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I used to love doing math problems ever since elementary to high school. I wasn't always the brightest student in class but I always loved doing math problems. I didn't always achieve the perfect score, but my math grade wasn't the worst. During high school, I literally took every single math class that's offered in my high school as long as I can get it to fit into my schedule (AP Comp Sci(4), AP Statistics(4), AP Calculus BC (5), etc.) I enjoyed doing AP Calculus BC A LOT and I thought I will keep enjoying math since multi-calculus is taught in college and stuffs.

I then went to college in Europe and started to take required math classes for my major. But literary, ever since the first lesson, I hated the math class so much. Every single minute of the class feels like a burden and all the fun that I had with my high school math classes were gone. I hated going to the exercise classes for math and also hated doing the university level math problem sets, as it literary bored me to hell.

I want to know if there is someone else also feels the same way like me or is it just me that's feeling this way? I feel really sad that the subject that I used to enjoy SO MUCH turns out to be so disappointing or not nearly as interesting as I thought before in college.

Rosaline
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    Why was it boring? Was it too easy? – morrowmh Apr 25 '21 at 21:35
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    Hi Rosaline, do you think you could pin down a particular reason you dislike your university classes so much, or why you preferred your high school classes? – Stephen Donovan Apr 25 '21 at 21:35
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    Maybe you should provide some examples of what did you find interesting about math when you was a high school student, and why math courses are so boring for you now? For me it was exactly the inverse; what is called "math" in high school (at least in my country) is usually elementary arithmetic, or pre-calculus, and it wasn't interesting/challenging at all. I will not use the word "boring" for describing my experience studying math in college, I'll say indeed that it's one of the most exciting and enriching experiences in my current life. – Amelian Apr 25 '21 at 21:43
  • My personal perception at university that mathematics topics started by over-emphasising easy results, until suddenly and without warning they became much more difficult; some of these became interesting at that point and others looked pointless. It may have been my university and course, and friends doing other courses (economics in particular) never reached that point as it was always easier than they felt they could handle. Look at past end-of-course exams, and see if there is anything potential interesting there – Henry Apr 25 '21 at 22:00
  • @Henry Completely agree. The best courses aren't like that, but an unfortunate lot are. – Rushabh Mehta Apr 25 '21 at 22:01
  • I feel the same way! I use to love math when I was in elementary as well as throughout high school but as soon as I started taking uni level classes, my interest completely vanished and I now find it uninteresting (but there are a few exceptions). So far the only classes I actually enjoyed were my uni Calculus classes because they reminded me of what I used to love about math which was mostly just problem solving using formulas and whatnot. Honestly, I'm glad to see someone feeling the same way! – dery Apr 25 '21 at 22:01
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    You said you were not the best at math and yet you got into AP Calculus BC. How‽ – Тyma Gaidash Apr 25 '21 at 22:03
  • fairly normal for an American kid starting college in Vienna to feel homesick – Will Jagy Apr 26 '21 at 00:19
  • What did you do in your high-school math courses? Often high-school courses degenerate into the sort of thing where one applies procedures mechanically, algorithmically, rather than understanding why things work the way they do. Is that what your high-school course consisted of, or something else? – Michael Hardy Apr 26 '21 at 01:37

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There are different reasons that might be the case; we would need more details to really be able to tell. Some possibilities:

You happened to have good teachers in high school and terrible ones in your first college courses.

They went up in abstraction and you prefer your math more concrete.

They started skipping too many steps.

They were boring you by going over things you already knew.

They were presenting everything in the most boring awkward way possible.

You changed in some way; your priorities shifted.

Sometimes a shift in attitude makes all the difference. I loved math myself, but I had a habit of getting in my own way. Doing things because I wanted to soon shifted to doing things because I felt I ought to, which shifted to trying to force myself to do something I desperately didn't want to do.

Honestly, I hit a point where I decided, "that's it. I'm not going to study any math or physics ever again unless I need it for work." I gave myself permission to never touch it again...and then I started finding it fun again.

You are not the only one to have a shift in perspective. It is fairly common. But it is important to question your assumptions and pinpoint exactly why you feel as you do--even if you think you already know! You might think you know, but not nearly close enough. That happened to me too.

Good luck. I hope you find the fun again.

RobertTheTutor
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I want to know if there is someone else also feels the same way

Yes, but perhaps not quite as extreme. Like you, I enjoyed math in high school and took many of the math courses that my high school offered, including AP Calculus. Like you, I enjoyed these courses and looked forward to college math.

But that is pretty much where the story ends. College math is not like high school math. It is much more abstract and there is much more emphasis on writing proofs. College math courses also tend to move at a much faster pace than high school courses, covering in a single semester what a high school course might cover in a whole academic year. Students who were good at high school math may find themselves struggling with college math and students who enjoyed math in high school may find themselves bored or frustrated in college. I was definitely among those students.

That's not to say that college math is all bad. College opens the door to mathematics that most high schoolers aren't even aware of. I was lucky that my high school even offered AP Calculus. You'd be hard-pressed to find a high school that offers courses in abstract algebra or real analysis. I encourage you to persist in your studies and perhaps one day you will find math interesting again. Or forget about math entirely. It's really up to you.