I don't think it's simply that math is hard. Many of these courses are taught in ways that make it hard for students to see how the tools they're using are goi

I don't think it's simply that math is hard. Many of these courses are taught in ways that make it hard for students to see how the tools they're using are going to be useful. Students would be better-motivated to take the challenge if they were applying it to problems that seem relevant to them. In CS, for instance, which is more fun: slogging through an algorithms book front to back, or researching the best way to solve a problem you face in one of your own code projects? To answer your question about relevance: I made it through my undergraduate physics major not because lectures and homeworks were fun, but because I got involved in research early on. I found it much more fun to learn in the context of a project I felt a sense of ownership of.