Why They Teach You Math

Other than having answers in our homeworks and exams, here are the practical uses of math.

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General Math

Where else do you use math? It’s obvious, isn’t it? In MONEY. I remember as a student, I used math to know when my savings will amount to a Billabong board short by keeping part of my allowance. Math is just used in receiving money, and paying with money. It makes your investment be in the proper ground and helps you buy the right insurance. And it feels good to see numbers are added ardently in your bank every salary day.

Math guides shoppers by knowing the costs of different products and getting the best deal. Some people also estimate the cost of all items they have in their tray when shopping. Math makes sense when there’s SALE, even though regardless of the discount, anything on sale is a hot signal.

There is also mathematics in cooking. Try preparing a single plate of salad and put two cups of Caesar dressing. Perhaps you’ll complain that the dressing is too much. The amount of your ingredients must depend on each other – that’s is ratio and proportion.

Lastly, counting is math. Whether you count the days leading to your vacation or counting sheep to sleep, math is used my friend.

Algebra

Arnold caught 16 flies in a week. Every week he plans to increase his flies by 5. How many flies will he have in one month? When these kinds of dilemmas happened to you in real life, you’d be thankful that you have learned Algebra. Other than that, you use this when you became an Engineer, Scientist, Economist, Accountant, Mathematician, or Math Tutor.

Statistics

Are you probable to win the lotto? Possibly, you have a 1 in 175 Million chance of winning – and that’s the concept of probability. You also use probability to know which side you are more likely to win in a bet. Is it probable that you’ll remember and use probability equations in those circumstances? Not really though. But taking a guess in multiple choice exam is an application of statistics. You just gave yourself a 25% chance of getting the correct answer, whether you know it or not. Statistics will then be your life if you are a Researcher, National Statistics Office employee, Businessman, Economist, Mathematician, or Math Tutor.

Geometry

It’s a fortunate event that you’ve studied geometry so that you know more varying shapes, other than box, circle and heart.

Geometry teaches you some properties of space. Like example, if my ice cream cone would fit inside my wallet is taken care of this branch of mathematics. Other than the absurd idea of why would you do that, it should have been taken care of common sense.

Geometry also takes credit on measurements. For instance, you can apply the pythagorean theorem to know the shortest way to go to one place. Even angles are given too much focus on this area; so bowling is applied geometry (again, knowingly or unknowingly!).

Geometry is for Architects, Carpenters, Designers, Mathematicians, and Math Tutors.

Trigonometry

Ah, the study of triangles. The only way I could think that this area of math could have helped you is if you are a Trigonometry Professor, Mathematician, or Math Tutor.

Calculus

Any branch of science where solution is achieved through complex mathematical operations is where calculus is used, apart from Mathematician and Math Tutor.

More than all of that, it is the logical thinking we have acquired from studying math.

Where else did you use math?

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Changed College Education

Is college still worth it?

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We are told about the successful dropout stories of Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg and Steve Jobs; or even J. K. Rowling who never attended college. These people are implying that you don’t really need to graduate from college to be a billionaire.

So what is happening in college nowadays? Since academics is not a priority, students during the first two years of their college education learned very little, close to nothing. Based on the book Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses, where students’ Collegiate Learning Assessment results were analyzed, 45% of students did not learned significantly. And after completing 4 years of college, 36% learned very little.

The research also shows that students study less compared to students a decade ago, with 50% decline in study time. But the average GPA of students is 3.2, quite high for a minimized effort. It seems that the academe lowered their expectations on the modern day students.

Professors are really researchers, not teachers. They don’t get rewarded for teaching well, but rather they get promotion or pay increase by having more papers published. In turn, they prioritize searching for new information and the teaching suffers.

We all know that college education costs a fortune. Students end up working for the first 5 years or more just to pay their debt. There are various courses offered that are extra hard to hand our money. I’m talking about studying the following:

• David Beckham studies – Staffordshire University, UK
• The Phallus – Occidental College
• Surfing Studies – Plymouth / Melbourne
• Star Trek – Georgetown University in Washington
• Golf Management – University of Birmingham / Florida Gulf Coast University
• The Science of Harry Potter – Frostberg State University
• UFOlogy – Western Nevada College
• Maple Syrup: The Real Thing – Alfred University
• Underwater Basket Weaving – University of California, San Diego
• The Twilight Saga – University of Alabama

To answer my own question, yes I believe college education is still worth it. I’m a college graduate, and there are wonderful and admirable things that I’ve learned and acquired in college. At the very least, college is a great place to meet people. I maintained good relationships, had a smoother interpersonal interaction, improved mindset, better outlook in life, and a more defined personality. These will develop regardless of what field you are majoring in.

And here’s the truth from the words of Time Magazine’s Vartan Gregorian,

..of the current Fortune 500 CEOs, some 99% have a college degree. Similarly, of the Forbes 400 richest people in America, 81% hold postsecondary degrees… the fact remains that people with college degrees still earn much more — and are more likely to have a job to begin with — than people without.

However, it is worth mentioning that the value of money put in college is diminished due to the receding quality of education.

Do you think college is still a good investment nowadays?

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Sources:
Report: First two years of college show small gains; USA Today
The Myth of the Millionaire College Dropout; Time
Top 10 Most Ridiculous College Courses; Top 10 Useless College Degrees & Classes; Make the list