Okay /adv/ how do you study math, I love programming and what

>>17660520
Do a lot of practice problems. It's honestly that simple. As for placing into Calc, I'd suggest you review simplifying algebraic expressions.

It doesn't involve high level math, at least not be my standards. The stuff you would actually use is linear algebra (maybe) and boolean logic/discrete maths (stupidly basic/common sense). You can learn it online, like most things just get the ins and outs and just it out. It's all rule based so you just start at the bottom and build up.

My experience with programming is that much of it tends to be finding ways to avoid having to do higher level math. That's pretty much what computational physics is - 'brute forcing' problems that are impractical to solve traditionally for whatever reason.

Programming isn't math, it's logic. Programming in itself doesn't require high-level math, but depending on what kind of project you are working on you might need it. Many programmers go through their career without ever using high-level math.
http://www.sarahmei.com/blog/2014/07/15/programming-is-not-math/

I'm not telling you not to learn math, I actually think you should. In any STEM field (and even other fields) people who understand math well tend to do much better and win much more than people who don't. Even if you'll never use it, by learning and understanding it you will wire your brain to think in a very clear and logical way. Math is the language of the universe. But don't let it sidetrack you from your main goal and passion. If you want to work as a programmer you need to learn CS first and then math.

And to learn math you need to read the theory and do exercises until you UNDERSTAND it. You need not only to remember the formulas but to know the relationships between them and to know why those formulas and relationships exist. It can be very frustrating when you start, but you will feel a great sense of satisfaction when you finally understand something after trying to wrap your brain around it for hours. It also becomes much easier to understand as you learn, if you're doing it properly.

>>17660567
This. The reason for teaching math to attempting programmers is to learn basics and abstract thinking. Those 2 basic lectures have not much in common with real math.

(junior) programmer here - I can definitely agree that programming generally doesn't involve a lot of high level math - generally if you have to do it then you're always looking for ways to simplify it, because generally your application is going to have other priorities (especially in a game) than doing a bunch of math, so it would be considered unnecessarily expensive. Exponents and radicals in particular, which might be common in calculus, are pretty expensive and they present an unknown if you can't guarantee the limits of your roots/exponents. If you have to do anything too crazy, you generally try and cut corners by pre-computing stuff to store in tables etc.

That said, there are cases where it's useful to know some simple concepts very well. Trigonometry is endlessly useful whenever you want a 'curve-like' behaviour to an interpolation, need to smooth data etc. Binomial series is the foundation behind Bezier curves, which are pretty powerful things. But this stuff is all documented online and you will have specific considerations to make when implementing them in code vs on paper.

If you want a solid maths textbook though, I'd recommend Engineering Mathematics by K.A Stroud. It covers more than you really need to know but it starts with really simple concepts and explains them well.