Whoa, boy did this semester move by quickly.  Next thing I knew, it was already over.  At Michigan State, everyone is heading into finals week, and boy are people stressed out more than ever before.  Some people have 4,5, or even 6 exams!  With as many as 3 in the same day!  It’s understandable that you might stress out a bit, so here’s a few tips and ideas to surviving through the week.

1. Don’t Stress!  Relax!
Not enough people take this seriously, so here’s a cool mind trick.  There’s only 1 thing in this world that you can control, and that is YOU!  You can’t control who grades your exam, you can’t control what other people will think, but only what YOU think and what YOU do.  If there’s one thing I knew about studying, it’s that stressing out about it never made it any easier, so keep that in mind, when you stress about putting something off.  Just don’t do it!

Mind you, some stress can be a good thing.  Positive stress is what gets you to actually STUDY when time is running out.  That’s the pressure of having to get something done in a LIMITED amount of time, so here’s tip #2

2. Create a false sense of urgency
It blows my mind how just about everyone I’ve ever met in college always waits to the last minute for everything.  Well, actually, I’m exaggerating quite a bit, but when an essay is due the next day, and you go to the library, and see numerous classmates there, well then, you realize just how mediocre we’ve all become, JUST KIDDING!  But why stress when you can get something done sooner?

Set a False Deadline!  Set for something to be done a few days before it’s actually done, and make that NEW deadline, your sense of urgency.  Odds are, you will probably run out of time, much like I have numerous times, but this time, when you past your deadline by just a little bit, the paper doesn’t suddenly become late or past due, like during the actual deadline.  Plus with the extra time, you can go back and make sure it’s stellar, rather than missing many grammatical errors from not proofreading carefully enough.

With regards to studying math, by letting what you learn sit in your head a few days, you remember more of it!  Calculus includes EVERYTHING you’ve learned before.  So why just put it into short term memory, when with a few days notice, you can get that math remembered forever, so you won’t make silly mistakes in your more advanced course work?  That’s what I call building the proper foundation.

Need help with any Math tutoring?  Feel free to send me an E-mail.  I even use my webcam, and will answer ANY of your questions, guaranteed!  I charge only $15/hr, which I consider to be quite a bargain compared to any kind of tutor store, or especially Princeton Review, or Kaplan, which charge $1000s for their little Standardized test courses.  You be the judge, send me an E-mail with any questions at bachelis@msu.edu

Leave comments too!  Whaddya think?

Today is the start of a new semester.  It’s time you started your semester off right.  There are many ways to start a semester right.

1.  Go to Class!
So many new freshman simply ignore this rule, and wonder why they fail out.  Please do attend class, if at least just to be there.  Many classes do take attendance, and you don’t want to lose points your very first day do ya?

2.  Get books and school supplies.
This was a rule I broke, trying to keep everything in 1 folder or binder is not a good idea.  With many deadlines going on at once, you will most likely forget something is due and end up not doing it, hurting grade.  If you want your grade to suffer, have it suffer because the work you did was bad, don’t let it be because you forgot you had to do the work.  If that’s the case, you deserve the A+, but you threw the grade away because of disorganization, as opposed to not understanding the material, I don’t recommend it.

3.  Get a planner of some sort.
With a planner, or calendar, you can keep track of EVERYTHING, and I really mean everything.  I personally love musicals, so I will keep all of Wharton Centers events in my calendar.  Why?  Because if I don’t, I’ll probably forget amidst all my studies and forget to see a great musical, (Like Phantom, or A Chorus Line)  Just because school gets hectic doesn’t mean you need to sacrifice seeing your favorite rock band, orchestra, drama, or musical.  Plan ahead, and the world is your oyster.

and MY most Important tip, that you’ll never guess!

4.  ACT AS IF, you’ve already done everything in semester awesomely!
Right now, the semester has begun, and your struggling, so much homework, so much reading, so much to do, it can get so crazy, so here’s the secret.  I want you to imagine how great it will feel 3 months from now, when you’ve aced everything, getting that amazing grade, and realizing all that stress was a complete waste, and prevented you from getting stuff done because you indulged in it.  Remember how great it feels to get stuff done, and on time, and how little, if anything, has EVER been accomplished by putting anything off.  Remember that.   By remembering how great it feels to get stuff done in the future, you are more likely to do it in the present.  How hard can something be, if you’ve already done it?  Eh?  Now that’s a jedi mind trick you can play on yourself to do anything, anytime.  Act as if you already had!  How did it feel?

Hope that was helpful.  Some of it was common sense, but that last tip is definitely a “whoa!”  Let me know what you think by leaving a comment!  I promise I’ll read’em.  Remember, act AS IF, you’ve remembered how it felt to have done everything already.  By tricking your brain in to having that feeling NOW, it will drive yourself to creating that feeling in your reality, in your future.  So start imagining.  Tell me what you think?  It’s worth a try.

Most of math is just a set of rules.  Once you learn the rules, you can do all the computations.  That is, once you know how to add, subtract, multiply and divide. This is best illustrated in how you find the domains of functions.

For example, any question that asks you to find the domain of any function is a very simple question.  Just know the all the rules, and you can answer any question.  For this type of question, there’s mainly only 3 rules.

1.  Don’t divide by Zero
2. Can’t Square Root Negative Numbers
3. Can’t Take the Log of Negative Numbers

Once you know the rules, every find the domain problem, becomes simply finding out when one of these rules apply.  Here’s a few examples

X^2
Well, is it dividng? No.  Is there a Square Root? No.  Is there a Log?  No
Thus: The domain is all real #s.

X^2/X
Technically, this equals just X, HOWEVER, since you devide by it, there’s one rule being broken,
since you are dividing, whenever the denominator is zero, can’t exist, so thus, the domain of this
is all real #s EXCEPT zero

X^2/X-3
This problem is relatively the same, EXCEPT for the minus 3 in the denominator.
Once again, where the denominator = 0 is where this doesn’t exist
The denominator = 0 WHEN x = 3, thus
The answer is all real #s EXCEPT 3

sqrt (X+4)
Here the squareroot can’t be negative, so you find where it becomes negative
It becomes negative when X is less than 4 (Plus you CAN take sqrt of ZERO) SO
The Domain is All Real #s >= -4 OR in Interval Notation [-4, inf) (can’t reach infinity)

Logs function the same way as square roots.

There’s the rules, now go out and find some domains!

If you have any questions, feel free to contact me
I am eager to answer your math questions, or perhaps
even schedule a tutoring session.