Some subjects of study are like eating a pie. You do it one bite at a time, each bite takes you a bit further, and eating half the pie means that you have absorbed half of it. Personally, I think business administration subjects are a bit like this. If you are studying the ”four Ps” of marketing (Product, Price, Placement, Promotion) then you could read or understand only half of it and still have picked up various strands and bits that you could apply.

I don’t think mathematics and statistics are like eating a pie. It’s sometimes hard to feel like you’ve gotten anywhere at all even after you’ve been studying and reading for a while. My metaphor for studying these subjects is vending machines. You know how, when you wish to get something from a vending machine, your coin sometimes just won’t drop into the machine? Instead it keeps falling through into the return tray so that you have to either abandon the attempt or keep trying to put in the coin. Grrr …

Some people persevere. They keep trying to get the machine to accept the coin. Sometimes they try something different, like standing on the coin, licking it (hopefully not in that order), or scratching the coin against some metal. Some go through all the coins in their wallet or purse hoping for success.

I think math and stats are “penny dropping” subjects, like the coin in the vending machine. Studying an area in these subjects often draws a complete blank on the first attempt: you simply don’t understand anything at all despite hours of reading and a lecture. Worse: often the second and third attempts still leave you feeling completely lost. These subjects are not like pie-eating, where it’s a linear process and you can get it one little bit at a time.

However, the news is not bad! I believe that if you persevere and keep trying eventually the “penny will drop” like the coin eventually being accepted by the vending machine. I think statistics and mathematics are subjects in which you can go from completely not understanding to completely understanding in one single ”Eureka!” moment. The penny has dropped, and you finally get it.

Obviously not everyone operates like this – some people can still understand stats one bite at a time. However, I strongly believe that for the rest of us mortals the secret is to keep reading and studying – perhaps different views on the same subject – until the penny has dropped!