I'm an aspiring software engineer and currenly in college for computer science. For some reason, no matter what I try, math is so unbearably difficult and indecipherable until I design a program for it. Yes, you read that right. I can break down a math problem step by step and write a program to solve it, but when it comes to doing it by hand, its a nightmare and I make it nowhere depending on the concept.
I'm not talking about basic math like addition/subtraction. I'm talking about more algebraic concepts like functions, rationalization, parabolas, square root operations, etc. It looks dauntingly difficult written out in math notation, and the math book is no help.
Programming makes math much easier to understand for me, but depending on the concept it can get very time consuming and overwhelming to build a program around it. Something as simple as $2^2$ is easier to understand if I write pow$(2,2)$.
I want to understand it, its just difficult and seems impossible to understand it all. No matter how much I practice and research its tedious to gain an understanding of it. $f(g(x))$ only makes sense to me because it can be written out and visualized as 2 program functions. $g(x)$ "returns" a value, which is given to $f(x)$ as a "parameter".
I've tried watching tutorials on YouTube, getting extra help, and even using Wolfram Alpha to walk me through problems. I just can't seem to overcome this obstacle. Any help is greatly welcomed.