You can do all of that without paying a monthly fee. You just need a library card (or know of a person called Anna and her archive ;) ) and a list of books. These are the ones I used:
Precalculus by Axler
Calculus (Ninth Edition) by Thomas
Linear Algebra by Lay
How To Prove It by Velleman
Understanding Analysis by Abbott <--- I'm currently here
Much, much, much cheaper than paying $50/month. What I've spent most on so far has been printer paper and fountain pen ink because I do exercises by hand instead of using a tablet/iPad but in total this expense has been waaaaay under $50.
usrnm 52 minutes ago [-]
The #1 resource needed for self-learning is motivation, and for many people it's a lot more difficult to come by than money. What you're paying $50 a month is not information, but a system that encourages you to keep doing it
hiAndrewQuinn 4 minutes ago [-]
$50 a month is just not that much money, though. It's maybe a percentage point or two of the average US person's take home pay. And if this even doubles the speed at which I learn what I need to, then I'm saving myself many hundreds of dollars of the equivalent of my time.
adamgordonbell 10 minutes ago [-]
My understanding is Math Academy is like combining anki with direct instruction.
It's a business premised on teaching people things faster by understanding research around learning.
If the math it teaches is the math you need or want to learn, its likely an efficient way to learn it.
So, you are paying for efficiency. Like using Pimsleur rather than spending a year in France.
jphoward 29 minutes ago [-]
$49 seems a surprisingly high amount for something aimed at students and learners - I appreciate the content may be good, but it's effectively 3 times a Netflix subscription.
It's meant to be something you stick with in the "long term" by its nature, and yet an annual subscription is $500 - this is just completely unrealistic for any student. Someone in a lower end job hoping to "up skill" is going to really struggle with this.
jpcompartir 10 minutes ago [-]
I believe their rationale is that a private tutor costs more than this per lesson, and they're targeting the people who will pay for a tutor once/twice a week for themselves or their children.
I tend to agree with you, it seems like they could be wayyy more competitive on price but I also understand where they're coming from.
SvenL 18 minutes ago [-]
If you need to get into math and are not really motivated I can recommend 3blue1Brown by Grant
Sanderson (https://www.3blue1brown.com/). The best part is not only, that he explains math problems in an easy way, but also show how to approach math problems in general. I think it’s one of the best sources to start with Math.
mpgwokreopw 50 minutes ago [-]
I understand such blog spam is yet another plug for another thing where you need to swipe your card at some point for some questionable benefit. At this rate I would have thought that we are able to smell the crap as consumers, but there seems to be enough people who are willing to experiment with that.
For those who really want to "learn math" as autodidacts, nothing comes close to the Open University textbooks that are freely available in your libraries and also with some clever searching online. That material is refined over decades to support the autodidact use case.
ansel_d 42 minutes ago [-]
I’m interested in learning math, theoretical physics, electronic engineering, welding, and AI/ML.
But, when you don’t even focus on basic self-care, you sleep terribly, suffer depression, ADD, etc., you’ll never get past just browsing someone’s page of links to educational material to actually developing the habits you need to learn.
If someone could solve that, I’d pay them $50/mo.
komali2 16 minutes ago [-]
For ADD I recommend "Delivered from Distraction" by Edward Hallowell, it has a lot of advice about finding ADD specific strategies for learning things and developing habits. I can't really think of a way to summarize, I strongly recommend just reading it.
crinkly 31 minutes ago [-]
Oh another monthly subscription with no accredited learning.
If you want to actually learn mathematics, buy Open University book sets and work through them. MU123 -> MST124 -> MST125 -> M208 -> MST224. Diversion of M140 if you want stats. They are written by actual professionals, the course is accredited and if you like it you can turn that into an actual qualification as well. All the textbooks are in-house written over the space of over 40 years (!) and designed for self-learning.
The whole set is on github somewhere as well if I remember - search for it.
komali2 15 minutes ago [-]
I really want to backfill my math one day, so I've slowly collected tools like this for "when I have the time" (scheduled in 2 years lol). I'm unclear why I'd use this tool instead of Khan Academy, which is free and seems to have developed a solid reputation for the like, decade or more its been around.
Precalculus by Axler
Calculus (Ninth Edition) by Thomas
Linear Algebra by Lay
How To Prove It by Velleman
Understanding Analysis by Abbott <--- I'm currently here
Much, much, much cheaper than paying $50/month. What I've spent most on so far has been printer paper and fountain pen ink because I do exercises by hand instead of using a tablet/iPad but in total this expense has been waaaaay under $50.
It's a business premised on teaching people things faster by understanding research around learning.
If the math it teaches is the math you need or want to learn, its likely an efficient way to learn it.
So, you are paying for efficiency. Like using Pimsleur rather than spending a year in France.
It's meant to be something you stick with in the "long term" by its nature, and yet an annual subscription is $500 - this is just completely unrealistic for any student. Someone in a lower end job hoping to "up skill" is going to really struggle with this.
I tend to agree with you, it seems like they could be wayyy more competitive on price but I also understand where they're coming from.
For those who really want to "learn math" as autodidacts, nothing comes close to the Open University textbooks that are freely available in your libraries and also with some clever searching online. That material is refined over decades to support the autodidact use case.
But, when you don’t even focus on basic self-care, you sleep terribly, suffer depression, ADD, etc., you’ll never get past just browsing someone’s page of links to educational material to actually developing the habits you need to learn.
If someone could solve that, I’d pay them $50/mo.
If you want to actually learn mathematics, buy Open University book sets and work through them. MU123 -> MST124 -> MST125 -> M208 -> MST224. Diversion of M140 if you want stats. They are written by actual professionals, the course is accredited and if you like it you can turn that into an actual qualification as well. All the textbooks are in-house written over the space of over 40 years (!) and designed for self-learning.
The whole set is on github somewhere as well if I remember - search for it.