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Did I miss the thesis? He concludes with a statement that isn’t even true. Higher mathematics should be offered and taken by those who need it, or want it; bu
by alistairSH 4y ago
Did I miss the thesis? He concludes with a statement that isn’t even true.
Higher mathematics should be offered and taken by those who need it, or want it; but never required of all students.
I studied economics and computer science at a top-20 university. I did a grand total of one course in the math department (1st semester calculus). Everything else was specific to my areas of study. I don’t recall anybody being forced to take high level mathematics outside of engineering programs. Even within the hard sciences, the requirement was usually something like “take 2 semesters of math, plus statistics.” Or something like that.
Would the author also argue that since I don’t use history at my job I should never have taken government, architectural history, or a survey of western religions? Those all contribute to my understanding of the world around me. As does math.
If his point is we need more generalists with a broad understanding of the world, including social sciences and history, that could be a valid point, but it’s not the one he made.
- colinmhayes 4y agoMy top 20 school had us take 4 semesters of calculus and 2 other math department classes for a cs degree. The econ major only required one semester of calculus. The upper level micro classes ended up being funny because they spent a considerable amount of time teaching multivariable calculus since taking derivatives is 90% of microeconomics. They even spent multiple classes proving lagrange multipliers without ever referring to them by name.
- alistairSH 4y agoThat micro comment sounds about right - my degree didn’t require many specific courses in the math department, but we did plenty of math as part of the program, it was just tailored to the specific thing we were trying to do.