Hacker News Reader

Comment by hprotagonist | Hacker News Reader

The hard but maximally useful thing to do, in my opinion, is to regularly meet with at least two other people and a blackboard and beat your heads against it together for about 3 hours at a stretch. Do this at least weekly--and preferably more often. Self study in between meetings is obligatory.

One of those people should be at about your level. The other should be farther along.

All three of you should trust each other enough that nobody gets caught in a shame/guilt/ego loop.

View on HN

Just to add, it's also worth finding someone who might be a bit below you in terms of maths ability. If you can explain the concepts to that person, then you know the concepts.

Yep. You can do this, if you're lucky, with the triad. You and the other person at about your level can trade places depending on subject matter, each explaining to the other and reinforcing their own knowledge.

Like Einstein's Olympia Academy!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympia_Academy

Can we start something like this online for Hacker News community who are interested in Mathematics?

I have created a group here if someone is interested to join: https://groups.google.com/d/forum/projectfermat (If you think that there is a better place to have a forum like this that anyone can easily view or participate in, please let us know. I mean we could also create an IRC channel, Slack workspace, etc. but there should be one main starting point and a mailing list/web forum like this seems like a good place for that.)

I am thinking we could also host a web meeting to present, discuss, or share interesting topics and problems regularly. We can form our own mathematics discussion community here.

I have been doing this kind of thing at my workplace as well as outside work and it has been an incredible source of learning. I believe something like this for the Hacker News community would be very helpful and we can learn a lot of mathematics from each other if we can interact with each other on a more topic-focused forum.

I'd be very interested in something like this.

Glad to know you would be interested in this. Please feel free to click on group link I have shared in my previous comment and hit "Apply to join group".

There are 12 members in the group so far which I believe is a good size to kick-start the discussions and other activities. More members are welcome!

I always got more from working problems on my own with an occasional consult from peers or a teacher. A danger is that you think your group sessions substitute for working problems.

group sessions keep you honest and help you work through high level stumbling blocks. You're expected/obligated to do a fair amount of solo pick-and-shovel work in between.

Well in my experience they are a waste of time, but that's just me.

you have to have the right group. It's nontrivial to manage, unfortunately, and if you do not have the right group, it is indeed a waste of time.

this is an excellent recommendation. it did not work for though. i was not the one that was at the advanced level and the one that was got bored rather quickly with us minions. Happend 5 different times.

if you could find one who willing, this recommendation will def help.

Other people's help is indeed one of the most effective ways to learn. My problem with that is simply finding such people - given my extremely introverted disposition it's much harder for me than for normies - and also what you say, ie. finding people who would not quit after three sessions.

Then I thought, why can't I just buy the time of someone competent? There are many students who tutor high school kids, shouldn't students who can teach first/second-year material for pay exist?

I wonder, have anyone tried this? To me, it looks like a perfect solution and I can't think of any downsides. I'm not sure how to approach this exactly - where to find such a tutor in the first place - but it should be possible, right?

I would use such private lessons for getting a summary/overview of the subject first, then after some self-study, I would ask about whatever I couldn't comprehend. It would have minimal impact on my schedule, shouldn't cost that much, and should be quite efficient.

Well, it's just an idea I had some time back, I didn't try it in reality yet, but I think I'll try going this way in the future. I'd like to ask what do you think, is it possible, could that really work out?

Definitely, plenty of PhD students looking to make some extra money. I saw requests like this on grad student email lists frequently.

I know people who have done exactly this. You’re looking for grad students - they often know exactly the right amount, and are very willing to work for some extra cash, and some (not all, but some) are happy to teach.

One way to find them is to contact your nearest research university’s department of math/physics/whatever and they can help match you with someone, or just post a flyer in their department office.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com