Equations and Stuff...

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Hi, all.

I'm relatively new to the forums so I'm just going through everything not so methodically, as I've always had a bad habit of doing so. Probably some kind of ADD.

Anyway, I'm not sure if this really counts on this particular thread since this is university / degree work, and probably more falls under the moniker of general education so apologies if this isn't the right place to discuss this.

I've recently started studying a degree with OU. That's an online, work from home style of education which I felt I was going to be most adept with. My degree is a foundation, so not particularly stellar or outstanding but apparently still rather difficult. I really enjoy what I'm studying right now; a lot of it is pertaining to planetary science which is my strong point, some of it more relative to the Sun and stars.

I like qualitative information, eg. the order of the planets in the solar system and the study of the element makeup of the terrestrial and Jovian planets, the layering of the planets and volcanic activity, just to name a few particular areas. I particularly enjoy studying the satellites of each planet. However, I have a particular struggle with equations and mathematics. I struggled with something as simple as mean density which I honestly thought I'd find perfectly easy, but really couldn't manage it at all. I don't fall short on all mathematics, for example I managed to calculate peak wavelength as pertaining to temperature of a near black body emission source, and partially managed to calculate the output of energy of the ppI nuclear fusion chain reaction. These were both pretty easy though, definitely far more simple than they sound. Strangely enough, my strongest subject in secondary school was maths. I got a B grade for my GCSE's.

I really enjoy my course and I'm specifically excited to get to studying astrobiology (I've read a little already; I couldn't really resist). What I fear the most is that my lack of ability for mathematics is going to make me fall deadly off target from my desired goal. I recently received a 50% and 40% score on two of my assessments. This sounds pretty awful, but it is fortunately just enough to pass. I don't know if I'll make it, but science is incredibly mathematics intensive and I wasn't expecting to struggle so much. I'm going to have a field day if anything like trigonometric parallax crops up in my final exam...

What do you guys think anyway? I'm aware that mathematics is usually not the strong point for many Aspies. Do you think that somebody can scrape their way into a career in a STEM field even when lacking relatively fundamental mathematical ability?

I've never found math to be difficult at all, but I've never taken anything really advanced. But what I can say, that may be relatively useful to you, is that you can probably learn almost anything if you can find a way to relate it to something you understand. What I mean by this is that you may have to look at it in a different way for it to make sense to you. People learn things in many different ways, and the way you are learning or perceiving may not work for you. That's why getting a tutor could help. I know someone who was awful at math but managed to do significantly better on exams after getting tutored.

Sometimes you just need someone to explain things to you in a way that works with your brain. YouTube can also be a good resource. I couldn't care less about planetary science and have no idea what you are talking about, but I'm sure there are many people out there studying it who may have some better way of explaining the math portions.

In my opinion the most important part of success in any field is a sincere interest in the subject, which creates a drive to succeed. It seems as though you have that quality already. You just may have to work harder than others.

No problem. Good luck.