My #WillHuntingChallenge continues, as I work my way through Introduction to Computer Science and Programming Using Python on MIT OpenCourseWare. So far, the course is surprisingly light on the theoretical underpinnings of computing (e.g., logic gates) and programming concepts (I haven’t gotten to functions, objects, or classes yet).

The course has started to cover some algorithms (bisection search), but it hasn’t been especially heavy on computer science yet either (no data structures). What has appeared prominently so far is math—compound interest calculations, polynomials, and derivatives. I haven’t taken a math class since high school, so I’ve definitely had to slow down, read and reread, and focus pretty intensely to wrap my head around it, but I’m keeping up.

I’m looking forward to brushing up when I get to Mathematics for Computer Science. It’s going to be a challenge for me, but it’s clearly pretty important for this program, and improving my math skills can only benefit me, right?