Poll: High Level Math in the Escapist

[generals3]

As a business engineer i'm a bit of both into the engineering type of math and statistics. We basically had the typical business curriculum but with extra physics, chemistry and math. (Because we can?)

And I don't know how it works in other countries but the problem with high school math level is that it doesn't say a lot. We had a choice between 4h-6h-8h of math back in high school and obviously those who had 4 hours would have a rather mediocre level while 8 hours of math would probably result with you being bored in your first semester at university (during math classes at least). And while over here, as far as i know, trigonometry and functions are part of even the lowest math oriented highschool curricula it's possible that in certain countries the least math-intensive ones don't cover those.

 

[A_Parked_Car]

I have high school level math, having actually failed the upper stream of math in grade 12. I don't "hate" math, I just never had a mind for it.

I'm working on my master's degree in military history so having extensive math knowledge isn't necessary.

 

[Rariow]

I'm currently doing a degree in Maths, will almost surely go on to get a Master's unless something goes seriously wrong with finance and am seriously considering an eventual PhD. That said, I do miss more artsy stuff occasionally, particularly Literature. I've always loved writing, and it's hard to find time for that nowadays. Not that I'm unhappy by any means, it's just something I miss studying.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

In America it depends more on the students level what courses he or she takes. I knew some people in High school who were taking Advanced levels of Calculus and others who never made it past Algebra. And of course in University now there are those who never get past basic Statistics while others are taking levels of Maths and Physics that are way above anything I could ever imagine. Its all relative, basically. Most students start at Calculus in my University.

8 out of the top 10 Universities in the World are American so its safe to say that it's the individual case rather than a universal rule.

There are probably many people in your university that don't take higher level math courses. You seem to be in the field of mathematics, did it ever occur to you that you and your peers may be the exception rather than the rule?

yupp this most definitely, especially on the relative part, I was taking calculus I-II but I knew a kid who got special permission to take Calc III and Differential Equations at the same time senior year (we had lots of teachers who taught at the high school who also taught at the college I'm attending now at night, it's only a few miles down the road so it was relatively easy for them.) In that same light, I knew a couple wrestlers who were still in Algebra 1-2 when they were graduating, because they would NEVER need math going where they were going, so it didn't matter to them.

Spoiler: side note about my engineering university in america

It's almost head scratch worthy though how many foreign students we have at my college (uni for all you non US people), in my advanced classes that are only offered at night I'm one of two white people out of the 600 people I've seen walking around, otherwise the college of engineering is filled with indians/asians/middle easterners/brazilians at night.(and no I'm not being racist by skin color or stereotypes, they are foreigners who came here specifically to come to this university, I've talked with many of them and they all said they had come here specifically for the education after high school, hell I had two south koreans as my roommates over the summer a couple years back, oddly neither of them played or liked star craft XD ) The out of state tuition is absolutely absurd so for them to choose to come here just makes me question how well of an education they could have gotten elsewhere.

I am currently in my last semester of engineering at my university, and I'm into such specialized courses now that two of my classes only have 5 people a piece in them, and half the classes are made up of grad students, so I'm pretty far up there in terms of mathematical classes (taken all the calc's, differential equations, and probability & statistics)

 

[f1r2a3n4k5]

]Well yes it would be nive to have it in everything. But the truth is that almost every single school in the world and educational system has math as a madatory course for a large amount of time and nearly till the end of mandatory education pupuils are thought some form of Math. While it is impossible to cover all subjects, if a subject is part of the stadard curriculum for most part of your previous academic life, not covering it accuretly (and harming the intetion of showing true introductory mathematics to new students) is indeed a failure. No all schools teach Latin, but all teach Math, so arriving wihtout the basics covered seems a shortcoming of the system. Of course there are different backgrounds and all, but if a good portion (I would say majority) of your population has a supposed matehmatical background, it should be in a decent level.

My problem is that since most backgorunds include Math, the courses given at coleges are inadecate introduction, as university level should be where you pick your future and an "obsucre" subject like Math (which as I said it is uncluded in most backgrounds) where most poeple are unaware of what a matehmatician does, it is not an introductory class, it is remedial class because of the failure to unite the curriculum and set a decent bacline.

OK, I see where you are coming from. But I still do believe my point is valid as even a subject like math is hugely broad. Discrete math, great for computer science. Statistics, great for sciences.

Not to mention, not everyone goes directly from high school. And we are not perfect beings. We forget things. So, even if for credentials reasons (documented proof one has taken coursework in the topic), exploring foundational topics in college makes sense.

Plus, you seem to be more interested in pure math, which is all well and good, but most fields that use math are based on practical applications and applying techniques (derivatives, integrals, plotting, etc.). So I don't think there's anything wrong with just problem solving at the college-level for the sake of other careers.

 

[Mistilteinn]

Not quite sure which to select. I'm a Chemistry Major, but I've taken and aced Calculus 1, 2, and 3, as well as a course in Differential Equations. So..., uh, somewhere around options 3 and 4 maybe? Admittedly, my professor for Diff-eq hadn't taught the class in about five or six years, so he was quite rusty. Hell, he got as stumped as us halfway through when running through some of the book's examples, but I'd say we got through it just fine by sheer virtue of good teamwork as a class, haha!

 

[SpAc3man]

Final year computer systems engineering student here. Pretty much a strong foundation in electrical and electronics engineering going into digital and embedded systems design with programming ranging from assembly to Python and Java.

My last maths paper was just a shit tonne of complex analysis, Fourier analysis/transform and some other stuff.
Once an English literature student walked in on our lecture when we were going overtime. He saw the stuff we were learning and muttered "holy shit." before making his exit. To be fair it was a rather long Fourier series problem we were working on which would look a million times more complicated to anyone who didn't know what it was.

 

[Eeeee0000]

I'm a biologist who hates math, so I don't know what to pick. I hate math but I do use it, although I have problems. I use statistics and integration and stuff like that, it's all still pretty basic. Also I don't usually care about people not using the PC "he or she" all the time but in this description it bothered me somehow.

[He has done pure maths and proven a fair share of theorems, but at the same time has more of the problem solving and modeling of real phenomena. Most CS and IT would be around here (especially if you know Automathon theory, Discrete Math, P problems and the such, which are still purely matehmatical stuff), but only opt if you have some knowledge of theorems and such.

 

[nariette]

Here in Holland we have several types of math at high school, when you get to your fourth year you choose type A which mainly revolves around statistics and probability, and type B which revolves around differentiating, equations, mathemetical proving, trigonometry. There's also type C for people who really can't stand math, and D which is an add-on to B, it contains everything discussed in type A but harder and has several things considered to be early college

What is considered to be a simple equation and what is difficult? What is low level or a high level? I had simple differential equations last year when I was in my sophomore (4th year here is sophomore year in America) year and this year I had more complex things like the base number is e with differentiating, logorythmic differentiating and mathemetical proving. So what did you guys get with trigonometry in high school? This year we started calculating with radians and we must be able to solve equations in the unit circle like cos(3x+6)=cos(6x-9). I also take maths D where I get equations with complex/imaginary numbers, polar coordinates, and advanced probablity.

My favourite subject is actually math and I'm quite curious what childeren from other countries learn in math class. I don't think I fit the "basic high school level" so I voted "self-taught".

 

[Pikey Mikey]

I've read some single-variable-analysis and before that I read all five math-classes available in senior high school (or whatever the 15-18 years old period is called). However, I'm only 20 years old so who know where I'll end up =P

 

[Vareoth]

I have somewhat strong dislike for math. Though this might be because of the way I was taught. I don't respond well to the method of: "here is an equation, you have to solve it exactly like this or it's WRONG even if you get the correct answer". I often had my own way of doing things but because it wasn't the exact method I was given it was often "incorrect".

So perhaps I shouldn't say I dislike math as much as I dislike math teachers.

I was also given very little in the practical application of the math I was learning. Practical applications are, in my opinion, a must for anything. Though you might be able to say that the training of the mind is practical in and of itself.

 

[Atmos Duality]

I'm a Meteorology Major, and required to take up to Differential Equations/Linear Algebra and Calculus III (equivalent of Vector Calculus) along with some elementary statistics.

If I took two other math courses above Diff EQ (in the dept's curriculum) I could walk out with a Math Minor.

 

[MorganL4]

What you have to realize is that the standard Bachelors degree in England takes 3 years, whereas in the US it takes 4, the reason for this is because the universities don't trust our high schools to actually teach the students what they need, so the first year is simply a redux of high school for many of us, as such 2nd year algebra and trig are TECHNICALLY university courses.

 

[renegade7]

American students vary wildly in college preparedness when it comes to math. In some cases it's because they got shafted by school systems that didn't offer much. In other cases it's because there just wasn't interest.

There were people in my high school who stopped at Algebra II (the bare minimum to graduate in my district, equivalent to three years of high school math) and those who went all the way on to AP calculus or statistics. There's not necessarily anything wrong with this: if you want to be an artist or musician you don't really need to be able to work complicated math problems. Although, it has been my observation that many music majors are mathematically inclined and like to take computer science or math-related minors as fallback options in case they can't land a position after they graduate.

My undergraduate background was a dual major in electronics engineering (with computer engineering and RF/signal processing systems concentrations) and applied physics. So yes, I had a shit ton of math. The emphasis was especially on the calculus up to partial differential equations, linear algebra, vector calculus, logic, a little bit of stats and number theory, and discrete mathematics. I didn't do that much in proofs, geometry, statistics (although in retrospect I really should have done more stats beyond stats 1 since not having much stats closed a few doors in terms of science graduate programs, sadly), or topology.

Math, like many other sciences, is one of those things that you'll spend most of your education hating, and then it suddenly gets really interesting about halfway through college when you break out of the bubble of prerequisites and into things that real mathematicians actually do.

 

[Do4600]

There's a huge gap in your poll. It goes from people who use math almost exclusively at their jobs like scientists and engineers to high school level math. There are plenty of people who take university level mathematics courses that aren't scientists, engineers or statisticians. For instance, I've taken four meteorological science classes and am at least familiar enough with the physics and thermodynamics in the class to consider myself past the level of a high school student, but I'm getting my BFA in fine arts.

 

[Olas]

I was always generally good at math but I don't really liked it. I'm majoring in Info Systems so the most advanced math course I was required to take was Calc 1 and I have no interest in going any farther.

 

[Sleepy Sol]

In high school the furthest maths I took difficulty-wise were Pre-Calculus and Trigonometry. Could have taken Calculus my senior year but I'm actually pretty sure it would have caused a scheduling conflict just because my school sometimes didn't have more than one class available. So kinda skipped out on taking it.

At university I'm a journalism major, and only had to finish one required math course. So I basically took trigonometry again and got a B grade in it...exactly like I did in high school.

Basically, I'm not a huge fan of math, but can do a little better than the average person, I guess. Still don't retain much from any higher math courses I've taken, though.

 

[a ginger491]

I'm a freshman biology major with a focus on ecology right now, and I hate calculus with a fiery passion. How the hell am I supposed to figure out the slope of a point that is in a single place and has no height or length?!

I love stats though, mainly because it for the most part makes sense to me and has many real world applications, heck I've been able to use my knowledge in statistics to help me in my science courses which is the first time I've seen parallels in my classes since I started taking algebra.

 

[Drizzitdude]

Math is the devil. The end. In high school we went up to cal and that was about it. There was never anyone who liked math, or who devoted time to it, or wanted anything else than to just be out of that classroom. You ask me to explain the overlying themes of a novel and I can do it in seconds, you ask me to write a paper or a fictional story or anything that requires I do something interesting I will do it no problem. If you asked me to just sit there, calculator in hand and just punch numbers in and remember the order to punch them in for different equations I would tell to fuck right on off xD

 

[pspman45]

I'm a freshman in college, currently taking Calculus II for my Comp-sci major, so I guess you could say I have an interest in math