Higher mathematics courses online?

Question

As a college dropout working as a software developer, about the only thing I feel I've missed out on is the lack of higher mathematics ( > Calculus I ).

I see loads of online MBA courses, CPA, CS, etc courses. I can't find any pure math courses. I suppose I understand why... these things are geared towards career development, not just adding a tool to the toolbox.

I've examined a few of the other online course questions without much luck. MIT Open Courseware appears to simply have Calculus, and so on.

Mathematics seems to be something you need to hammer into your skull with loads of practice. My normal learning process is just going to be too slow for this. Any suggestions?

Answer 1

In the UK, you could take an Open University course on the subject and do it in your spare time. This may be worth investigating anyway as I expect they will take foreign students as well.

Answer 2

Check your local community college for night/weekend classes. It's not online, but it's possible a meatspace classroom may be a better place to learn higher math.

Answer 3

MIT OpenCourseWare has a large selection of mathematics classes:

http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/web/courses/courses/index.htm#Mathematics

Answer 4

MIT is offering free courses online. They're audit only of course, and you might still need the book ($$$), but MIT!!

http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/web/courses/courses/index.htm#Mathematics

Answer 5

As said before UK Open University is excellent and they have good textbook and excellent tutor support. You could start with M121 and take other courses later if you feel like it. Just be aware that it will cost twice as much for non-UK residents (i.e. around £600 instead of £300 per course)

Answer 6

If it has been a while since you were in school, I would suggest getting back to the classroom. I think for most people, including myself, learning through a professor helps the learning process as compared to lets say online or solo book reading. Enroll in an evening course at a community college or state college.

Answer 7

As a Drop out software guy, you don't need Calculus at all. Its for mainly voltage and Hardware engineering. I am a comp Engineer doing software.

I would SUGGEST you get into a Algorithms class or two. Those are the classes you need as a software guy. Algorithm classes help exponentially as a programmer. Not Calculus.

Answer 8

There are several universities that offer courses through distance learning programs.

University of Wisconsin-Madison offers several lower and upper division mathematics courses, including Calc II, Calc III, ODE, Modern Algebra, and Complex Analysis. http://www.dcs.wisc.edu/lsa/indlearn/math.htm

University of Minnesota offers Calc II, Calc III, and Linear Differential Equations. http://idlwebdb.cce.umn.edu/searchresults.asp?textsubj=math&Subjects=Search

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has several upper division math courses aimed specifically at engineers. http://netmath.uiuc.edu/emo/index.php

It might be helpful to narrow the scope of your inquiry. Are you interested in just learning more, or are you interested in something for a specific purpose?

If, as you suggest, you're interested in just adding tools to the toolbox, I would think steering toward Linear Algebra, Numerical Analysis, Number Theory and Statistics courses would give you the most useful and applicable knowledge. If you did well at Calc I, you can probably get by without Calc II (though it may be a pre-requisite for some Numerical Analysis courses). I mention this because Calc II is considered by many (including me) to be the most difficult lower division math course mainly because of the tedium of the problems. I still have Integration by Trigonometric Substitution scars.

Answer 9

I would definitely check out Stanford Engineering Everywhere (SEE). The courses have video lectures and good materials. It's a better experience than a lot of the Open Course Ware (OCW) courses.

There's a nice article about it here.