-
Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!
Remember when teachers told u math was important
- Thread starter Ryaaan14
- Start date
- Status
John Kowalski
Banned
mathematics are very important if you want to understand how most things work... not even talking about being an engineer because fuck STEM but like if you're into painting, music, if you want to understand how cities work, how demographics affect our lives, how city planning can have deep effects on our day to day lives... even love has some math to it
So no Netflix and chill? 😕
Wolfgunblood Garopa
Member
It depends on your career.
ClayKavalier
Banned
Eh, I can kind of see this, but knowing how to do calculations is still useful. Like if you're creating an Excel spreadsheet and mess up a formula, or if you're buying a car and something about the loan terms seems off. Yes, you're usually going to have a calculator, but mastering the basics makes it easier to tell from a glance that something is wrong.
Ok, so I'm currently studying a STEM subject, and so pre university/college maths education is obviously going to be useful for me, but let's talk about another subject...
To be honest, when I was younger, I thought the study of English language and literature was a complete waste of time:
"I'm going to be working with numbers, logic, and lines of code, why do I give a shit whether Shakespeare used iambic pentameter or what the themes of To Kill a Mockingbird are?"
But the idea of studying all these things is that it makes us complete, tries to give us all the basic tools we need to go out and do what we want to do without wondering how to do basic shit like add or think logically or express our thoughts in a cohesive manner.
It's all wonderful stuff. Maths and science are the building blocks of our universe, English and History are valuable glimpses into humanity which otherwise would be lost in time. Sure, there's a few things here and there that seem draconian, like cursive handwriting, but its mostly useful stuff, and I don't regret learning any of it.
To be honest, when I was younger, I thought the study of English language and literature was a complete waste of time:
"I'm going to be working with numbers, logic, and lines of code, why do I give a shit whether Shakespeare used iambic pentameter or what the themes of To Kill a Mockingbird are?"
But the idea of studying all these things is that it makes us complete, tries to give us all the basic tools we need to go out and do what we want to do without wondering how to do basic shit like add or think logically or express our thoughts in a cohesive manner.
It's all wonderful stuff. Maths and science are the building blocks of our universe, English and History are valuable glimpses into humanity which otherwise would be lost in time. Sure, there's a few things here and there that seem draconian, like cursive handwriting, but its mostly useful stuff, and I don't regret learning any of it.
I'd treat anyone who told me any STEM field was unimportant in general education with great disdain.
As far as being well rounded, understanding these basic concepts allows you to get jobs that are..well, better than a manual labor job and retail.
Statistics is important, because it can give you a basic understanding of how scientific reports and studies of the gen. pop work (some of these studies COULD affect something that affects you down the line, like, say, a law).
Geometry is good because it lets you understand certain physical relations. Key if you are an artist, or building some kind of woodworking thing.
Algebra is key for the other two, and is a foundation for literally anything else that involves math.
Basically, if you want to pursue any deeper level of education, math is important.
Jawmuncher
Member
I hate math so much, but only because I am bad at it.
Monocle
Member
Thank you. SMH at people who "correct" perfectly acceptable things like sentences that begin with conjunctions, or split infinitives, or where you place your damn adverbs. It doesn't matter. Great writers ignore this nonsense all the time, because the English language is malleable. There's need to preserve didactic rules that add not a crumb of elegance or clarity to language.
"Ran quickly" and "quickly ran" mean the same fucking thing. No English speaker on Earth would ever have trouble parsing either construction.
lmao, cmon now, even ignoring the fact that its obviously just continuing the sentence in the title, cmon man.
Dongs Macabre
aka Daedalos42
Cursive is the worst. Just write it like a normal person instead of making things harder for everyone.
Math is super useful, though.
Math is super useful, though.
Cause there are people who have to know math to make your iphone....lol
Ever thought of that...
dehydratedbabies
Member
Snarling at this post.
RowdyReverb
Member
Learning to do math is good for teaching the brain to adapt to abstract concepts and for training the mind for rational thought. People get too caught up in the practicality and usefulness of the concepts when it's really the process of learning math that benefits growing minds.
I majored in Mathematics and then went to medical school, where the skills I learned ended up being very helpful.
I majored in Mathematics and then went to medical school, where the skills I learned ended up being very helpful.
nabe_shogun
Member
Yeah, my signature is the first letter of my name followed by scribbles.
Are you kidding me? All three of those are extremely useful and near ubiquitous in not just most future careers you might consider but also a ton of everyday problems you might encounter in your life. At a minimum, do you have any idea how much easier/better people could make informed decisions if they have even a basic understanding of statistics? Algebra is is a numerical way to express real world problem solving. Geometry is key to understanding physical objects in the space (i.e. the physical world). Like how are you making it through high school without a basic understanding of these to say nothing of adulthood?
Like sorry you find (or did find) basic high school math hard but man/woman up? Shit is useful yo!
I also have no idea why cursive writing and MATH are put under the same umbrella. Relative importance is like night and day.
It's true that most people don't actually need to be personally able to, say, multiply two numbers together. Actually pretty much nobody needs to do this, anymore.
But it's very important that people have a basic sense of about how big the answer would be if they multiplied two numbers together, and it's hard to get that sense without practicing. It's not like everyone is constantly using their phones to do every multiplication that comes up - I don't stop to actually calculate how much I expect to pay if I order four Happy Meals. I don't need to, because the precise answer isn't that important, but it's the sort of thing I need to be able to ballpark in order to compare that to other options. Likewise when informally budgeting, as most people do, you need to be able to ballpark average weekly or monthly expenses and then extrapolate to a pay period or a year or whatever.
Algebra is also pretty vital. Yeah, nobody actually writes down an equation and solves for X, but we encounter situations where we need to think algebraically all the time. The standard sorts of word problems that come up in math classes happen in real life. And again it's not that it's so important to have a precise answer, but it's really important to be able to quickly get a sense of about how big the answer is. Even using a calculator constantly for everything doesn't help much here because most of algebra is learning how to set up the problem and which operations you actually need to do in which order to solve for X.
Geometry is probably less important in practice; I suspect most people develop spatial intuition on their own. Probability and statistics are essential and unfortunately we don't teach much of them, which probably contributes to a lot of terrible decisions that people make. Calculus is basically unnecessary in the same way that being able to read and comprehend more than a few paragraphs at a time is, but most people don't get much exposure to it anyway.
But in short, calculators don't help much if you don't know that you need a calculator or if you don't know what to tell the calculator to do to solve your problem.
But it's very important that people have a basic sense of about how big the answer would be if they multiplied two numbers together, and it's hard to get that sense without practicing. It's not like everyone is constantly using their phones to do every multiplication that comes up - I don't stop to actually calculate how much I expect to pay if I order four Happy Meals. I don't need to, because the precise answer isn't that important, but it's the sort of thing I need to be able to ballpark in order to compare that to other options. Likewise when informally budgeting, as most people do, you need to be able to ballpark average weekly or monthly expenses and then extrapolate to a pay period or a year or whatever.
Algebra is also pretty vital. Yeah, nobody actually writes down an equation and solves for X, but we encounter situations where we need to think algebraically all the time. The standard sorts of word problems that come up in math classes happen in real life. And again it's not that it's so important to have a precise answer, but it's really important to be able to quickly get a sense of about how big the answer is. Even using a calculator constantly for everything doesn't help much here because most of algebra is learning how to set up the problem and which operations you actually need to do in which order to solve for X.
Geometry is probably less important in practice; I suspect most people develop spatial intuition on their own. Probability and statistics are essential and unfortunately we don't teach much of them, which probably contributes to a lot of terrible decisions that people make. Calculus is basically unnecessary in the same way that being able to read and comprehend more than a few paragraphs at a time is, but most people don't get much exposure to it anyway.
But in short, calculators don't help much if you don't know that you need a calculator or if you don't know what to tell the calculator to do to solve your problem.
PdotMichael
Banned
Education doesn't need a goal.
I think that's the mantra of all the non STEM degrees.
Not bothering to remember things like theorems and facts is like going to the store to buy a screwdriver every time you need to open something up. They're all tools that you should know to solve problems and understand how to apply in different situations that arise. I'm not saying you should have the entire documentation of Python in memory if you want to code in Python but there is value in knowing it vs just looking it up.
Also, in my experience open book tests are usually designed around not using the book at all so it's kinda moot.
I mean you're not really wrong. But I guess I just feel like it doesn't engage anyone and the lack of practical use is the main reason
Empty Space
Member
Business and Legal majors would probably disagree. Those aren't STEM related at all, but both have very specific goals in mind.
ClosingADoor
Member
The math itself might not be important because you can get a result pretty easy with calculators, but the logic of formulas and working with numbers is very important for a lot of things.
TapeDispenser1000
Member
That's funny cause I was just practicing cursive a few days ago wondering if i'd still remembered after all these years. I probably hadn't used cursive since grade 8 or something.
And health. Though that may count as science.
Pretty much. Maths are essential to understanding basically everything.
Cursive i can give you, but whatever. I think people should learn everything at least at high school level. Any less and you're way too gullible and susceptible to false information.
Laevateinn
Member
Math isn't about putting numbers together. Math is the language of problem solving.
I'm french, I only write in cursive.
theepicoftyler
Member
I think something that becomes clear as you move into advanced math is that the importance of math isn't so much about figure out what X is equal to, but it's teaching you how to problem solve.
I started working on my handwriting like 2 years ago because I was tired of having garbage handwriting and now I love writing in cursive.
I started working on my handwriting like 2 years ago because I was tired of having garbage handwriting and now I love writing in cursive.
You'll never be a doctor.
Empty Space
Member
What health majors aren't STEM? Like even kind of low level health stuff like Sports Science is still STEM.
- Status