You can do all of that without paying a monthly fee. You just need a library card (or know of a person called Anna and her archive ;) ) and a list of books. These are the ones I used:

Precalculus by Axler

Calculus (Ninth Edition) by Thomas

Linear Algebra by Lay

How To Prove It by Velleman

Understanding Analysis by Abbott <--- I'm currently here

Much, much, much cheaper than paying $50/month. What I've spent most on so far has been printer paper and fountain pen ink because I do exercises by hand instead of using a tablet/iPad but in total this expense has been waaaaay under $50.

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usrnm 6 days ago | parent | next [-]

The #1 resource needed for self-learning is motivation, and for many people it's a lot more difficult to come by than money. What you're paying $50 a month is not information, but a system that encourages you to keep doing it

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chrisweekly 6 days ago | parent [-]

Also, paying for something can increase your commitment to it.

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lucketone 6 days ago | parent [-]

On the other hand, when you invest your real money, you are more likely to continue.

	▲	chrisweekly 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		That's not "the other hand", it's a rephrasing of my point. :)

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adamgordonbell 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

My understanding is Math Academy is like combining anki with direct instruction.

It's a business premised on teaching people things faster by understanding research around learning.

If the math it teaches is the math you need or want to learn, its likely an efficient way to learn it.

So, you are paying for efficiency. Like using Pimsleur rather than spending a year in France.

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mna_ 6 days ago | parent [-]

You can do that manually. Say for example you learn integration by trig sub today and you do 30 problems from a book. Next week you do some more trig sub problems. Then 2-3 weeks after that you do some trig sub problems and then in a few months you do some. You can do spaced rep manually. Is mathacademy more efficient? I don't know. It's too early to say. But what I do know is millions of people have learned mathematics with books, pen and paper for hundreds of years.

	▲	mlyle 6 days ago \| parent [-]
		> You can do that manually. Absolutely. You can spend time on figuring out what to do next, and how, and how to do spaced repetition for the material and test yourself effectively. There are aspects you'll do better than a set curriculum because you understand yourself, and there are mistakes you'll make because misunderstandings and errors. Or you can pay an expert to do that for you, and just use the time on learning.

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Notatheist 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I've recently gotten back into math and I'm really struggling with your approach. I find it particularly difficult to get an accurate view of how well I'm doing and where I am. Most concepts I ingest easily, and I demolish any exercises in the books I read, find on the internet, ask AI for, or scribble down myself randomly. I repeat them a couple of times to make sure. All is well. Cute green checkmarks abound. Categories marked as mastered. Pride bordering on arrogance. I move on. A week later I'm handed new concepts. The house of cards collapses. I haven't mastered any of the things. There are gaping holes in the information I was given and I wasn't knowledgeable enough to notice.

The author doesn't seem to share my difficulties either. His are of motivation and those seem to maybe be addressed by the resource he used and specifically sharing his progress with other users. For $50 I expect more than polished KhanAcademy, promises like "accelerates the learning process at 4X the speed of a traditional math class" (if anything I want to slow down), and a progress tracker to post pictures of on X. If I wanted to be told I'm amazing, how long my streak is, and to learn nothing I'd use duolingo.

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noelwelsh 6 days ago | parent | next [-]

What you describe is entirely normal in my experience learning lots of stuff and teaching many others. It might help you to let go of the idea that learning is a linear process where you master one topic and move on to the next. As I learn more I'm continually getting a deeper understanding of basic material I "mastered" decades ago. I often tell my students I don't think their understanding is complete but it is sufficient to move on, and the later material will help them get a better understanding. And it does!

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mlyle 6 days ago | parent [-]

> that learning is a linear process where you master one topic and move on to the next.

It's closer to true in mathematics than most other places, but not very close to true.

It's amazing the "layer cake model" of mathematics learning is such a strong idea even among many mathematics teachers.

On the other hand, sometimes a missing concept like cancellation in fractions or just poor proficiency in arithmetic rears its head and makes doing later stuff very hard. Once a student gets used to being and staying confused, it's often game over.

	▲	RealityVoid 6 days ago \| parent [-]
		> Once a student gets used to being and staying confused, it's often game over. I think this is a very good insight, that somehow eluded me. Many many people are OK being confused about things, and I never considered that it's something they learn, but it makes so much sense.

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mna_ 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

When do you do exercises, do you refer back to sections in the book or examples? If so, this is a bad habit. Try to do exercises without looking back. This will force you to use your memory. Also don't be too quick to check solutions for things you're stuck on.

Everyone who does mathematics feels the way you do when learning something new. It's a normal feeling. Don't get disheartened. Push through it.

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viraptor 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Sounds like you'd really like MA. It will drill you on things until you actually know them. There's no green checkmark as such either - everything will be tested again spaced repetition style. You will be slowed down until you can actually use the previous concepts properly.

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chrisweekly 6 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Mostly sympathetic here, but your duolingo comment is a bit too harsh. Anecdotal counterpoint: my high-schooler used duolingo last summer to skip a year of instruction and get into AP Spanish as a junior, and got into the Spanish National Honors Society, and earned a fluency certificate. (I know most high school language classes churn out students who can't speak a lick, but her school is excellent and she has working fluency - which she credits largely to using duolingo to catch up.) IOW, YMMV.

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hiAndrewQuinn 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

$50 a month is just not that much money, though. It's maybe a percentage point or two of the average US person's take home pay. And if this even doubles the speed at which I learn what I need to, then I'm saving myself many hundreds of dollars of the equivalent of my time.

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mtts 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You can, but you will spend a lot of time figuring out what it is that you need to study and where your weak points are. MathAcademy does that for you so you can spend your precious studying time on, well, what you need to study.

I think it’s very expensive, and the correct price should be €$25/ month at most, imho, but its spaced repetition system definitely provides value over self study.

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mna_ 6 days ago | parent | next [-]

You can discover your weaknesses yourself by doing problem sets then checking solutions. You'll notice what kinds of questions you keep getting wrong, then you make a note to study that area again or you do more problems in that area. You don't need a computer algorithm for this.

	▲	mtts 6 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Right, and then you’re expending mental energy on figuring out how to teach math (to yourself) instead of on the math itself. This is not wrong, and will likely even teach you a thing or two (and in fact it was how self-teaching math worked before this came along) but, to me at least, MathAcademy seems to be more efficient in getting you to do just the math and nothing else.
	▲	viraptor 6 days ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		You don't NEED anything really. But it's helpful to have a computer algorithm for this. Processing that yourself is meta effort not everyone has the extra time for or will be diligent enough about.
	▲	6 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
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6 days ago | parent | prev [-]

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commandlinefan 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I also have to suspect that the depth of the knowledge you get from reading real textbooks (and working the problems) is more profound than you're ever going to get from a MOOC, no matter how well put together.

I'm a bit behind you - I'm just finishing up my (third lol) re-read of my old undergraduate calculus textbook but one of these days I'm going to get around to real analysis. I'm pretty sure that a really good understanding of calculus still puts me in the top 5% of American adults.