Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Math is very useful for a civilised society, unless you want to live in Afghanistan. You can do everything with math. Now for me, I am still lazy so I have problems passing math. That is because you can't wing it. You have to learn it, and that requires studying a lot to understand. And once you do you will have the appreciation for math that you don't now.
I'm taking a statistics class which is very painful.
My eyes tend to glaze over when i see a whole bunch of numbers.
I'm doing a masters in the social sciences and it was a requried class. I'm grateful though to learn some basic concepts like standard deviations and confidence intervals.
Things start to get really abstract and calculation heavy once you get into ANOVA, hypethesis testing and regression. (the textbook we used showed all the calculations).
I'm starting to kind of get it. Just a little, but it's a painful and boring course that I'll be happy to be done with.
(Why don't Engineering majors have to sit through classes on Qualitative Research Writing methods?)
I'm taking a statistics class which is very painful.
My eyes tend to glaze over when i see a whole bunch of numbers.
I'm doing a masters in the social sciences and it was a requried class. I'm grateful though to learn some basic concepts like standard deviations and confidence intervals.
Things start to get really abstract and calculation heavy once you get into ANOVA, hypethesis testing and regression. (the textbook we used showed all the calculations).
I'm starting to kind of get it. Just a little, but it's a painful and boring course that I'll be happy to be done with.
(Why don't Engineering majors have to sit through classes on Qualitative Research Writing methods?)
1) Because when I was in the Aeronautical Engineering program at U of Illinois....it was 132 credits for a bachelors and about 110+ of those were hardcore math, physics and other technical courses. There is so much to learn there isn't room to take much in terms of other classes.
2) Statistics are found EVERYWHERE and cross so many disciplines it's insane. My BEST advice for understanding how the stuff works is to take an actual sample of data on a topic you know and understand like baseball statistics or maybe the size of fish caught in Alaska for environmental research etc. and then run the data through the various tests and models you are studying. After that the lightbulb will come on, good luck.
1) Because when I was in the Aeronautical Engineering program at U of Illinois....it was 132 credits for a bachelors and about 110+ of those were hardcore math, physics and other technical courses. There is so much to learn there isn't room to take much in terms of other classes.
2) Statistics are found EVERYWHERE and cross so many disciplines it's insane. My BEST advice for understanding how the stuff works is to take an actual sample of data on a topic you know and understand like baseball statistics or maybe the size of fish caught in Alaska for environmental research etc. and then run the data through the various tests and models you are studying. After that the lightbulb will come on, good luck.
If there was some real application in the class it might hold the attention better.
Learning about random poker players or the professors particular interest (that we don't care about) adds to the agony.
Again, I'm not bashing the usefulness of it, it's just that it is very dense and inaccessible.
Perhaps it's because one has to contemplate theory and do calculations at the same time? I don't know.
I guess I'm just not a "math-wired" person.
It's funny tough that it's the most dreaded course in my program.
I think resentment of math is highly correlated with resentment of the working world, and that's a recipe for failure and misery no matter how you slice it. To remedy this, I would think of math as just another language (which it is). To think you can learn, say, Spanish and not learn math is absurd in this view, and that's good, that's the way it should be. Math is the language of how the world works, how it holds itself together. Every human being has something he or she wants to do that falls under that umbrella, therefore every human being would be better off learning math. Think broadly. Don't resent math because you don't want to spend your life at a desk punching numbers into Excel. Think of the cool jobs you want and try to tell me they won't require some grasp of math. They will, if you want to succeed at them and make them your life.
Suck it up. I had to take organic chemistry in college. A soul sucking experience if there ever was one. You will go on to more interesting stuff, and maybe the math you took will come in handy in the far future.
aww... what's wrong with organic chemistry? You finally start learning beyond the basic elements
And so do I. There are quite a few top notch colleges that do not require it, unless it is part of your major.
Community Colleges are notorious for requiring the old Chinese menu of courses- you know, one from column A one from column B.Many state schools are the same.
This is what I find unfair. Engineering, Math and Science Majors may need to study literature or Art History. They do not need to write a book or paint a work of Art. Or paint at all for that matter.
Why can't liberal arts students learn how mathematics originated, the applications of the various forms of math, and why they are useful. This would be the equivalent of taking a class in Shakespeare, but not writing or acting in a play.
There ARE colleges that do not force students to take classes in Mathematics.
If you are interested send me a DM.
I am anything but anti-intellectual. Learning about a subject is a good thing. Having a Science major write a play is not necessary and is never required.
Why do art and liberal arts students need to learn to work out problems in higher math?
Same thing.
If math is a language, undergraduate statistics and first year calculus are the equivalent of learning how to say "hello" and "can you direct me to the restroom". Engineers and science majors got an equivalent depth in the arts in Kindergarten making collages and cutting out snowflakes. Most gradeschools in other developed nations would be embarrassed if their graduates had similar mathematical competence as colleges in the U.S. People complain that their college degrees don't mean anything, yet also complain when asked to demonstrate a rudimentary grasp of basic mathematics. The subject matter itself is not difficult at all, some people just have a mental block that prevents them from grasping it. It is really like toilet training a toddler... some take to it faster than others but everyone has the ability. Unfortunately, though, it is socially acceptable to be quantitatively illiterate but not socially acceptable to soil one's pants as an adult.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
