- Thread starter
- #7
Andy Black
Help people. Get paid. Help more people.
Staff member
FASTLANE INSIDER
EPIC CONTRIBUTOR
Read Fastlane!
Speedway Pass
Speaking as someone:I don't mean to derail your thread, I'm just curious:
What is the point of advanced mathematics? I know it can be very technical, but speaking from the Fastlane, do you ever use most of the advanced mathematics? Or is it just basic algebra, geometry, etc.
In other words, will someone in the Fastlane ever need to know calculus?
...with a degree in Maths
...who spent 15 years in IT as a Database Administrator / Datawarehousing guy
...who spent the last 6 years running AdWords campaigns (some spending over €120k a day)
I can say that I've not used calculus once after leaving University (other than to help kids pass their Calculus exams).
Probability is useful.
Basics stats is useful.
Being able to calculate whether you'll be profitable is extremely useful.
Other than that, unless your business involves number-crunching, I don't think you need any "advanced" Maths.
Some of the stuff I learned in University was very interesting, but they are more ways of thinking, and I'll write some of them up one day. There was no need for me to take 3 years to learn them...
What is the point of advanced Maths then? Well, if you're going on to do engineering, or sciences, or become an actuary... then it's highly relevant.
For late-developers like me, it was just a complex game that I liked playing. They give us rules. They give us scenarios. We have to creatively apply the rules to solve the scenarios.
Sure, it helped me think in a certain way (Google for "#AndyTalks Simple Explanations"), but I'd argue that I probably already thought that way and that was why I was attracted to Maths (and found it easy).
What galls me is that kids come out of school thinking they are poor at Maths, when they've just been taught wrong.
What also galls me is that Maths is supposed to instil skill and respect for the "argument" (aka Mathematical Proof), but I had to do that first video above to get students to even write the argument down neatly.
So they've blatantly not been taught the very basics on how to argue logically. Without that, I really am baffled as to why they even consider teaching advanced Maths.
To me, it's much like the rest of the education system. It's a series of tests designed to find and train the drones who'll do the work.
Unfortunately, a lot of the people who aren't going to be the drones, end up feeling worthless... and I really really don't like that.
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum:
Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.