some basic math (calculus) and physics (mechanics) courses in order to obtain pre-requesits, and to develop a basic framework. My problem is that I can grasp concepts and ideas, but when it comes to solving specific problems with actual numbers, I seem to shut down. Specifically, it takes me much more time (read "hours") to solve problems that ought to take 10 minutes. This is a particularly bad thing on tests and exams.
I believe that the difficulty I am having stems from so little exposure to symbolic reasoning in the past 5-6 years. I am looking for resources, techniques and advice to "turbocharge" (to use CFAR terminology) my ability to absorb and deeply comprehend technical material, so that solving problems becomes second nature.
Thank you so much for your time,
Jeremy