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Yeah, I think recognizing that "math works in mysterious ways", especially in different minds, might help. For example, to this day, I cannot subtract if I have to "borrow" more than once, but I can add those things in my head, set them aside and come up with the answer. I basically can only get the answer by using the method prescribed for "checking your work". Strangely enough, though, geometry made perfect sense to me.

I posted a vanity a few years ago asking for advice as I began taking calculus courses, I got a few hundred replies, mostly from people posting on THIS thread, :)

If someone were to ask me for advice today for taking any of the "higher" math courses such as calculus, DEQ, discrete mathematics or linear systems it would be to completely UNDERSTAND geometry and trigonometry. Not only to understand these two(?) subjects but to live them and breath them. Geometry and trig will come up over and over and over again. Being able to see in your head exactly what TAN(X) looks like without thinking about it will help very much in all advanced math courses. If I would have known all of the trig functions and identities as well as my own name, my academic life would have been much easier in the long run.