I can really relate to this. A guy I hired in 1985, who was only a year younger than me, had advanced through calculus and DifEq and we both decided to complete our physics degrees (in our later 30's). The interesting part of the adventure was that he taught me *how* to study and learn math. At any level of study it is easy to think you're pretty stupid. But the reality is that you just have to pound sand down a rat hole during the "worrying through" of a solution. You just keep working at it, trying different possibilities and applying recently learned principles. It always helps to have more than one text on the topic. Anyway, the company paid for our tuition and we stayed after to do problems, though some were done on company time. I have great memories of the break-through feelings during problem solving sessions. Too bad employers can be pinheads about academic learning. They should appreciate that any serious, ongoing learning informs broader intelligence and that any work place can benefit from smart people, people with initiative.
Here's to Math and the Excellences of life it brings.
-Steve Grube
Chuck Grimes wrote: < partial quote >
>
> ...I've been helping my warehouse buddy Joe M get through his elementary
> algebra class. It is the same one that most people on lbo went through
> sometime in junior high or middle school. Joe is in his fifties, grew
> up in Oakland housing projects, and never took it in school.
>
> Chuck Grimes