I (21M) am a 3rd year Statistics and Analytics major (B.S). Transferred from community college with an A.S degree in the fall, have been drowning in coursework ever since. I’m taking this discrete math course and it’s probably one of the top 5 hardest things I’ve ever had to do in my life.
The information is not intuitive. It takes me forever to fully grasp a concept before the class just moves onto the next topic. I feel like I’m never understanding anything fully, just barely surviving and scraping by.
I have a D (64/100) overall grade in my Discrete Mathematics course. I’m going to have to retake the class over the summer. However, I want to do it right this time. This class is a prerequisite for future classes (Intro to Probability; which itself is a prerequisite for future classes). I can tell these concepts are important, and they seem interesting to me. Induction and strong induction problems are really fun to me, but I can’t ever get through a problem without looking to AI (Claude) for advice.
For context, I use AI as a “replacement” for office hours. Obviously professors aren’t available 24/7, but an LLM chatbot? I don’t have to worry about sounding stupid or feeling stupid. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying AI can replace a professor; hell, I’ve tried going to office hours, but I can never properly articulate my questions. Most of the time I don’t know what it is that I’m confused on. During very extreme cases, I use it to get the answers to problems when deadlines are tight. Most of the time it’s used to generate practice problems, and answer my questions on topics I’m confused on.
I’ve done hard work, I’ve put in my hours at my local community college, I’ve gotten a degree (albeit an Associate’s), so I’m familiar with the work it takes to get good grades. I had a 3.3/4 GPA in community college, so not too bad? Is the skill gap from a community college to a 4-year university really THAT large?
In conclusion, I don’t know what it is I’m looking for. Insight? Guidance? Any textbook, YouTube video, or resource that can help me understand this?
Stats majors that graduated, what are you guys doing career-wise? Do you like your job? Work/life balance good?
Side note: here are the types of jobs I want to get into/have.
Future career wishes: actuarial analyst, quant, I don’t know something like that. Thoughts and suggestions appreciated below.
TLDR: I suck at discrete math and I don’t know the methodology to learn better. Not even AI can save me plz help.