A Mind for Numbers

How to Excel at Math and Science (Even If You Flunked Algebra)

By: Barbara Oakley PhD

Narrated by: Grover Gardner

The companion book to COURSERA®'s wildly popular massive open online course "Learning How to Learn"

Whether you are a student struggling to fulfill a math or science requirement, or you are embarking on a career change that requires a new skill set, A Mind for Numbers offers the tools you need to get a better grasp of that intimidating material. Engineering professor Barbara Oakley knows firsthand how it feels to struggle with math. She flunked her way through high school math and science courses, before enlisting in the army immediately after graduation. When she saw how her lack of mathematical and technical savvy severely limited her options—both to rise in the military and to explore other careers—she returned to school with a newfound determination to re-tool her brain to master the very subjects that had given her so much trouble throughout her entire life.

In A Mind for Numbers, Dr. Oakley lets us in on the secrets to learning effectively—secrets that even dedicated and successful students wish they’d known earlier. Contrary to popular belief, math requires creative, as well as analytical, thinking. Most people think that there’s only one way to do a problem, when in actuality, there are often a number of different solutions—you just need the creativity to see them. For example, there are more than three hundred different known proofs of the Pythagorean Theorem. In short, studying a problem in a laser-focused way until you reach a solution is not an effective way to learn. Rather, it involves taking the time to step away from a problem and allow the more relaxed and creative part of the brain to take over.

The learning strategies in this book apply not only to math and science, but to any subject in which we struggle. We all have what it takes to excel in areas that don't seem to come naturally to us at first, and learning them does not have to be as painful as we might think.

I will get my math textbooks out

I am not particularly bad at math, but courses like calculus and linear algebra I never really got a good grasp of. It seems like after trigonometry or pre-calc I have had a ceiling on my math. Mainly due to my occupation not requiring or seemingly the practicality is not readily seen. After finishing this audiobook I will study like a college or high school student again. I want to get a better grasp of higher level math. I recommend this book for those who are like me. Good in math, but looking to break that glass ceiling we self-imposed on ourselves.

Perhaps it should be renamed to "how to study"

I was hoping there would be more of a math focus. The book is generally just giving you tips about how to think through problems or pay attention in class.

As someone who works in a STEM field, I was hoping for something more like Jordan Ellenberg's book. I don't have a problem studying specifically. The advice here is pretty general, but nothing here was news to me. Good narration, only an okay book.

A must read.

Breaks down how the mind learns and provides essential strategies to increase learning ability. Highly recommend!

AMAZING

I recommend this book/audio to anyone who struggles with math to top professionals who can still become even better a the math/science subjects.

Great strategy

These new techniques in this book are very useful be helped me out drastically it helped to better understand mathematics and coding.