My background
It was all random. Like a lot of the things that happen in life. Similar thing has happened to me when I went to the university - the degree wasn’t for me in the end. Mid degree I found myself not enjoying it at all. Then I somehow I got into programming again. I realised that it is something that I do enjoy and I was doing in the past. I just didn’t have a guts to follow through. Rest is history. In the end I finished the degree, not for myself but mostly for my parents because they did invest a lot in me. Once I started programming again I didn’t stop till this day.
Same thing is happening with me and math. At some point in the school I was kinda decent with it. Then in my mid teens I had horrible math teachers that made me hate the subject. All the years have passed and I still feel that it wasn’t me be being rebellious that I didn’t pay any attention to their class. They made me feel stressed whenever the class was coming up. Rest is again - a history.
Now
Since I have finished a degree unrelated to software engineering I had to learn on the go, by myself. To be honest I didn’t have a will power to learn it all or there wasn’t enough time in a day for me to learn math. I was just applying it, through programming.
Once day when I was doomscrolling the X, I found one of the posts of the people that were posting their progress on MathAcademy. I got interested right away, started following them and replying. I saw them winning, I saw them getting better - I wanted the same thing for myself. After a few days I bough my own subscription. Now after 11757 XP I decided to write a few paragraphs about it.
I really like the idea of working in the public. I want to learn from others, see myself and you all progressing. I feel like when I don’t post what I learn, I’m becoming less interested in it with time. Constant motivation from others - your posts - is a great driving tool.
Review
TLDR: It’s worth it even though it’s not cheap.
I will just bulletproof all the points.
Pros
- Overall a great product: knowledge is there, it’s structured, made by a people that know how to build a product that makes you comeback. You know where you’re going and what waits for you there. You know that the next step is getting better at trigonometry, because you cannot finish trigonometry quiz in time. MathAcademy will throw you more lessons/reviews regarding the topics that you’re not a good at.
- Step by step progression; you don’t feel lost even though some lessons could have more details. Roadmap is clear, you’re learning mathematics for machine learning or you want to get better that proofing. Staircase is all there, just waits for you.
- Community: very helpful and supportive. Founders most of the time answer your questions on X and they’re also here to help you. A lot of posts of people showing their progress and motivating each other. I haven’t met a single person that was discouraging anyone, so far. Don’t prove me wrong please.
- Makes you focused. I have missed two days since I bought MA subscription. I was sick. Other than that no days off since 16th of August 2024. It’s a combination of a community that wants to improve, motivating each other. Gamification of some of the features is also important. You get XP for finishing topics, you can set a daily goal of the XP that you want earn. You see a leaderboard of the league that you’re in. You see some other person working harder than you. You start working harder as well.
Cons
- Time to finish a quiz varies from a few minutes to 10-15 minutes. Most of the time I have to take it twice, cause I’m not that fast and I fail it on the first try. On the second try, I know what kind of questions can be found for a given quiz and I usually pass it there.
- Costs a lot. If you’re not from a developed country with a decent pay, you might not be able to afford it.
Closing words
Sometimes good things happen randomly. Sometimes they come back to you. You remember enjoying doing something in the past and you want to get back to it. Even though you might feel it’s too late, it’s not. Too late for what? Does it even make sense?