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> The math that engineers need is baked into their high level software. Well, someone, has to write that software. When people used to say, "I'm never going
by syspec 5y ago
> The math that engineers need is baked into their high level software.
Well, someone, has to write that software.
When people used to say, "I'm never going to need to know this", my teacher would reply "You're right you won't, but the smart kids will"
- sodality2 5y agoCan't that be taught in the higher-education, like most skills that are only required in a certain area? It's not just "the smart kids will", but "the kids who go into the mathematics field".
- analog31 5y agoIndeed, but I think we could revise the curriculum without causing a shortage of "math people" relative to existing needs. What school math teaches right now is a lot of expression manipulation, and it's all done by hand. That's not how people do math after school, even mathematicians. And it creates a distorted view of math, since it's limited to problems that have closed solutions using relatively straightforward algorithms. I'd like to see school math place roughly equal emphasis on: 1. Arithmetic, i.e., expression manipulation 2. Computation, both numeric and symbolic 3. Learning from data 4. Theory, i.e., things like sets and proofs Items 2 and 3 are things that people can use throughout their lives, even outside of STEM careers, and could be blended with the science curriculum. Items 1 and 4 would serve the needs of "math people" and academic mathematics.