Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Yes, but will I ever use this in the REAL world?

I don't know exactly how old I was when I started learning basic math skills. I suppose I learned to count somewhere around preschool. I remember practicing counting money in the first grade sitting next to Josh Moore (who was much cuter and more interesting than fake quarters). And I'm pretty sure multiplication tables came into play in about the 3rd grade.

I'm a product of the Morgan County Public School System, and yet, somehow, I can count all the way to 20 without consulting my fingers and toes! (This is in no way a slam to all the very fine educators that shaped my impressionable young mind throughout my school years.) For those of you who may have grown up near Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant, I'm sure you learned to count even higher with all those extra digits!

At this point in my life, I couldn't tell you an x-axis from my elbow! Yes, I breezed through high school calculus. Why? Because I have a knack for retaining information for only as long as I need it. I could memorize a formula and regurgitate it for a test just long enough to make an A. Then it flew out of my mind faster than a cockroach scurrying away when someone turns on the light!

When the final semester of my senior year at the University of South Alabama in Mobile (pronounced Mow-Bee-Yul for you Yanks) rolled around, my advisor had some bad news. I was one math credit short, so I'd have to take a math class during what was supposed to be my "cruise control" semester. So, I did what any respectable college senior would do. I took statistics. Mistake, especially for the summer semester.

I rolled into the 8am statistics class on the first day only to be confronted by a 23-year-old excuse for a professor in a denim mini skirt and high heels. Everyone else in the class had the same glassy-eyed look on their face. It should've been relatively simple, right? "If you have 12 marbles in a bag, and Sally is dating Tom, and the sky is blue on Wednesdays, what is the probability you'll draw a yellow marble from the bag?" Well, Malibu Barbie's evil brunette twin made it way more complicated than it ever needed to be! Imagine the voice of your kindergarten teacher...that's how this lady talked. And my favorite all-time quote from her was, "This is soooo easy. I just don't understand why you all don't get it." All I can say is, thank the good Lord for study groups! I squeaked by and passed the class just in time to get that nice little piece of paper that cost me several thousand dollars (but proves to the world that I'm educated).

My question about math is this: Will I ever use this in the REAL world? I can't imagine a time since high school that I've ever had to plot a line on a graph or actually use Pi for ANYTHING. Utterly useless to me in my day-to-day. I couldn't rattle off the name of one single function (sorry Ms. Jester) and I don't really care to know the value of 'y' in an equation.

And I'm pretty sure that the one and only reason I learned anything about percentages was to figure out the sale price of items at a department store! However, that was more of a practical lesson instilled by my long line of shopaholics.

Moral of this somewhat lengthy story: unless it helps you figure out the final markdown price of that killer pair of shoes on the red-dot clearance table at the mall, you'll NEVER use it! Now, why do I have the sudden urge to go to Blue Ribbon Shoes?

3 comments:

  1. AnonymousJuly 27, 2010

    Funny haw we followed each others exeriences. When i saw my stat teacher at graduation i wanted to punch him out for the ammount of stress he brought on before that glorious day. My blood pressure is rising as i type!!! But i feel your pain.

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  2. I haven't taken math since we graduated 9 years ago. Although I CLEPed college algebra a couple of years ago, I'm a full-time student again and killing myself trying to pass Pre-calculus Algebra. I feel your pain.

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  3. Not to be a devil's advocate:

    But you would probably be surprised how much you use math. "y=" and lines on a quadrant plane are the nuts and bolts. Stats and Logic is really algebra when the two are reduced to it's simplest forms.

    You just have trained your brain to visualize it in a way that works for you, so you do not think of it as mathematics. Your decision to wear your pencil skirt with pearls and appropriate shoes can in be plotted on a graph. Well I am sure someone could plot it.

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