Tfw your teachers are shit at explaining how to prove something in math...

>tfw your teachers are shit at explaining how to prove something in math, they just assume we freshmen undergrads already know
I hate the math department in my uni

How can you go through highschool and not know the most fundamental thing about math?

Some people come to college because they want to learn college level shit and don't want their time wasted trying to make sure the biggest retard in the class knows what a proof is

No. They just know that since only the real students will have bothered to keep up at school or will make the effort to work it out for themselves, they'll be able to weed out all the shit students who assume that learning is a passive process where the teacher is responsible for learning instead of an active one where the student takes responsibility for their own understanding.

They are trying to weed out the retards.
Im quite serious about this, the first half of my semester was intentionally about making as much students as possible quit because they will not make it anyways.

As a tip you will get better fairly quick as you practice and read more and more proofs.

>teachers aren't supposed to teach
ok then

>students are supposed to just sit in classes slack-jawed and not think for themselves at all
If you can't figure out certain things by yourself you're not cut out for higher education.
Besides, I bet any professor would've explained how formal proofs work if you went to a consultation, so you were just being lazy, or stupid, or both

Why is so hard for undergrads to grasp the idea of a proof? I don't consider myself gifted in any sense, but it's like some people are born without logic in them. Maybe epsilon delta could get messy but it's really not that complicated to understand what you need to do to satisfy the definition.

not an argument.

it actually is though, college is much more about working on your own. I'm sorry you're finding it out that late

>teachers aren't supposed to teach
Teachers are supposed to help students.
It does not benefit anyone if a student who will drop out anyway continues for a years because his teachers have mercy with him.

Students are supposed to learn for themselves that is one essential part of higher education.
The teacher should guide you in the right direction and help you understand but you have to work for yourself.

And if you are not good enough to withstand the pressure in the first months you are not good enough anyways.

>implying whatever beta numale TA is in charge of recitations won't explain the most boring stupid shit in excruciating detail for you

>Students are supposed to learn for themselves that is one essential part of higher education.
I fucked up in college because I didn't realize this. Any advice on how to acquire this skill? Should I just look for resources book online?
Man it sucks being a brainlet.

>we freshmen undergrads
You're not in a position to have an opinion about how any of that should be done.

>It does not benefit anyone if a student who will drop out anyway continues for a years

actually the university will gain more money this way

Ask your Professor what books (or other material) he thinks is most useful for the course. They often have certain preferences and the book(s) they will recommend you will probably the one that has a similar structure and similar notation to what they teach.

Personally, reading ahead about half a chapter before lecturers has helped me understand what is going on during the lectures even if I hadn't understood everything I read.
Same with revising the material after a lecture.

But by far the most important thing to learn something is using it. If you get assigned homework do it and if it is easy and you have enough time you can do additional problems in the textbook.

It might even be a good idea while reading a textbook to hide proofs before you read them and think about how a proof may look like, as a test for yourself if you understood what you just read.

>the university will gain more money this way
I dont think so, having a student drop out will mean that they will loose him forever.

If they can make him switch to different field where he is more successful they will eventually both make more money and keep him happier.

Thanks user, I'll give it a try.

Are you retarded? He's in the perfect position to gauge how well they're teaching to freshmen.

How to prove something:
The meme is to read "How to Prove it" by Velleman, apparently a good book but not that necessary.

Depending on the problem, there are a number of strategies that may or may not work:
1) Proof by contradiction
2) Proof by contraposition
3) Proof by case distinction
4) Proof by induction
5) Direct proof
etc etc...

The trick here is to gauge the structure of the problem, and to wander in the dark until you get flashes of insight.

If you don't know how to do the basics, then fortunately your professors do, so decypher their proofs in class and go from there. If you are stuck, ask the prof, they will happily oblige - its their job to educate you

nah, they just assume you're adults who are willing to learn on your own and will seek out the appropriate literature, rather than flounder

yeah, it's actually a pretty damn good argument, and you are the evidence for it's validity

lol, you're probably one of those people who think we should let the children run the world because they're innocent, right?

Why am I supposed to do 30-40 hours of a work a week just for 1 class?


How the fuck am I supposed to take 4-6 classes and spend that much time on each one?

Do your homework and keep ahead in the material it will be 2-10 hours per week depending on the class and how easy it is for you.

This.

Fucking millenials.

Universities have NEVER been a kindergarten and faculty isn't there to hold your hand.

Your spoonfeeding high-school dies are over, your old class mates are busy welding car parts or shooting mudslimes.

Time to grow up and take your discipline seriously. The first step is to stop thinking lectures are like classes and that anyone is going to tell you what to do. The second step is start working your ass off and studying outside the immediate curricula (which is not enough).

I'm in calc 1 and it takes me like 20- or so hours a week to do homework and study and I'm probably going to fail the final which will make me fail the class because I can never remember how to solve each type of problem and I always fuck up the smallest shit which leads to me getting wrong answers.

I guess it's what I get for taking an online class. When I took precalc it was face2face and I wouldn't get 0 points if I did everything right except for get the correct answer.

>how to prove
You didn't prove things in school? It's the same thing, really.

Bullshit. In my first semester we had a really quick introduction to proofs. That should be enough for you to know how to google 'more examples of proof by induction pls, I retard'.

And that is not all. Odds are your professors proved every single fundamental theorem on the board in class. That is how it works. In my first semester the only professor who did not prove theorems was the Calculus professor. She instead asked certain students to research proofs online and then come the next day and prove it on the board for everyone else. I guess that makes sense because calculus/babby analysis is the most trivial subject and anyone, even a retard, could prove the uniqueness of a limit or the squeeze theorem.

So you are talking out of your ass. I go to a reaaaaally low ranked uni so if our math department does this much then yours definitely does.

I mean, it is impossible for your professors not to prove theorems for you so all you have to do is pay attention to their reasoning and then try to immitate it when the theorems on exams (which are just corollaries to the theorems they proved) are on you.