By Mia Martinez | Reporter
When she applied to Baylor Holly Hill, Fla., junior Natalie Lu initially believed her general education math course would be one of the easier requirements in her degree plan. When she got to Baylor, it was a different story.
Lu described the statistics course she took freshman year as requiring more critical thinking than she expected.
“It was an easy course with some challenging content that was ultimately manageable,” Lu said.
Coming out of high school, Lu felt confident in her math skills and preparedness for college math, especially after AP Statistics. Despite this, Lu emphasized her difficulties with this course being related to test questions often differing from homework assignments, which required her to understanding the material on a deep level rather than just memorize it.
“The most challenging part was that the homework assignments did not match the exam questions,” Lu said. “I didn’t struggle with specific concepts, though the phrasing of certain exam problems required extra focus.”
Dr. Kyunglim Nam, a mathematics lecturer with more than a decade of experience, said many college students who come through Baylor lack the foundational skills necessary for success in college-level math.
“Maybe 35% of students are very underprepared,” Nam said.
Nam said the gap is due to how they learned math before college. She also added that some students bypass essential basic math courses through online credits or placement exams, making a “shakier foundation.”
“A lot of students who are not ready are skipping some essential algebra courses and pre-calculus courses, so their foundational basic algebra skills are very shaky,” Nam said.
Nam said many students rely on high school techniques of memorization rather than deep understanding of concepts. This becomes a problem when students come across questions that they have to apply the formulas to in order to grasp, she said.
“They don’t know how to think through,” Nam said. “They just learn what step it should be if this problem comes out without understanding the question itself.”
Because students rely heavily on memorization, the transition from high school math courses to college math courses is especially hard. Nam emphasized the disadvantage of relying on review sheets and repeating problems rather than trying to apply learning.
“That is discouraging learning how to learn,” Nam said. “Students don’t know how to learn because it was always instructed by somebody else.”
Through these challenges, both Nam and Lu emphasized the importance of mathematics beyond the classroom. For Lu, who is in nursing school now, her gen ed statistics class set the foundation for some of the work she does in Dallas.
“Statistics is highly relevant for interpreting clinical data and applying evidence-based practice in patient care,” Lu said.
Nam said math isn’t just about solving equations, but rather developing critical thinking skills that apply across disciplines.
“Math doesn’t work without critical thinking,” Nam said. “They need to learn how to think through problems.”
Nam advised students to take an active role in their learning by engaging more deeply with the material and making connections between concepts.
“Think about why it is working that way,” Nam said. “Make connections and reinforce the concept.”
Nam cited the many resources Baylor offers and said struggling students should take advantage of those early.
“There are so many resources,” Nam said. “But not so many students are coming to get help.”
