Joyce has been homeschooled her entire life until now, when she's suddenly a freshman in college! Things don't go well.
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I needed mine in third grade, and finally got them in fourth. I kept getting low grades and punished for no reason because they thought I was just goofing off, turns out I just couldn’t read the friggin’ board anymore.
I could still read the books fine, but my undoing was one teacher who wrote math problems on the board for us to copy down and solve. My math was correct, but I transcribed the problems wrong. Of course a parent-teacher conference ensued, and both my parents wearing glasses wasn’t a clue for the teacher because “KiDs DoN’t GeT nEaRsIgHtEd”… At least mom and dad put two and two together and brought me to an optometrist after that, and GUESS WHAT THEY FOUND.
I got mine in I think first grade when I couldn’t see the board anymore from even the first row.
But when I was in school (in Canada, in the Seventies, this was), they used to every few grades up to I think about grade 6 or 7 have us all line up by class, cover one eye, and read an eye chart (as well as doing a hearing assessment), especially to find and help kids with those issues. Do they not do this anymore?
We did the hearing assessment (high pitched quiet beeps in rock-hard headphones), no vision test. I don’t know if that’s a universal American thing, or if my school district just didn’t care in the 90s.
Of course my parents tested me a bunch ANYWAY bc they were SURE I had problems paying attention… maybe, but I also didn’t care (as in, I couldn’t find motivation to achieve in school as much as not fail (if even that))
I don’t remember exactly how frequently they did it, but my late-90s American elementary school did both hearing and vision tests at least every couple years. So it was a thing for some schools, at least, but American schools vary drastically from region to region so I have no idea how common it was.
“Kids don’t get nearsighted?!” Had that teacher never had a student with glasses before? Did they somehow go through both primary and secondary school without meeting a student who needed glasses? Did they get their teaching credentials out of a Cracker Jack box?
I got my first glasses in third grade because I, too, had issues reading the board. And then teachers would contact my parents whenever they noticed that I was having trouble with the board again, which happened two-three times a year until my ophthalmologist put me in bifocals when I was 11.
TV may not destroy your eyes, but being a bookworm can.
I guess my school system was staffed by bitter near-retirees who were stuck in the 60s. “Obviously his problems with inattention and low grades are because he’s a troublemaking slacker, not due to undiagnosed mental disorder and the fact that he can’t read the board” types.
The first optometrist I ever went to suggested giving me bifocals from the beginning, so I’ve always had them. I guess that was supposed to exercise the focusing muscles? Apparently worked; my little sister needed glasses around the same age as I did, but she only ever got single lenses. Now her vision’s worse than mine.
I remember squinting at the board in my heat transfer class when the professor suggested I see an optometrist. I did. Everything was clearer after that (I finally broke down and admitted I needed glasses, but I still got a “D” in his class and had to repeat it next semester :-).
I’ve been wearing glasses since I was 12 years old, to the point that I have a really hard time picturing myself without them. They are as much a part of my self-image as my nose, mouth, or ears.
Walkyverse Joyce had more brothers and her mother problems amounted to being pressured to go down a family way to embarrassing degrees. Sarah was a a belated enemy rather than a friend, and she had a crush on a much less ‘codependent doofus’ and much more enabler Danny for the longest time.
No alien bio-engineering, Her parents the most morbid breed of ‘fundie’ rather than mere ‘whitebread’ Protestants, and Danny was a acquaintance at most. Nearsightedness may be another feature of the rebooted version of one of Willis’s rightfully beloved characters…
Sure. But none of those are differences rooted in genetics, and David’s maintained that any character’s sexuality in one universe was the same as in another.
What’s really surprising is that Joyce should be someone with eye problems when she’s one of the minority of characters with defined sclerae. But I guess there’s Jocelyn too.
So I have worn glasses for almost 20 years now and have ansolutely horrible eyesight without them so I wouldn’t know, but would sitting at the back of a first year lecture hall while a professor writes on a board at the very front mean for sure you need glasses? Can even people who dont glasses see that well from that far back? I would assume it would be hard ti read for anyone, no?
Thin chalk lines are hard to force your eyes to focus on. You might be able to manage day-to-day off shapes and context clues, but words written on a blackboard will just halo out to unintelligible noise.
I used to think it was just hard to read from the back and that my school’s light projectors were blurry. Then I found out in 8th grade I needed glasses…
Also, I’m pretty sure I recognize this classroom. I could see from the back fine (with my glasses)
If you have good eyesight, no, you should be able to see clearly if the writing is reasonably sized and shouldn’t have any difficulty seeing it. Humans with good eyesight can see pretty far pretty clearly as long as what is being looked at is sized well.
The lecture hall sizes from what we have seen are honestly not big enough for me to expect there to be an issue where the writing is too small.
Darn you’re right. I’m nearsighted as well and have weird Joyce-like eyes too, except brown. Definitely look smaller when I wear glasses, which is always
This was grade 10 for me. The worst part was that it took another 3-4 years from that point before I finally got glasses, because I just assumed the problem was something else, rather than my eyes. Old projector, small writing on the chalkboard, etc. I finally said something to my parents, and we went to the optometrist, and I was prescribed glasses and got a pair the same day!
Maybe so. What throws me is that this is unit 7 on the first day. Which leads me to believe this is a two semester course. If this is a into calculus course for non-math majors, the first semester should be differential calculus and the second integral calculus. If it’s an intro calculus course for math majors, they should be talking about point set theory. No way is differential equations of any type suitable for an intro course.
Maybe the prof just hasn’t erased the board from the previous class yet.
Separable differential equations are on the AP, so they’re definitely suitable for an intro course, although you’re right it’s weird that they should be on the first day of the second semester.
The board just says “Differential Equations” so, while it might be refering to seperable DE’s the term does technically cover the common introductory f(x)=dy/dx as well. For furst year calc, doing intro to differentials in semester one, and into to integrals in semester two is pretty common. Basic DE’s seem to be easier to grasp and provide a good foundation for understanding how things go in the other direction. Also, understanding and recognizing the solutions to DE’s is pretty fundamental to integration.
Wait is it normal for people to have to take all these advanced math classes for most degrees? Joyce is an education/early child development major, right? Do we know what Sal is studying?
If this is standard for most degrees, I am realizing I really dodged a bullet by going to art school. I suck at math and my “math requirement” was somehow fulfilled with a course on Human Evolution because we briefly used equations to talk about some genetics stuff. XD
Though I also had to take Advanced Perspective, which may have counted, and is the most headache-inducing class in art school.
I mean, it’s just calculus. Most of the students who are going on to STEM degrees already took it in high school; the ones who didn’t, this is a fill. Besides, how are you going to read War and Peace without calculus?
Was going to say, I think I was 16 when I made 1 = 3 (and cried)… But that was UK AS Level maths. (My teacher hugged me when I got a C at the end. My dad is a now retired engineer and his take was that with the time you have in the exams, you really needed to know exactly how to answer the questions and use all of the time to do so, rather than working things out from first principles at all; it was a tough course. I hadn’t been used to having to work but unlike Walky I didn’t throw a tantrum at the idea.)
Might have had a meltdown and forgotten how to breathe the night before the exam (literally did not know how to breathe in again and my chest was starting to hurt and it was getting a bit scary) but didn’t sulk about it…
Good God, no. As a dyscalculic Religions major, I fulfilled the quantitative proficiency requirement with musical acoustics, Greek statue proportions, and a sweet class on dinosaurs. They make ways for deeply non-mathy BAs among us to white-knuckle through a number once in awhile, they don’t make us all attempt calculus.
(Note: It’s not “just” calculus for some of us. I had an undiagnosed learning disability in math. See you in ancient text exegesis.)
In another universe, Joyce really liked math (and had a comically large calculator to prove it). It was a nice trait for her: a non-cliche for a bubbly girlygirl to be skillful at math, plus it’s logical for Joyce to enjoy following the rules. I bet Willis is keeping her mathy aptitude in this universe, too.
I had an undiagnosed math disability too, and actually found calculus easier than other maths. More understanding concepts, less memorizing formulas. Trig was a nightmare. I guess it takes all types.
And the worst thing about trig was … for some reason, who knows what, I never got the whole “unit circle” thing even presented to me. It just wasn’t there. So it was just all “everything is inexplicable until you manage to internalise a zillion ratios into a rough approximation of what you could’ve got in one bloody illustration until I was revising old pre-uni maths for the GRE, when I went back to grad school, and stumbled across it myself. You know. A decade later.
See this is why I suck at math. The abstract thinking approach to it just…does not work for me. It sounds like gibberish. I can’t do math in my head, I can’t spell in my head, and I have a hard time memorizing rules and equations without proper context.
My algebra 2 teacher did a fantastic job showing us clearly on the board how each equation came to be and that really helped me understand it better. The one and only math class I’ve ever not hated and did pretty okay in (though it still took me longer to finish tests and stuff because I really had to plot out everything on paper carefully to comprehend it).
Yeah I am fairly certain I have this too. Back as a kid/teen I was just “bad at math” but my algebra 2 class (the one time I ever enjoyed math/was good at it) made it clear that if I was taught in a way that heavily relied upon visual education, and given extra time, I actually did just fine.
My math difficulties also seemed to extend to the more math-y sciences. I had a hard time in physics and chem, but LOVED (and did very well in) biology, oceanography, and environmental science (those last 2 I took as electives senior year instead of taking another physics or chemistry class, thank goodness).
Well checking my old uni transcripts, I can see that Partial Differential Equations and Complex Variable was one of the modules in my second year. My degree was in Pure Maths. xD
(I passed it with 63%)
It looks like they’re in a typical two-semester calculus sequence for engineering/science majors. (Although that doesn’t really make sense given their majors.) First semester covers limits and derivatives, but should end with anti-derivatives, the fundamental theorem of calculus, and maybe some basic u-substitution. Second semester starts with either integration techniques or areas/volumes or a mix of the two. Basic separable differential equations are usually a short chapter after that, but there’s no reason it couldn’t be done at the beginning if u-substitution was covered in the first semester.
I believe Joyce has been stated to like and be good at math, so she probably was just interested. Walky’s invested in being smart and Linda wouldn’t let him get away with taking the easy version.
That makes sense that she’d take it if she enjoys it, even if not required for her major. I forgot she likes math. Walky I assume needs it for his major. Sal…I can’t remember what her major is, but she seems to not enjoy math and struggle with it so I imagine it must be required for her major (or she wanted to challenge herself or felt pressured to take it)?
Depends on the school (although this is based on a real-life school, so it should be possible to figure out). At my college, diff eq (fall) and multivariable calculus (spring) were *technically* numbered as 2nd-year, but almost all of the people in the class were freshmen. I don’t think it was a class that humanities majors commonly took, though, I think it was mainly people in STEM fields.
On the other hand, doing numerical integration is easier than numerical differentiation. I always found that contrast between symbolic/numeric calculus rather amusing.
How the heck do you figure numeric integration is easier than numeric differentiation? For numeric integration you have to break the area up into more and more parts and figure out what your error can be and whether you need to break it up into even more parts, which can sometimes get rather tricky. For differential you have a definition in terms of a limit as epsilon approaches zero. So you pick a suitably small epsilon, do a single subtraction and division and Bob’s your uncle. If you want to get tricky you can use both a positive and negative value of epsilon to bound your error.
That’s when you’re dealing with the nice little functions they give in calculus, not the pathological functions of higher math (in which numerical integration doesn’t factor), or the wonky ones from the real world.
Integrals are the one topic in education that’s frustrating for students because it is frustrating, and not just because our education system is horrible. Differentiation? Memorize some basic derivatives, rules for addition and multiplication, and the chain rule, and it’s just application from there. Limits? There are a dozen different ways to conceptualize them so just find one that works for you, and it doesn’t get more complicated than L’Hôpital’s rule until you get to really advanced stuff. Integrals? Here’s some tools to turn a simple-looking problem into a more complicated one, and a four-leaf clover to help you pray for luck that you’ve made any progress at all.
That was Year 11 and Year 12 at High School when I did it. Umm. Some advanced trig, combinatorics, and probability theory were included, too. First year at uni was differential equations and simple linear algebra.
Maybe not everyone, but they definitely make people who are already kinda cute even cuter. And apparently lots of people think they make you look smarter as well.
Now, let’s not be too hasty. We have no idea what Joyce might look like with glasses. Certainly not, for example, glasses which may or may not match with Dorothy’s.
I’m reminded of the Mouse Race episode of M*A*S*H in which Major Winchester was watching the action with his opera glasses backwards so it seemed FARTHER AWAY than it really was.
When I was 38 I could read the micrographed OED in dim light. I thought, geeze, I’ll never need glasses. When I was 39 I needed glasses and no fooling around. Now, at 71, I need a loupe to read the micrographed OED.
Oh, that’s irksome. I’ve been quietly pleased that I’ve nearly reached 50 with no deterioration in my always excellent eyesight. Now you’re telling me it could just as easily crash between now and my birthday.
I hated taking notes.
I did fine listening and understanding, and reading texts. But I rarely took notes.
Then a professor appeared who graded our notes.
Nah. That’s what happens when the education system turns out to also fail at educating the teachers, too. “They care about nothing but what I grade! They should care about taking notes. ERGO, I shall grade the notes!”
I predict she’ll be happy she starts to look like Dorothy, and cuts her hair to match.
… and then of course comes murdering Dorothy and taking over her life, but that’s further down the line. Sophomore year, at least. (So that will come to fruition in 2030 or so?)
I’d think she’d just lock Dorothy in a cage and then become a popular version of Dorothy that goes on to become president just to mock imprisoned Dorothy.
I think it just doesn’t fit her self image. She’s been reluctantly changing a lot about her self image lately, I’ll bet she sees “wearing glasses” as one change too many.
They sat in the middle of the lecture hall, closer to the board. She may have noticed distant signs getting a little fuzzy, but it wasn’t a problem until she had to read thin chalk lines on a blackboard.
It’s amazing how you can just get used to minor vision problems, as long as they’re not an immediate hinderance.
Her vision problems are minor or only just started recently and they used to sit in the middle which was closer to the board, where the larger size of the board writing further helped compensate at that distance. It also only may be noticeable with writing as she hasn’t seemed to have issues with anything else.
This comic is what the entirety of 6th grade was for me. Did my parents know I needed glasses? Yes. Did they get them for me? Not til 6th grade was over.
Is the lecture boring or is Sal just that bad at concentrating on what is actually being said?
Meanwhile, I’ve got a feeling it is going to be up to Sal and maybe Walky to drag Joyce into an optometrists to get her eyes tested. She’ll probably manage to still look pretty and I’m wondering if there will be a running joke about everyone wondering who the new pretty nerd girl is!
I think Sal’s figured out that she takes in the information better when /not/ trying to take notes, but fidgeting with a pen is a good way of keeping some white noise in the brain. It’s not that uncommon, and if she does need notes she can dash up to the board and snap a picture with her phone at the end of class.
Was curious to know just how many or the regularly recurring people in the Dumbiverse (not counting the parents) wear glasses, so I took a quick count and came up with 13 or 14, as opposed to 11 or so who do not … and of those, at least a couple could be wearing contact lenses.
Now look around you in the meatworld. Government statistics say that 75% of all Americans have some form of visual correction, either eyeglasses or contact lenses (or a combination of both). And then there are those who have had laser surgery to correct their visual issues and reduce or eliminate the need for glasses entirely.
So it’s not that far-fetched to expect that Joyce may need some form of glasses, as do I, to correct for near-sightedness. It’s just that I was diagnosed early, like in 3rd or 4th grade, so I’ve almost never been seen WITHOUT glasses except when I’m up close and personal with the computer at work.
I too discovered I needed glasses in college after years and years of not needing them at all.
Would have helped if I got them my freshman year instead of the last semester of my senior year, but hey, now I can rip them off to be dramatic.
Fortunately, I only use them to read on whiteboards or watch movies in more crystal clear definition and don’t need them for everyday use, so I am quite comfortable wearing masks.
Unlike my poor blind wife who fogs up every time she exhales.
I’ve had better luck if the nose wire on the mask is as tight and high as possible, and I wear my glasses lower on my nose than usual. They also fog up a lot less easily when they’re clean. There are also anti-fog coatings made for the insides of goggles, but I haven’t tried them yet.
I have to take the mask off to drive, though. Not taking the chance my glasses will fog up on the highway, and repositioning them messes with my depth perception a bit.
She will be more attractive with them, says a survey of my household.
(Disclaimer: I was imprinted during adolescence to find glasses attractive; it is not surprising to count up how many women I dated (or desired) wore them.)
i guess it’s full assonance if you pronounce the schwa in “integral” the same as the “UH” (IPA: ʌ) in “instructor”
they’re close but schwa is a little more like “ih” (IPA: ɪ) i guess
Not sure if intended, but his name sounds like the medieval German mathematician Adam Ries, whose name is quite known in Germany because of the phrase “nach Adam Riese” which is intended to emphasize the correctness of a simple calculation.
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looks like dissonance for Joyce WONK WONK
(personally I was gunning for glasses well before that age, my face looks so weird w/o them)
This guy puts the “ass” in “assonance.”
Because he used a wordplay? And you’re complaining about that to Ana?!
I mean, I was going to say.
Naw, it’s because the prof is the type who is just barely resisting laughing at his own jokes.
No, because he used the word “assonance” in a math class.
Wait until they get to discreet discrete logic.
I’m waiting for indiscreet discrete login. How many times does Y going X? Indeed.
Same here, I think I was 10 or so when I got my glasses.
I needed mine in third grade, and finally got them in fourth. I kept getting low grades and punished for no reason because they thought I was just goofing off, turns out I just couldn’t read the friggin’ board anymore.
I could still read the books fine, but my undoing was one teacher who wrote math problems on the board for us to copy down and solve. My math was correct, but I transcribed the problems wrong. Of course a parent-teacher conference ensued, and both my parents wearing glasses wasn’t a clue for the teacher because “KiDs DoN’t GeT nEaRsIgHtEd”… At least mom and dad put two and two together and brought me to an optometrist after that, and GUESS WHAT THEY FOUND.
I got mine in I think first grade when I couldn’t see the board anymore from even the first row.
But when I was in school (in Canada, in the Seventies, this was), they used to every few grades up to I think about grade 6 or 7 have us all line up by class, cover one eye, and read an eye chart (as well as doing a hearing assessment), especially to find and help kids with those issues. Do they not do this anymore?
We did the hearing assessment (high pitched quiet beeps in rock-hard headphones), no vision test. I don’t know if that’s a universal American thing, or if my school district just didn’t care in the 90s.
Mine did the hearing test, no vision test
Of course my parents tested me a bunch ANYWAY bc they were SURE I had problems paying attention… maybe, but I also didn’t care (as in, I couldn’t find motivation to achieve in school as much as not fail (if even that))
We did something similar to this at my school in Australia.
I don’t remember exactly how frequently they did it, but my late-90s American elementary school did both hearing and vision tests at least every couple years. So it was a thing for some schools, at least, but American schools vary drastically from region to region so I have no idea how common it was.
Got mine around the same time – mid 70s, third or fourth grade.
“Kids don’t get nearsighted?!” Had that teacher never had a student with glasses before? Did they somehow go through both primary and secondary school without meeting a student who needed glasses? Did they get their teaching credentials out of a Cracker Jack box?
I got my first glasses in third grade because I, too, had issues reading the board. And then teachers would contact my parents whenever they noticed that I was having trouble with the board again, which happened two-three times a year until my ophthalmologist put me in bifocals when I was 11.
TV may not destroy your eyes, but being a bookworm can.
I guess my school system was staffed by bitter near-retirees who were stuck in the 60s. “Obviously his problems with inattention and low grades are because he’s a troublemaking slacker, not due to undiagnosed mental disorder and the fact that he can’t read the board” types.
The first optometrist I ever went to suggested giving me bifocals from the beginning, so I’ve always had them. I guess that was supposed to exercise the focusing muscles? Apparently worked; my little sister needed glasses around the same age as I did, but she only ever got single lenses. Now her vision’s worse than mine.
I remember squinting at the board in my heat transfer class when the professor suggested I see an optometrist. I did. Everything was clearer after that (I finally broke down and admitted I needed glasses, but I still got a “D” in his class and had to repeat it next semester :-).
I’ve been wearing glasses since I was 12 years old, to the point that I have a really hard time picturing myself without them. They are as much a part of my self-image as my nose, mouth, or ears.
Welcome to the ‘you need glasses’ club, Joyce!
Does this mean Walkyverse Joyce wears contacts?
Could be an abductee thing that healed her eyesight
Walkyverse Joyce had more brothers and her mother problems amounted to being pressured to go down a family way to embarrassing degrees. Sarah was a a belated enemy rather than a friend, and she had a crush on a much less ‘codependent doofus’ and much more enabler Danny for the longest time.
No alien bio-engineering, Her parents the most morbid breed of ‘fundie’ rather than mere ‘whitebread’ Protestants, and Danny was a acquaintance at most. Nearsightedness may be another feature of the rebooted version of one of Willis’s rightfully beloved characters…
Sure. But none of those are differences rooted in genetics, and David’s maintained that any character’s sexuality in one universe was the same as in another.
What’s really surprising is that Joyce should be someone with eye problems when she’s one of the minority of characters with defined sclerae. But I guess there’s Jocelyn too.
So I have worn glasses for almost 20 years now and have ansolutely horrible eyesight without them so I wouldn’t know, but would sitting at the back of a first year lecture hall while a professor writes on a board at the very front mean for sure you need glasses? Can even people who dont glasses see that well from that far back? I would assume it would be hard ti read for anyone, no?
If the professor is new and doesn’t write in large font to accommodate, sure. But otherwise nah I can pretty reliably read from the back
Thin chalk lines are hard to force your eyes to focus on. You might be able to manage day-to-day off shapes and context clues, but words written on a blackboard will just halo out to unintelligible noise.
I used to think it was just hard to read from the back and that my school’s light projectors were blurry. Then I found out in 8th grade I needed glasses…
Also, I’m pretty sure I recognize this classroom. I could see from the back fine (with my glasses)
If you have good eyesight, no, you should be able to see clearly if the writing is reasonably sized and shouldn’t have any difficulty seeing it. Humans with good eyesight can see pretty far pretty clearly as long as what is being looked at is sized well.
The lecture hall sizes from what we have seen are honestly not big enough for me to expect there to be an issue where the writing is too small.
I joined that club in Jr. High!
uh oh someone needs GLASSES
It’s a Joyce Needs Glasses storyline everybody!
I was gonna say that Joyce would look super weird with magnified eyes, but I guess Jocelyn wears glasses and they have the same eyes.
Joyce is shortsighted. The glasses she needs would make her eyes look smaller, not bigger.
Darn you’re right. I’m nearsighted as well and have weird Joyce-like eyes too, except brown. Definitely look smaller when I wear glasses, which is always
this part of Joyce is autobiographical too, i’m guessing
I’d bet $5 on “Joyce gracefully acknowledges this change and moves quickly to address the issue.”
(If I had $5 I didn’t care about losing.)
I mean, who’s gonna pay for them?
Her dad, presumably.
I definitely want to see what Joyce looks like wearing glasses.
This brings back memories of seventh grade.
Same here. I remember the chalkboards getting progressively harder to see. It really sucked.
This was grade 10 for me. The worst part was that it took another 3-4 years from that point before I finally got glasses, because I just assumed the problem was something else, rather than my eyes. Old projector, small writing on the chalkboard, etc. I finally said something to my parents, and we went to the optometrist, and I was prescribed glasses and got a pair the same day!
Either Joyce gets glasses, abandons her friends, or *gasp* fails math.
Math was also the class where I realized I needed glasses, but luckily it was advanced algebra and not differential equations.
Wait, why the hell are they taking Diff Eq second semester? There’s like 3 more calculus courses before you get to that.
The fact that it’s only a single unit makes me think this is actually separable differential equations, and maybe a few other basic ones.
Maybe so. What throws me is that this is unit 7 on the first day. Which leads me to believe this is a two semester course. If this is a into calculus course for non-math majors, the first semester should be differential calculus and the second integral calculus. If it’s an intro calculus course for math majors, they should be talking about point set theory. No way is differential equations of any type suitable for an intro course.
Maybe the prof just hasn’t erased the board from the previous class yet.
Separable differential equations are on the AP, so they’re definitely suitable for an intro course, although you’re right it’s weird that they should be on the first day of the second semester.
That is, either they should be in the first semester, or later in the second one, depending on the pace.
The board just says “Differential Equations” so, while it might be refering to seperable DE’s the term does technically cover the common introductory f(x)=dy/dx as well. For furst year calc, doing intro to differentials in semester one, and into to integrals in semester two is pretty common. Basic DE’s seem to be easier to grasp and provide a good foundation for understanding how things go in the other direction. Also, understanding and recognizing the solutions to DE’s is pretty fundamental to integration.
Wait is it normal for people to have to take all these advanced math classes for most degrees? Joyce is an education/early child development major, right? Do we know what Sal is studying?
If this is standard for most degrees, I am realizing I really dodged a bullet by going to art school. I suck at math and my “math requirement” was somehow fulfilled with a course on Human Evolution because we briefly used equations to talk about some genetics stuff. XD
Though I also had to take Advanced Perspective, which may have counted, and is the most headache-inducing class in art school.
I mean, it’s just calculus. Most of the students who are going on to STEM degrees already took it in high school; the ones who didn’t, this is a fill. Besides, how are you going to read War and Peace without calculus?
Was going to say, I think I was 16 when I made 1 = 3 (and cried)… But that was UK AS Level maths. (My teacher hugged me when I got a C at the end. My dad is a now retired engineer and his take was that with the time you have in the exams, you really needed to know exactly how to answer the questions and use all of the time to do so, rather than working things out from first principles at all; it was a tough course. I hadn’t been used to having to work but unlike Walky I didn’t throw a tantrum at the idea.)
Might have had a meltdown and forgotten how to breathe the night before the exam (literally did not know how to breathe in again and my chest was starting to hurt and it was getting a bit scary) but didn’t sulk about it…
My high school math education stopped at pre-calc. And I struggled a lot with it.
I am great at English, art, biology…but not math. I always struggled in math.
Good God, no. As a dyscalculic Religions major, I fulfilled the quantitative proficiency requirement with musical acoustics, Greek statue proportions, and a sweet class on dinosaurs. They make ways for deeply non-mathy BAs among us to white-knuckle through a number once in awhile, they don’t make us all attempt calculus.
(Note: It’s not “just” calculus for some of us. I had an undiagnosed learning disability in math. See you in ancient text exegesis.)
In another universe, Joyce really liked math (and had a comically large calculator to prove it). It was a nice trait for her: a non-cliche for a bubbly girlygirl to be skillful at math, plus it’s logical for Joyce to enjoy following the rules. I bet Willis is keeping her mathy aptitude in this universe, too.
I had an undiagnosed math disability too, and actually found calculus easier than other maths. More understanding concepts, less memorizing formulas. Trig was a nightmare. I guess it takes all types.
Yeah, calculus is easy maths often taught in ways that make it appear difficult. Very annoying.
(Abstract algebra was my favourite, though. By far.)
And the worst thing about trig was … for some reason, who knows what, I never got the whole “unit circle” thing even presented to me. It just wasn’t there. So it was just all “everything is inexplicable until you manage to internalise a zillion ratios into a rough approximation of what you could’ve got in one bloody illustration until I was revising old pre-uni maths for the GRE, when I went back to grad school, and stumbled across it myself. You know. A decade later.
I was so mad.
See this is why I suck at math. The abstract thinking approach to it just…does not work for me. It sounds like gibberish. I can’t do math in my head, I can’t spell in my head, and I have a hard time memorizing rules and equations without proper context.
My algebra 2 teacher did a fantastic job showing us clearly on the board how each equation came to be and that really helped me understand it better. The one and only math class I’ve ever not hated and did pretty okay in (though it still took me longer to finish tests and stuff because I really had to plot out everything on paper carefully to comprehend it).
Math’s her favourite subject here too iirc.
Yeah I am fairly certain I have this too. Back as a kid/teen I was just “bad at math” but my algebra 2 class (the one time I ever enjoyed math/was good at it) made it clear that if I was taught in a way that heavily relied upon visual education, and given extra time, I actually did just fine.
My math difficulties also seemed to extend to the more math-y sciences. I had a hard time in physics and chem, but LOVED (and did very well in) biology, oceanography, and environmental science (those last 2 I took as electives senior year instead of taking another physics or chemistry class, thank goodness).
Well checking my old uni transcripts, I can see that Partial Differential Equations and Complex Variable was one of the modules in my second year. My degree was in Pure Maths. xD
(I passed it with 63%)
As a not-young, I am wondering if this is reflecting how many kids today take more AP courses than were available in my HS years.
Also, I don’t remember much about the DofA math course last semester being called anything in particular besides “math”.
It looks like they’re in a typical two-semester calculus sequence for engineering/science majors. (Although that doesn’t really make sense given their majors.) First semester covers limits and derivatives, but should end with anti-derivatives, the fundamental theorem of calculus, and maybe some basic u-substitution. Second semester starts with either integration techniques or areas/volumes or a mix of the two. Basic separable differential equations are usually a short chapter after that, but there’s no reason it couldn’t be done at the beginning if u-substitution was covered in the first semester.
There’s a two semester sequence most students take to fill their gen eds at IU, at least according to most of their course maps.
I believe Joyce has been stated to like and be good at math, so she probably was just interested. Walky’s invested in being smart and Linda wouldn’t let him get away with taking the easy version.
That makes sense that she’d take it if she enjoys it, even if not required for her major. I forgot she likes math. Walky I assume needs it for his major. Sal…I can’t remember what her major is, but she seems to not enjoy math and struggle with it so I imagine it must be required for her major (or she wanted to challenge herself or felt pressured to take it)?
Depends on the school (although this is based on a real-life school, so it should be possible to figure out). At my college, diff eq (fall) and multivariable calculus (spring) were *technically* numbered as 2nd-year, but almost all of the people in the class were freshmen. I don’t think it was a class that humanities majors commonly took, though, I think it was mainly people in STEM fields.
The question is, will Joyce with glasses finally wean Becky off, or will it kick the attractiveness to maximum overdrive?
On the one hand, Becky is clearly into nerdy girls since she’s in a relationship with Dina, and already has feelings for Joyce.
On the other hand, it would make Joyce more like Dorothy.
A fact which could either reduce Becky’s attraction to Joyce, or…
Oh god, are you saying a relationship with Walky is inbound? Poor Joyce.
I mean, they already both have attraction to each other, physically, so this wouldn’t be changing much about their dynamic.
HI ALAN.
Ah, college. It was Botany that made me realize I need glasses for close-up and computer work.
Calculus 101: Differentials. Yay, easy! Just follow the procedure.
Calculus 102: Integrals. Fuck! Be imaginative or hope you guess what that remainder was right. >|(
On the other hand, doing numerical integration is easier than numerical differentiation. I always found that contrast between symbolic/numeric calculus rather amusing.
How the heck do you figure numeric integration is easier than numeric differentiation? For numeric integration you have to break the area up into more and more parts and figure out what your error can be and whether you need to break it up into even more parts, which can sometimes get rather tricky. For differential you have a definition in terms of a limit as epsilon approaches zero. So you pick a suitably small epsilon, do a single subtraction and division and Bob’s your uncle. If you want to get tricky you can use both a positive and negative value of epsilon to bound your error.
That’s when you’re dealing with the nice little functions they give in calculus, not the pathological functions of higher math (in which numerical integration doesn’t factor), or the wonky ones from the real world.
Just tack on a +C for good luck
Integrals are the one topic in education that’s frustrating for students because it is frustrating, and not just because our education system is horrible. Differentiation? Memorize some basic derivatives, rules for addition and multiplication, and the chain rule, and it’s just application from there. Limits? There are a dozen different ways to conceptualize them so just find one that works for you, and it doesn’t get more complicated than L’Hôpital’s rule until you get to really advanced stuff. Integrals? Here’s some tools to turn a simple-looking problem into a more complicated one, and a four-leaf clover to help you pray for luck that you’ve made any progress at all.
That was Year 11 and Year 12 at High School when I did it. Umm. Some advanced trig, combinatorics, and probability theory were included, too. First year at uni was differential equations and simple linear algebra.
Hi, Alan!
Enjoy the glasses you’ll look super cute in, Joyce.
Fact: Glasses make anyone hotter
(puts on my own glasses and looks in a mirror)
Nope. I still look like a dork.
Maybe not everyone, but they definitely make people who are already kinda cute even cuter. And apparently lots of people think they make you look smarter as well.
Cmasta — Not according to Dorothy Parker.
Now, let’s not be too hasty. We have no idea what Joyce might look like with glasses. Certainly not, for example, glasses which may or may not match with Dorothy’s.
Just plonk her sister’s glasses on her face in Photoshop, you’ll get close.
This will cause a Change overload. Please consult your local EvanGelist^tm technician
Has she tried pulling on her eyelids with her finger to get a tighter squint? I’m sure that would totally preclude the need for glasses.
And land her in a sensitivity course.
Put your grasses on!
“You don’t have to tell me twice!”
– Meredith
Would you draw it for a Scooby Snack?
Circle In The Sand
Round and round
Neverending love is what we found…
I’m reminded of the Mouse Race episode of M*A*S*H in which Major Winchester was watching the action with his opera glasses backwards so it seemed FARTHER AWAY than it really was.
Remember when Hawkeye almost stomped Blue Velvet, BJ’s racing cockroach?
I don’t know how Belinda Carlisle is relevant but I’m all for it!
Heh, covered how glasses work in one of my classes today.
It’s okay, Joyce. Glasses are okay.
Careful, Alan, if she squints hard enough she’s gonna notice you’re just a battle suit for a short guy.
Does Joyce actually need glasses or is the room just that big?
Given that no one else is having any trouble, the answer seems obvious.
I had perfect vision from 0-18 and then by the end of freshman year my vision absolutely cratered.
When I was 38 I could read the micrographed OED in dim light. I thought, geeze, I’ll never need glasses. When I was 39 I needed glasses and no fooling around. Now, at 71, I need a loupe to read the micrographed OED.
Oh, that’s irksome. I’ve been quietly pleased that I’ve nearly reached 50 with no deterioration in my always excellent eyesight. Now you’re telling me it could just as easily crash between now and my birthday.
*squints* Is that a 7?
no, that’s also just a circle.
No, no it’s not glasses. Joyce has just not paid attention in class because she’s been indulging in FORBIDDEN ATHEIST DESIRES all winter.
Writing Fanfic!
I hated taking notes.
I did fine listening and understanding, and reading texts. But I rarely took notes.
Then a professor appeared who graded our notes.
Huh. what must it be like, having no interests outside of grading?
Nah. That’s what happens when the education system turns out to also fail at educating the teachers, too. “They care about nothing but what I grade! They should care about taking notes. ERGO, I shall grade the notes!”
Remember when, for whatever UNGODLY REASON, Jason collected the notes of the students after class?
Did no one not find that strange?
My god, she does need glasses.
So, the new story is Joyce getting glasses, huh?
I predict she’ll be happy she starts to look like Dorothy, and cuts her hair to match.
… and then of course comes murdering Dorothy and taking over her life, but that’s further down the line. Sophomore year, at least. (So that will come to fruition in 2030 or so?)
I’d think she’d just lock Dorothy in a cage and then become a popular version of Dorothy that goes on to become president just to mock imprisoned Dorothy.
She’d probably get something closer to her late-Walkyverse haircut than Dorothy’s.
Ha! I knew there was concept art around somewhere!
https://www.itswalky.com/comic/stop-before-you-blurt-out-no/
(I think Dorothy’s hairstyle has gotten rounder through art evolution since then.)
Joyce needs glasses
VISION PLAN
Joyce needs glasses
VISION PLAN
Thank you.
That is going to be in my head all day, David Liao
I hope you are happy
And now she’ll have something in common with Dorothy.
Ohhh… so is this why she preferred sitting in the middle?
Two of her siblings already wear glasses so I could see it being a genetic thing. But it looks like she’s averse to wearing them. I wonder why…
I think it just doesn’t fit her self image. She’s been reluctantly changing a lot about her self image lately, I’ll bet she sees “wearing glasses” as one change too many.
Joyce is just like Scarlet Witch.
She lacks VISION.
BAD Kravis! Think about what you did.
((well done))
I’m not bad, I’m just drawn that way.
It’s not Joyce’s fault. She inherited an unhealthy dose of myopia from her parents.
…. and maybe eye problems.
Watching for Joyce’s reaction when Sal says, “yeah, I fucked ‘im”…
That would be Jason who no longer works at IU.
Ah, krapp, that’s right – Jason was his TA….
It’s easier to cheat than to admit you were a person who needed corrective lenses all along.
Thank you, Walky.
I don’t know. Is Walky that clever?
Finally a math problem Joyce can’t wrap her head around?
Integrals can be a little tricky like that.
I like that “integral integral” pun Professor Rees made there.
DONT FRICKIN’ ENCOURAGE HIM
Meh. It’s functionally derivative humour.
While I get the setup is for her needing glassing I’ve absolutely sat in classrooms where you can barely see the front from the back
Glasses. Glassing is what she did to Ryan.
Is Joyce needing glasses why this chapter is called “Look Straight Ahead”?
How has this not come up the entire previous semester? *shakes head*
They sat in the middle of the lecture hall, closer to the board. She may have noticed distant signs getting a little fuzzy, but it wasn’t a problem until she had to read thin chalk lines on a blackboard.
It’s amazing how you can just get used to minor vision problems, as long as they’re not an immediate hinderance.
Her vision problems are minor or only just started recently and they used to sit in the middle which was closer to the board, where the larger size of the board writing further helped compensate at that distance. It also only may be noticeable with writing as she hasn’t seemed to have issues with anything else.
If Alan is a character can Professor HA be far behind?
Next appearance of Professors Rees and Alien is scheduled for January 2030. Hold your breath! Or better don’t.
Vision plan! Joyce needs glasses!
I suspect this is a… 20/35. Anything worse and I’ll hurl.
I’d also like to imagine that Joyce squinted over Alan’s wordplay (also)
If she can mostly correct for it by squinting, her eyes aren’t as bad as mine.
(Probably as bad as mine after the three-year-old prescription I’m still using, though.)
This comic is what the entirety of 6th grade was for me. Did my parents know I needed glasses? Yes. Did they get them for me? Not til 6th grade was over.
Is the lecture boring or is Sal just that bad at concentrating on what is actually being said?
Meanwhile, I’ve got a feeling it is going to be up to Sal and maybe Walky to drag Joyce into an optometrists to get her eyes tested. She’ll probably manage to still look pretty and I’m wondering if there will be a running joke about everyone wondering who the new pretty nerd girl is!
I think Sal’s figured out that she takes in the information better when /not/ trying to take notes, but fidgeting with a pen is a good way of keeping some white noise in the brain. It’s not that uncommon, and if she does need notes she can dash up to the board and snap a picture with her phone at the end of class.
She can save herself a trip by bringing a real camera with a zoom lens.
Just film the class.
No need to stay, just leave the camera running and pick it up after.
Hook the camera up to the Internet and you wouldn’t even need the lecture hall, just give all the students a link to the class.
Nah, that could never work.
Was curious to know just how many or the regularly recurring people in the Dumbiverse (not counting the parents) wear glasses, so I took a quick count and came up with 13 or 14, as opposed to 11 or so who do not … and of those, at least a couple could be wearing contact lenses.
Now look around you in the meatworld. Government statistics say that 75% of all Americans have some form of visual correction, either eyeglasses or contact lenses (or a combination of both). And then there are those who have had laser surgery to correct their visual issues and reduce or eliminate the need for glasses entirely.
So it’s not that far-fetched to expect that Joyce may need some form of glasses, as do I, to correct for near-sightedness. It’s just that I was diagnosed early, like in 3rd or 4th grade, so I’ve almost never been seen WITHOUT glasses except when I’m up close and personal with the computer at work.
Certainly not far-fetched, but those statistics may not be a good match for college students, since a lot of eye problems show up later in life.
I‘ve felt like that often enough Gombe sure she needs glasses.
Pretty smooth complimenting herself out of that corner
I too discovered I needed glasses in college after years and years of not needing them at all.
Would have helped if I got them my freshman year instead of the last semester of my senior year, but hey, now I can rip them off to be dramatic.
Fortunately, I only use them to read on whiteboards or watch movies in more crystal clear definition and don’t need them for everyday use, so I am quite comfortable wearing masks.
Unlike my poor blind wife who fogs up every time she exhales.
I’ve had better luck if the nose wire on the mask is as tight and high as possible, and I wear my glasses lower on my nose than usual. They also fog up a lot less easily when they’re clean. There are also anti-fog coatings made for the insides of goggles, but I haven’t tried them yet.
I have to take the mask off to drive, though. Not taking the chance my glasses will fog up on the highway, and repositioning them messes with my depth perception a bit.
There are ways to treat glasses so they don’t fog up.
Is this the storyline where Danny falls for Joyce? I can’t remember if our Danny has the glasses fetish.
after all heartwrenching turmoil Joyce has had to endure, I for one am fully onboard for her doing a soul searching journey about needing glasses.
She will be more attractive with them, says a survey of my household.
(Disclaimer: I was imprinted during adolescence to find glasses attractive; it is not surprising to count up how many women I dated (or desired) wore them.)
Lets face it: Joyce is making a spectacle of herself.
You win
I feel dumb for not realizing until now that Alan was the Math Professor.
oh… i see it now! There are a couple of characters at least that have a thing for the “girl in glasses” look.
If she doesn’t have astigmatism, Joyce could go with contacts.
That’s a great idea. I’m sure we can all agree that Joyce will be fully onboard with a plan that involves
* check notes *
touching her eyeballs
Okay, but what if she’s A-OK with that and it ends up being the clue that Becky needs to deduce her atheism?
Is she squeamish about her eyes? I can’t recall.
I’m not sure we have been told specifically that, but given that she’s squemish about everything else I think we can make a pretty good guess.
I just hope for a fairly odd parents moment when she eventually gets glasses to be “I can see! I CAN FIGHT!”
Let’s hope Joyce needs glasses. If not, there’s a possibility Willis will be doing a homage to “Dark Victory.”
Yeah, that’s pretty much how I ended up realising I needed glasses. Only in high school.
Same except in 2nd grade. And had to switch to hard contact lenses by 3rd grade because my eyesight just started to freefall.
*banging on the table*
JOYCE WITH GLASSES
JOYCE WITH GLASSES
JOYCE WITH GLASSES
does this work
ok no img src. well my other comment with the link disappeared so
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/608123237615796284/781202294825418752/unknown.png
JOYCE WITH GLASSES
Plays “Judy in Disguise (With Glasses)” by John Fred’s Playboy Band on the hacked Muzak.
The professors joke was kinda of derivative…
BOO!!!
Alliterative assonance and internal consonance! (also in the first two words it’s just straight-up repetition)
i guess it’s full assonance if you pronounce the schwa in “integral” the same as the “UH” (IPA: ʌ) in “instructor”
they’re close but schwa is a little more like “ih” (IPA: ɪ) i guess
“It is a Pune, or, Play on Wordes…”
Ugh… Death take me now.
Joyce needs glasses? Poor thing!
We get a look at Sal’s notes in the first strip where Prof. Rees is tagged.
O NO MY BOWTIE!
I was at about the same point in my university experience when I discovered I needed glasses.
I’m frankly amazed it took this long for Willis to get the ball rolling on giving Joyce glasses.
Not sure if intended, but his name sounds like the medieval German mathematician Adam Ries, whose name is quite known in Germany because of the phrase “nach Adam Riese” which is intended to emphasize the correctness of a simple calculation.
Why was that a reply and not a standalone comment? This is weird.