Should I study calculus watching youtube videos or reading the book?

Question

There are very good youtube videos but also the classic massive calculus books. Sometimes I watch a video and don't remember anything., but reading a math book take hours.The same for physics.. So what is your advice?

Answer 1

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Answer 2

I found that problem solving was the only thing that really helped me learn calculus. Do the homework problems, and then do them over again, and them do them a third time.  A crashing bore when you could be out partying. Watching videos is just like doing "programmed instruction".... Uh huh, yeah, uh huh, yeah.....when you get an actual problem you have no clue  Do you want to learn it or not?  Do the problems alot if you do.  You will be shocked and surprised about how much sense it begins to make.  

Answer 3

It depends on what your goal is. I would recommend Khan academy as a starter. Math books do a lot of proving theorems that are not necessary for people other than mathematicians and engineers. Actually, I have a MSEE and I never did much proving of theorems in my work. But you'll need to know about it if you expect to get a masters degree.  

Answer 4

Depends on how you learn. The first first semester of calculus (derivatives) can easily be learned by reading the book. This will take about 1 to 1.5 months if you are serious about it. Integral calculus is a bit harder, but can be learn straight from the book. There are lots of tricks involved with integral calc where having a teacher is helpful if they are a good instructor.  For both semesters, you need to solve lots of problems, at least 10+ per day.

Answer 5

All the way through engineering in college I found reading the book and attending the lectures was the best combination. Since the classes work is in steps you don't have to read the whole book at once but just the part that matches the lectures. 

Answer 6

You will only find out by trying both. My experience is that if I start with a book I can follow it but I don't really see the bigger picture beyond each step, whereas as a spoken explanation gives me a good sense of the overall ideas. But then after a lecture it is good to have a book because otherwise there is no reference that you quickly dive into. And when I have had the time I found that even tho reading first didn't completely sink in, it was much easier to follow a spoken lecture.

Answer 7

In general, everyone learns in either one of or a combination of four methods:

Visual

Audial

Reading/Writing

Kinesthetic (learning by doing, like moving stuff around or building things)



Practice will always help you learn, but you can help yourself by knowing how it is you remember things. If you don't remember stuff from a video, it's likely learning by listening isn't really your best method. But, if you learn by reading/writing, what you could do is have the video running and write down notes as you do it, or you could watch part of the video then look in your book for practice questions and do a few of those, and take it chunk by chunk. If you try mixing up different types of learning (listening to a video and drawing a diagram/writing it down or writing down elements of the equation on little bits of paper and physically moving them around) you might pick things up a little better and make your learning more interactive