Math made me do it!

"Many students choose degrees different to those they preferred – and in which they would be really good in many cases – in order to avoid studying subjects connected with Mathematics."

An economist would say that they actually chose degress that they preferred as having some math in the curriculum actually lowered the preference ranking of the other degrees. So be it. Enjoy your toothless sociology.

Sad

@Pete, @Luke

Your responses are a sad indication of where education has, in general, gone wrong in the last 30 years (and I speak as someone who left school in 1991). What's so bad about taking on a challenge? People have been brought up to think that everything should be easy/unchallenging or it isn't worth doing. And being seen to be wrong about anything is the worst crime, so it's better to do a soft degree. On the positive side, this is going to allow Indian, Chinese and Eastern European people to bring more wealth to their countries as they will be the only people who can do "hard" subjects during the next 30 years.

And we wonder why incompetence is so rife amongst the civil service/government/big business! Most civil servants and senior "bankers" come equipped with degrees in English and history, great for academia and teaching the next generation about... english or history but fundamentally useless for anything that requires logical deduction or analysis. I don't think it is a coincidence that the most successful periods in our history were when engineers (proper ones) were admired and supported - you know, people who could DESIGN things and do the calculations by hand, as opposed to today where opinion and spin are all.

@Liam

If you'd said "How many people use Fourier transforms in their day-to-day personal lives" I'd have almost agreed with your last point. But I use simultaneous equations quite frequently in my day-to-day life, so I can't.

And maths / technical degrees definately do not = being a virgin singleton for life- and it's pretty funny seeing someone with a computing qualification slagging off anyones' chances with the opposite sex.

Anyway, how do you know that they were virgins? For all you know they could have been spending 8 hours teaching quadratic equations, 12 hours with their partners keeping them as hard as one :P

When taught properly, Maths can be one of the most interesting fields in the world- by "taught properly" I mean when it's intertwined with Physics and Engineering. You get to see how the world was designed and you build up a good picture of how the world works. You start to appreciate the beauty of a good design, the ingenuity behind a solution to a problem, the elegance behind an arcing projectile, the infinite billowing complexities of the small-scale motions of the particles in a mushroom cloud- and the similarities behind that and the motion of a crowd or a river.

With good Maths/phys/eng teaching, the world becomes one massive, beautiful system and you have a vastly deeper understanding of it than any sociology degree with its high-level abstracted concepts could ever hope to give you.

Unfortunately, it's rare to find a maths teacher who actually sees this inherent beauty; it's not so much that the subject of maths that scares off kids so much as the boring buggers they get to teach it and that they keep "pure" maths as a distinct concept rather than tying it up with phys/eng/real life.

Fool

I'm guessing this means that Liam doesn't know the value of Pi has decreased over time. Now that he does, however, he should be able to deduce that circles were bigger in the olden days.

Finger painting FTW.

Explains all those "social media" degrees

Nice to have a masters in something that doesn't involved math, like burger flipping.

Paris, 'cause I wanna be her master in everything

Impure Mathematics

Maths is boring because they never get round to the interesting, weird and creative bits...

I mean, how could you not find this riveting:

"How, if at all, is this stuff related to the Joyal-Tierney theorem showing that Grothendieck topoi are all categories of sheaves on localic groupoids?" [To quote John Baez, in the context of First Order Logical Duality, posing a question I think could be committed to heart and uttered as words of wisdom in any/all tedious meetings... just to liven things up a little]

but then I'm biased: I think trying to get Mathematica to solve a set of seven simultaneous transcendental Diophantine equations is fun.

I would ask for my outdoor clothes but our belovedly Evil Moderatrix (are your boots shiny enough yet, Mistress?) would probably chastise me...

I'm with Pete

I studied maths at uni for 4 years and have a masters in it - yet I would show symptoms "such as tension, nervousness, concern, worry, edginess, impatience, confusion, fear and mental block" when asked to tackle mathematical tasks in such circumstances too. It's not maths people fear, it's tests, exams and experiments like this one.

Something occoured to me

The other day...

I was watching a program on BBC 2 about Alan Davis and maths. They talked about school maths being like Gramma, and real maths. Perhaps it is time that we started teaching there big ideas in Maths and science, as we do in English. I am not sugesting we scrap the basics, just add in some disscution and interest. Tell the children about the theory of Space Time, or the concept of Bran physics. Use infomation about the LHC. Even basic stuff like building model bridges and the like rather than just sitting copying off the board. Perhaps then we would not just get more of them interested but also remove some of the fear of science (Ohhh... EM radiation. Its radiation. BAD!!!!) from the world.

maths

Didn't read the article, just saw the word "maths", got scared and skipped here to voice my outrage.

Seriously though, I love maths, it's people that put me on edge. I'd do the same if I went on a sociology degree. So I didn't. I suck at painting, so I didn't do an art degree either.

Maybe the article should be reversed - about half of all people don't fear maths! That's higher than I'd have expected.

Maths n computers

Done a BSc in Comp Sci, Doing an MSc in Computer Forensics, in both cases maths skills essential.

However in both cases the lecturers were Vietnamese/Chinese/Japanese, their first language being local national, second language being maths, third language english.

No disrespect here, but after three blackboards full of complex maths of mathamatical proof that an algorithm works floowed by statements of "its easy" really ain't helpful.

To be fair, statements of "can you go back to the first formula on the first blackboard" didn't really help me either.

Of least help was the first exam question on every paper for the past five years (and on the paper I sat), which not only did I not understand, but was not possible to solve! (asked a Phd maths bod about the past papers, he commented on a "fundimental missunderstanding on the lecturers part").

@Stiles

2 + 2 will never equal five?

Alas, 'tis untrue! 2+2 = 5... for sufficiently large 2.

Not surprised

I work at a university - and most of the students I deal with aren't able to do even simple maths. They mostly go for their mobile 'phone calculators or have a wild guess.....

After discussing this with people I know who work in similar positions in several universities we have come to the conclusion that they have all been give very substandard maths teaching (ie, this is how to pass the exam). Instead of the real world stuff they need.....

Okay, I'll get my coat. Mines the one with the 'long serving uni it techie' logo on....

@liam - you have kicked up a storm! well done :)

" after all maths has no room for interpretation - its always a right/wrong answer."

i.e hard, ooh run away......

how do you survive in IT?

@ Paul

Not in the UK, but a friend of mine who has a masters in maths left your shores for Ireland because her kids would get a more rigorous mathematical training with the Irish school curriculum than the current British one.

If you dumb it down further the students will arrive into college with "pop-science" level knowledge of several fascinating fields and their lecturers will be bust teaching them differentiation from first principles or similar.

By all means tie maths and physics/engineering together and show the kids that the boring theory stuff is the equivalent of the gym work that Mssrs Rooney et al do prior to the amazing feats of athleticism they weekly perform.

However the prospect of similar remuneration would also help and sadly the arts/business faculty seem to be in charge of most nations today

@AC 12:18

"By all means tie maths and physics/engineering together and show the kids that the boring theory stuff is the equivalent of the gym work that Mssrs Rooney et al do prior to the amazing feats of athleticism they weekly perform."

Best. Comment. Ever.

Is there a Reg equivalent of the Molly? I'd nominate you for one in a heartbeat.

haha... chill out people!

lmao... i was only trying to take the piss :)

im just talking from the perspective of the maths professionals i have known. all complete social rejects - and all the men still lived at home! this includes my old school maths teacher... and he was in his 50s! many of you may well have masters in maths... well done.

yes i went into IT... mainly when there was a massive shortfall quite a few years ago. i didnt do any IT at school!

as a developer i use maths to a certain extent, working out dimensions etc on the fly and the obvious calcs needed to develop accountancy apps for our company. i just dont understand why so much emphasis is put on maths at school. i was actually quite good at it until it relied on my memory (always been bad).

for me kids should learn politics, social science (not the useless general studies etc) and things that help them in later life at school. most kids just arent prepared at all for adult life, and i dont think calculus etc will help them 1 bit. of course maths has been so dumbed down now i guess most of the complex areas have been dropped over the years anyway.

@ "Let me guess - you got bored of getting the wrong answer."

- nope.. i just got bored of learning pointless things. and i can use English perfectly well thanks, i just abbreviate as im at work and dont want to spend time thinking of the best way to get my thoughts down. i apologise if i dont use a capital letter at the start of my sentences, or add apostrophes. if im writing a paper etc i might actually re-read what i write and turn it into nice prose for you, but to be honest a) i dont care [see i didnt use a ' then! i just dont care [i did it again!]] b) who am i trying to impress? i have better things to do and im actually writing this at the same time as taking a phone call!

if you want me to go through your old posts and rip the english to bits i am more than capable. now, lets take the comments as i meant them, jokingly and mocking my old school/college/uni teachers. there is no need to have hissy fits. also, to the people doing maths degrees etc (i dont include engineering here - i come from a family of engineers) are you SERIOUSLY telling me that at Uni all your classmates were fanny magnets? honestly?

Idiots!

6 out of 10 students to be are idiots then!

Re : Arnold Lieberman

"People have been brought up to think that everything should be easy/unchallenging or it isn't worth doing."

I agree with your overall statement but not the last bit "…or it isn't worth doing."

For many years our educators (can't call them teachers because teachers would know better) have decided that children shouldn't fail. AT ANYTHING. The easiest way to do this was by not placing the kids into a competitive situation, by reducing the attainment levels so that anyone could meet them, by feeding the kids the precise knowledge required to pass a test. All of this isn't education, its just training.

While the educators have, overall, been successful in their quest at removing failure, they have also removed successes.

They have taken away the feeling of accomplishment when a difficult task or skill is learnt, they have removed a strong impetuous to improvement, they have destroyed some kids soaring achievements just because not everyone could reach the same heights. They have removed the kids pride in attainment. In their rush to prevent anyone “losing” they have prevented everyone from winning.

So now the products of our education system will be wondering why they can't walk straight from school into a well paid, exciting job, why, if they do get a job which doesn't involve smiling a lot and plastic stars on their name badge, their colleagues treat them with (almost) contempt for the first couple of years. After all they haven't ever failed before so why can't they succeed now? How are the kids going to cope in the real world which doesn’t really care about their poor bruised feelings.

Recently I have spent time talking to one of my (an honourary) grandchild. She is due to leave school soon and is expected to gain 4 or 5 reasonable GCSEs. Unfortunately she is as thick as two short planks strung end to end. An essay produced by her for her English GCSE course work was about three quarters of an A4 page in length, with poor handwriting, atrocious spelling and almost nonexistent punctuation. She expected good marks for that piece of cra^W course work. Her chances of gaining the desired gainful employment is only a little less than that of finding an honest politician. And she will have a certificate saying that she obtained a good standard in four or five subjects. Subjects that she cannot discuss to any reasonable degree. She doesn’t have the very basic skills that are needed for her to properly start her adult life. She has “succeeded” in her schooling. In business she would have been considered a failure and removed years ago.

My primary / secondary schooling ended in ’67. Though I did not sit any exams or gain any qualifications then. I could recite the times tables without thought. Read and comprehend what I was reading. Write structured sentences to communicate my ideas. And, most importantly of all, I knew how to learn. I have since gained an MSc and have since been working in technically difficult, and monetarily rewarding, areas. I have used quadratics at work, and Fourier transforms. Though the only split infinitive I know is the one from Star Trek.

Mines the one with TWO Daily Mail’s in the pocket.

@Liam

Please can you let me know which buildings you were involved in the construction of so that I can avoid entering them as they are most likely to fall on my head. Newton was a clever bloke who came up with some interesting maths about how things might fall down !

PS I was taught in the 70s/80s which did include times tables, maybe you were too bored and didn't notice, numpty. You didn't pay attention in English either as you have no clue as to what a capital letter is. Here are a few for you

MORON

ffs.....

@ {

" after all maths has no room for interpretation - its always a right/wrong answer."

i.e hard, ooh run away......

how do you survive in IT?

}

you also missed my point, i like working in flexible environments. where there is no correct answer - its how you get there. i specialise in leftfield thinking. if i just wanted to regurgitate memorised formulas i would never have started smoking pot so much.

also, i work for myself freelance 1 day and work as an IT developer 4 days a week. i am also lucky enough not to work with any IT people. i work in construction company ( i have a construction background also and was almost an architect before i realised 7 years to get qualified would have meant working hard - and im too lazy for that) so they are easy to get on with.

dont get me wrong, i have worked in IT departments but they arent the place i want to spend my time. nice people but little in common to be honest. i dont live for IT or anything work related.

oh shit, i bet ive stirred it up again!

oh well :)

iR HAVE DA SMARTZ EVN DO i CARNT SPELL

If a time-travelling day-trip full of Maths and English students from the '70s & '80s suddenly turned up and read these comments, they'd snigger their socks off and call half of you a big bunch of illiterate Spastics and would then most likely kick your arses for it. Maybe even some Jif Lemon in the face. Ah happy days....

Even the twats in those days could at least add up and write a sentence. These days, all I read is whining and defensiveness and some kind of proud victim-mentality: "I'm not thick, I'm special! I've got Dyslexia/Dyscalculus/ADD etc.!, Look it says so here. So why won't you gave me the job?"

@Liam

Quite apart from your ignorance of both Maths and English, I have to take issue with your sociological assertions too:

"maths degree = single for life, probably a virgin all your life and still live with your mum"

My wife holds a First in Mathematics and definitely doesn't live anywhere near her Mum. You'll have to take my word on the lack of virginity.

@Liam

So much of school level maths is directly relevant to the real world. The following, non-exhaustive list, consists of things that I have seen many people seriously struggle with. Calculating the number of tiles to tile the bathroom. Adjusting a recipe for 6 people to feed 4. Understanding that stopping your car is 4 times as hard at twice the speed. How about figuring out how much a loan is costing, splitting the cost between capital and interest, or figuring out what implication putting a Christmas bonus onto the mortgage has. How about gambling odds, maybe getting better at poker, etc.

Of course, in many ways the way Maths is taught at school doesn't enable people to think of those sorts of things very quickly. Also, the encouragement to learn maths is poor at best. When I was thinking of what degree to do, I shunned maths solely because I didn't think there were jobs in it. How wrong I was. If I had known about quantitative finance, or actuarial work, or many other areas I would have studied maths at university without a moment's thought. That is the biggest failure. Kids like me who loved nothing more than maths end up studying other things because of the way it is presented.

@Frank

Yeah, I should have rephrased that to "The way the world we've built around us was designed" or "the design of the modern world" or something similar

Actually, my original point still stands even if you accept the meaning as ID; you'd be able to see the very hand of God in the numbers if you looked close enough at the world around you. If you can't, then He has not had an effect, meaning He doesn't affect the real world, meaning that- for all intents and purposes- God doesn't exist.

So there- Maths: Either it's capable of describing God Himself and how He works his diving magic or God doesn't exist (or has nothing to do with us). That's pretty impressive- no wonder people are scared of it!

fair point...

@{

So much of school level maths is directly relevant to the real world. The following, non-exhaustive list, consists of things that I have seen many people seriously struggle with. Calculating the number of tiles to tile the bathroom. Adjusting a recipe for 6 people to feed 4. Understanding that stopping your car is 4 times as hard at twice the speed. How about figuring out how much a loan is costing, splitting the cost between capital and interest, or figuring out what implication putting a Christmas bonus onto the mortgage has. How about gambling odds, maybe getting better at poker, etc.

}

Yes, these things are useful and i easily can do all of them. Maybe if maths was taught in a more lifelike, applied style more people would find it interesting. I found physics a much more enjoyable subject, maybe due to its more applied style? As i said before i was taking the piss about the virgin thing, maths obviously negates a sense of humour sometimes?

Anyway, i will leave you to your discussion now. Apologies to anyone who didn't get the joke on the first post! Oh, by the way, i have bothered with grammar for this one, just in case some of you can't still read a sentence without capitals.

@Liam

stop digging ...

your initial comment made you sound like an imbecile

subsequent ones make you sound like an arsehole