The first difficult block I remember getting in college was understanding moments in statics. What was counterintuitive for me is that moments (or torques) are represented as vectors perpendicular to the plane in which an object is being twisted; if a record is playing on a record player, the moment is represented pointing up from the table, not in the plane of the record. I was afraid that I would never get the concept and that I would be unable to stay in engineering.

The professor was very strict, and it took him a few weeks to warm up to the class, and vice versa. Also, I had gotten a bad grade on the first homework and had trouble figuring out what I had done incorrectly, and so it was easier for me to keep feeling discouraged.

I started to be able to get the concept while studying with other students in the college's math lab: that's where I felt the safest with my confusion.

One of the best things about that professor's teaching style, was that he gave out homework every class session, and had it graded by the following session. Also, most of the class time was focused on reviewing the homework we had just turned in, and working through example problems with the class at the end of the session. New concepts were introduced in 15-20 minutes of lecture in the middle of the session, and that was plenty. When the professor saw that many of us were lost on moments, he opened and closed the door, pointing at the hinge, and saying, "Do you see the moment? Do you see it?" That was what it took for that idea to click for many of us. It took him and us a while to see what our misconception was, but once he saw it, he was able to help us see it.