[aphextron]

>People hit calculus, which is almost never needed in the job market, and they give up.

This.

I tried going back to school for a CS degree at 26 after 5 years of professional experience in the bay area as a developer. The CS classes are trivially easy, but I simply could not do the math. I paid for tutors. I lived on Khan Academy all day long. I tried three semesters in a row to pass calculus and just couldn't do it. The vast majority of people simply cannot pass the math classes required for an engineering degree.

[abdullahkhalids]

How many questions did you do with pen and paper, without access to any outside help (book/tutors/videos)? If you start with trivially easy questions (d(x^2)/dx = 2x) and do 1000-2000 questions with very minutely increasing difficulty level, I am sure you would ultimately pass the course.

Questions you do with others, or examples from the book are useful for conceptual clarity, but that clarity can only be guaranteed to be solidified if you successfully do questions without help.

People often think you don't need practice to master math, but don't bat an eye when they see professional football players passing the ball to each as warm up before a big game (after having played the game for 20 years and passed the ball 100k times already). Fundamentals are important. I just started learning drums, and my music teacher has been making me practice the same beat for the past 3 months over and over again till I absolutely master it. Me and every other student is happily doing it.

[vibrolax]

I had to come to grips with this when I entered university 45 years ago. I went to an extremely dumbed-down high school (especially in math), and had no idea how to make myself grind my way to competence in any subject that didn't come naturally. It took over a year to learn how to learn hard (for me) things. Fortunately, I was able to join a supportive peer tutoring network that helped me overcome the holes in my education and approach to learning. The light went on when I accepted if I wanted to succeed, I would have to spend 10 good hours working a 1 hour problem set. The majority of people just don't want to make a 10x effort to learn things that frustrate them. It's especially hard to grind when you feel surrounded by people who succeed seemingly effortlessly.