I am starting IT studies. As someone always interested in computers I have paths in my head how to get needed information. There is also a luxury of testing anything learn in practice by for ex. contributing to open source or creating a server.
Math was always interesting for me too, but I haven't spend time on learning it much, I have many lacks from middle school and there are topics I know about but can't use them in practice or have no intuition or forgot how to formally write them.
So I started to try to learn, as a self-learner most time I spend on Wikipedia and forums, but those turned out to be death end when it comes to understanding whole topic and not just reminding one thing.
So question to you that are learning math: how do you do so? And I also never learned anything in a typical "school" way, I always need to feel interest or have a goal in something.
I agree but I'll take it a step further. I've been in IT for almost 20 years. I never took a math class after high school (age 18). I took math up through calc 2 in high school.
I've never used a single lick of anything beyond basic math for my work. None. And I don't know anyone else who has either over the course of 4 different employers and working with hundreds of people.
In my opinion it's the logical thinking and the process of problem solving that are the parts of math that translate to IT. Doing proofs, understanding all the reasons why something is the way that it is. So in that regard sure, math is important. But I feel like OP is implying that actually knowing how to do complex math problems is important for a career in IT, and it really isn't.