Brute Force, The Easy Way by Timothy

Brute Force, The Easy Way by Timothy - January 2014 Scholarship Essay

During my first semester of college, I found myself in the hardest course of my life: Multivariable Calculus. The lessons seemed to be moving past me at a dizzying pace, and by the time the first midterm drew close, I was just barely holding on. Night after night, I pored over sets of practice problems. As the exam approached, my professor made a frightening announcement: we would be expected to know the formula for the power series of many common functions. I would have to find the time to memorize a complete list of complicated equations while still working through the practice problems. I felt doomed.

The day before the exam was a Thursday, meaning that I attended my education class. That day, we discussed multiple intelligence theory. According to MI Theory, the more parts of the brain that are engaged during a lesson, the more effective the learning is. As class ended and I walked to the library, I realized that I could apply the theory to my study plan. I decided that I would copy each formula over and over by hand while simultaneously reciting it to myself. By writing on paper instead of typing, I would engage my mind kinesthetically as well as visually. Additionally, speaking the formulas out loud gave my brain a chance to learn in an auditory fashion. I searched out a quiet place in the library’s book stacks, and sat late into the night writing and reciting: “E…to the x…equals the sum of…x to the n…”

In the age of Google and Wikipedia, we often have the luxury of not needing to commit information to memory. There are still occasions, however, where brute-force memorization is a necessity. Using my method, memorizing a list of formulas, a series of words in a foreign language, or other set of hard information becomes manageable. I spent relatively little time studying the formulas I had to memorize, and still was able to do well on my exam.