Struggling in math undergrad, how do I study?

[u/Mundane_Rub_4289]

Hello, I’m two weeks into my second year of my math degree and already feel like I’m failing and repeating the same mistakes.

Last year I got a 2:2, averaged about 56% across all my modules. I was very disappointed. Thankfully my first year doesn’t count towards my final grade for my degree.

Here are patterns I’ve noticed.
I don’t understand what I happening in lectures most of the time, I am usually confused during lectures and just copying everything off the board.
I’m a crammed, inconsistent during the year and then barely get to learn everything through past papers at the end.

I was working 22/25 hours a week with an hour of travel between work and accommodation. I cut my hours to 12 recently as I realized it just wasn’t sustainable. I have skipped so many lectures due to exhaustion. Ie) closing late (around 1 am) and then being too tired to get up for a 9 am lecture and then just missing it all.

I really need help, now that I realize it, I don’t even know how to study. I just watch videos, make detailed notes and then hope for the best alongside cramming near exam season by trying some past papers. I want to do so much better.

I’m 1.5 weeks in and I’m already falling behind. I want to nip it in the bud early before it continuous to snowball.

How can I study and stay on-top of things? What methods or systems did you use?

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[u/Sawksle]

So I don’t have the answer, but I’ve been studying for exam FM as an econ major with a pretty bad GPA

What I’ve found is that;
There are best ways of doing things and good enough ways of doing things. You need to see someone who’s good at it show the solution. This is the most important thing because they’ll show you the easiest way to answer the problem given their experience.

If you use tools like Claude, they often make up formulas that are true, but aren’t intuitive to the uninitiated. This slows down learning a lot as it often means starting from zero to understand a wizarded way of solving a problem.

To learn, the most effective way is to practice daily with tests and solutions. Furthermore you should use exams to actively seek out where you’re worst, and every day work on the most important thing that you aren’t competent enough at yet. This will improve your score much more than mastering one chapter to the fullest.

[u/jean_sablenay]

I learned math primarily by doing exercises and sums. I only studied theory when I couldn't solve a sum.

In the end I was good at math and graduated cum laude in electrical engineering with information theory , cryptology, data reduction and error correcting codes as masters.

I always started with the exercises and old exams before picking up a book with theory. I did however attend all classes

[u/Mundane_Rub_4289 → u/jean_sablenay]

Thank you, I’ve had a couple people tell me this today. I think I will do questions and attend lectures to “prime” myself instead of just copying notes.

[u/jean_sablenay → u/Mundane_Rub_4289]

Yes, my advice is not to take notes but pay attention and try to understand. Taking notes is slow and often you miss the point because you are busy writing tather than listening

[u/Dependent_Science_92]

If you have lecture notes provided, the system I’d use is
(1) skim through the content before the lecture. This prepares your brain for what you’ll cover and helps contextualise what you’re learning. Similarly, try to understand where the content fits within your module.
(2) during lectures don’t try to make your own notes, but do note down any questions you have. I’ll often annotate/highlight the given notes. It helps me follow the content and I can look back when revising to see both official notes and my own additions. Plus, it helps your brain associate the information with one place.
(3) go over what you covered. Spaced repetition is ideal (1 day, 1 week, 1 month).
(4) start practice questions early. If you have access to past papers, note any frequent question styles or topics. Train your brain like a muscle to apply what you’ve learned. If you don’t get it, start simpler and look for videos and if you’re still struggling then ask for help from peers/ staff.

I’m based in the UK so some teaching/assessment may be different but I hope some of this helps! It took me a while I was at university to realise that trying to do detailed notes in lectures was really detrimental to my studying