3 ms·
A lot of his arguments are backed by the assertion that "The majority of British math major graduates can't do X." As I can attest at the US polytechnic univers
by j2kun 12y ago
A lot of his arguments are backed by the assertion that "The majority of British math major graduates can't do X." As I can attest at the US polytechnic university I graduated from, graduation is not necessarily the best measure of the success of an education system. This is especially true for math majors, most of whom decide partway to disengage from the thinking part of mathematics and turn to teaching. It's no secret why: they thought math in university would be a continuation of math in high school, and when they are instead asked to think hard about linear algebra or topology or analysis, they decide they don't like math after all. Such students have special, easier courses and yet get the same degree as the top students in their department.
- dev1n 12y agoIn support of this, in high school I didn't quite find math interesting. Once I got into the higher level courses in college I became enthralled in linear algebra and probability theory. Unfortunately it took until my senior year before this occurred (graduated bs in cs). This article helps provide a basis for greater variety of math courses in high school IMO. p.s. j2kun your blog is awesome! Your introduction to the math behind PageRank introduced me to the world of linear algebra and I have truly enjoyed the adventure it has set me on. Thank you!
- jeffreyrogers 12y agoThis was my experience as well, though fortunately I found out math was actually interesting my junior rather than senior year.
- tsotha 12y agoI went the engineering route and I'm glad I did. Originally it was a toss-up between math (which I enjoyed in high school) and EE, but since a lot of math grads seem to go into teaching and I have nowhere near enough patience to teach, I went into engineering. As part of EE I had to take statistics and linear algebra, plus enough calculus to understand surface and line integrals. I hated it. If I'd gone math I would ended up being just that kind of "disengage from the thinking part" person.
- j2kun 12y agoYou must also understand that the kind of math classes they make engineering students take is also not what a math major does. The common thing for engineering programs to do is have a special course called something like "linear analysis" that is a rushed computation-heavy mix of linear algebra and calculus/ODEs. It depends on your institution, I'm sure, but I'd be surprised if your experience was a faithful representation of what it would be like to be a math major.