“Let’s go back to the unit circle.” Boy, did I dread those words when I was a kid. No matter what my stumbling block on the math homework, my father’s response was the same. His approach was to scrap the question itself and return to Chapter One. This was not the quick and easy help I wanted. Asking a man with a doctorate in statistics for trigonometry help is like asking an architect for help installing shelf paper. “Ah, I see, but this whole closet is really in the wrong place. . .”
I wanted a trick to get to the solution. My father wanted me to re-build my basic foundation. Neither of us ended up with what we wanted. Instead of enduring the agony of returning to Chapter One, the Unit Circle and the basis of all trigonometric functions, I stopped asking him for help. I ended up with near-failing grades in high school math, remedial summer courses, and a just-good-enough pass on the SATs to get into the University of Vermont.
Where I studied education.
At the time, the only mathematics requirement for an education major was Teaching Math to Elementary School Students. Creative approaches to fractions? No problem! I aced it. I was all of 19 years old. I knew my math skills were thin and growing thinner, but I figured I would just work around this weakness.
Multiply the number of math courses I have taken since that freshman year of college by the number of intervening years, and you still get a big, fat zero.
My teaching work did not require quantitative methods, so I never bothered to learn them. The graduate program I completed did not require GREs, and the faculty was perfectly happy to accept my meticulous survey and interview skills as sufficient research tools. Who needs advanced math? I have a handle on the basics, right? I can balance a family budget, calculate the angle of the brace for a cabinet frame, and measure flour for the cookies.
I’ve mastered the work-around, and I have turned out just fine.
Two unrelated events in the past month have given me pause. The first was small. My boss asked me to generate statistics about our doctoral students.
Seems the work-around only gets you so far.
While pulling numbers from the student database, I was irritated with the paltry tools available to me for analyzing the information. I had before me a data set, and I hadn’t the foggiest idea how to go about comparing completion rates of various groups of students. I could barely recall how to calculate an average from a list of numbers! Ridiculous. I work at a major research institution with unlimited resources available for analyzing data, and I was using tick marks and sloppy arithmetic. For the first time in decades, my lack of quantitative skill was standing in the way of something I was both curious about and required to know. It was maddening.
This led me directly to the second event: selecting a class for the fall. Granted, it is just one class, and only the first of many. I have not yet applied for a doctoral program and I still have this huge divorce looming on the horizon. However, the direction of my studies is important. Is the ease of the application process my main motivation for aiming for the PhD in the department where I completed my master’s degree? Does conflict resolution jazz me enough to consume my attention for the next six or seven years? Doesn’t something else here at this university pique my interest and spark my curiosity far more?
The other two other programs I secretly want to pursue have not been allowed to enter my awareness. I finally had to have a chat with myself. “Lady? What the hell are you avoiding here?”
A meek and embarrassed little voice came back: “The GREs.”
That’s it. That’s the only thing. Not the all-consuming nature of dissertation research, balancing doctoral studies with single parenting, or getting cross-eyed analyzing data. None of those things seems insurmountable. It’s just the silly ol’ GREs. Studying for the quantitative portion of the test, possibly needing to take a year of mathematics courses to re-build my termite-ridden foundation, scares the hell out of me.
The program I am currently, loudly considering? It still doesn’t require that test for admission.
I have been doing the work-around for far too long. I could work right around into a field of study of only marginal interest to me. My modus operandi is to find the easiest way to the solution.
The problem is this: the easy way doesn’t lead to a solution at all. Experience has taught me this. The easy way only muddies the data, convolutes the question, and bogs me down in unworkable formulas.
Alas, it is time to go back to the unit circle.
I spoke with a faculty member in my department about the statistics course she teaches this fall. It is an introductory class for the master’s students in the School of Public Policy. It is quite possible that this will be too advanced for me, but she provided me with her pre-course study guide, last year’s first problem set, and bushels of encouragement.
I am now enrolled in Statistical Methods and Policy Analysis for the fall.
No more work around. Time to buckle down and work through, starting with Chapter One.
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