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The fact that I could figure out the writer was a fellow countryman just by reading the title of the HN post alone speaks volumes about this country’s obsession

The fact that I could figure out the writer was a fellow countryman just by reading the title of the HN post alone speaks volumes about this country’s obsession with math. I went through something very similar to the author (went to the best high school and yadda yadda), I then went on to get dragged through even more math in Comp Sci. I was fairly good and I loved the way of thinking math makes you discover, but I hated the grind and my grades suffered as as result, started dropping below a 9 at the end of HS and barely got passing grades in Uni. IMO this system is thoroughly fucked due to how disconnected it is from teaching students something that’s actually relevant and applicable in every day life.

paganel 3y ago
It depends on the maths teacher on how good or bad one can be at maths (I used to be bad at maths before HS because of a teacher, I was actually good at maths in HS also because of a teacher), even though I agree with you that we have an obsession with it, and especially about those Olympics that are of no use (I always like to point to people that no matter how many "gold" medals we got at those olympics we've never had a Fields medalist until now). What's not told to students, or not instilled into their heads, is that, first, maths as taught in uni has no connection to how maths is taught in HS, and that's a good thing (there are a few exceptions that confirm the rule, meaning HS math teachers that "approach" the philosophy of how maths is taught at uni but, again, they're very few and far between), and second, the first two years of uni are some of the most important years in one's education when it comes to his/her future professional life. Later on during uni you're sort of specialising, but during those first two years you should construct the theoretical base for your future career in any field related to maths (which covers a lot of today's tech). You mentioned teaching students stuff that is not relevant, and of course that many of my colleagues at uni (Comp Sci at Bucharest Politehnica) at the end of the '90s - the start of the 2000s had the same opinion, that's why the class that was teaching Object Orientated programming applied to Java was almost always full (or as full as a Politehnica class could have been back then), while the Matematici Speciale I + II class (I think the Americans call it Algebra I and II, not sure, never been there) was attended at some point only by 15-20 students out of a total of 100-120. It turns out that nowadays matrices and manipulation of matrices (which those classes covered quite in detail) is a lot, lot more important compared to writing some stupid videos games in Java applets (which I think was the subject of a class in like 2002-2003, something like that). Also, because this is an American forum and we're talking about how maths is studied in Romania, I'll always remember our first year Calculus teacher at Politehnica (mr. Răbâncă, a legend in his own right if you search for his name on the early Romanian web) who was bad-mouthing the American Green Visa Lottery system in between talking about some infinite series or what have you. Apparently he had won one such visa sometime in the mid-'90s, had actually gone to the States only to find out that he was unemployable in his field of study there, or at least at the beginning, to quote him: "I got there and they asked me to mop the floors. Of course I came back". That was a big loss for the States, a big win for us.

paganel 3y ago

It depends on the maths teacher on how good or bad one can be at maths (I used to be bad at maths before HS because of a teacher, I was actually good at maths in HS also because of a teacher), even though I agree with you that we have an obsession with it, and especially about those Olympics that are of no use (I always like to point to people that no matter how many "gold" medals we got at those olympics we've never had a Fields medalist until now). What's not told to students, or not instilled into their heads, is that, first, maths as taught in uni has no connection to how maths is taught in HS, and that's a good thing (there are a few exceptions that confirm the rule, meaning HS math teachers that "approach" the philosophy of how maths is taught at uni but, again, they're very few and far between), and second, the first two years of uni are some of the most important years in one's education when it comes to his/her future professional life. Later on during uni you're sort of specialising, but during those first two years you should construct the theoretical base for your future career in any field related to maths (which covers a lot of today's tech). You mentioned teaching students stuff that is not relevant, and of course that many of my colleagues at uni (Comp Sci at Bucharest Politehnica) at the end of the '90s - the start of the 2000s had the same opinion, that's why the class that was teaching Object Orientated programming applied to Java was almost always full (or as full as a Politehnica class could have been back then), while the Matematici Speciale I + II class (I think the Americans call it Algebra I and II, not sure, never been there) was attended at some point only by 15-20 students out of a total of 100-120. It turns out that nowadays matrices and manipulation of matrices (which those classes covered quite in detail) is a lot, lot more important compared to writing some stupid videos games in Java applets (which I think was the subject of a class in like 2002-2003, something like that). Also, because this is an American forum and we're talking about how maths is studied in Romania, I'll always remember our first year Calculus teacher at Politehnica (mr. Răbâncă, a legend in his own right if you search for his name on the early Romanian web) who was bad-mouthing the American Green Visa Lottery system in between talking about some infinite series or what have you. Apparently he had won one such visa sometime in the mid-'90s, had actually gone to the States only to find out that he was unemployable in his field of study there, or at least at the beginning, to quote him: "I got there and they asked me to mop the floors. Of course I came back". That was a big loss for the States, a big win for us.