I disagree, with a caveat: the skills you learn while learning higher math are extremely useful, even if the math itself isn't. At a fundamental level, math is

I disagree, with a caveat: the skills you learn while learning higher math are extremely useful, even if the math itself isn't. At a fundamental level, math is taking stuff you know and manipulating it into answers to stuff you don't know. That thought process is extremely important. I use it every single day. Sometimes it's intuitive, like saying, "I need to visit five stores today. What's the most efficient way to get there?" Other times it's actual math, like saying, "I need to figure out the most efficient way to tackle my debt." The list goes on and on. Can I justify buying a new car? Should I go to college? If I were laid off tomorrow, how long could I support my current lifestyle? Even questions that have nothing to do with math such as "How do I replace my brake rotors" require that exact same mindset. Start with the stuff you know, and use it to get answers. Will you use integration by parts in your job? No. Will the thought process you've cultivated by applying integration by parts on a difficult problem help you? Yes, vastly. If you don't know math, you might not realize that a lot of these questions have concrete answers that are relatively easy to figure out. You might just wing it or not bother at all. And while that's perfectly fine when you burn another quarter-gallon of gas on your errands, it's not when you're figuring out whether you need to sell your car or how much to save each month for your kid's college fund. Or when you're given shady statistics by a politician. Or when you're offered the Once In A Lifetime opportunity to invest in Amway.