Reply to Didn't make it to Compacted Math!

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Name a profession that uses calculus and let's see how many jobs are out there right now for that position.  Not worthless but not necessary for 99.99% of college grads.[/quote]

Shakespeare is also not necessary for an even larger percentage, yet you would probably not argue that it's useless (nor would I).

But more to the point, that's a sorry state of affairs if 99.9% of college graduates work in jobs that only require rudimentary math skills. We should be working to change *that*. And to change the attitude that it's ok to not know much (or anything) about math or science yet it's socially unacceptable not to have read and analyzed poetry.  [/quote]

Because language trumps math.

Of course we need scientists, engineers and computer programmers.

But the majority of professional careers simply don't require math and science. Even computer programming barely uses calculus (google it).

By contrast, nearly every profession requires strong writing skills (or at least decent writing skills). Reading Shakespeare gets you there when you have to analyze it in a term paper. Of course, nowadays most students email their papers to Mommy so she can proofread and edit it. Crazy. And that's the real issue: fretting over compacted math for your third grader because you are already fixating on college...this won't end well. [/quote]
You fail to grasp that advanced math is the same as reading and analyzing harder text like Shakespeare.  Just as actually knowing Shakespeare is not necessary in 99.99% of careers, neither is calculus.  And just like being able to analyze text is necessary in most careers, being able to think highly logically and critically is necessary in a lot careers.  This is what advance math teaches, to think logically and critically on a much higher level.

I have a CS degree. No, we don't use calculus when developing software, but we do use complex algorithms.  This is where advance math helps.  The person has been taught how to think a certain way.  Yes, people who haven't taken calculus can become programmers, just as people who haven't read Shakespeare can become lawyers.  But, we teach these things in school to ensure that students have mastery of those skills (though the US doesn't seem to be doing a good job of either subject matters as a whole).

BTW, some news report came out that said we need a million STEM graduates in the next 10 yrs.  We are not producing enough [u]qualified [/u]STEM graduates for the future. That's why we seem to import a lot them.  Countries that outscore us in math teach more advanced math than we do in HS.[/quote]

Even those of us in STEM don't use Calculus.  Doctors don't use Calculus.  Chemists and Biologists by far don't need it. It's not the matter of Americans not going into STEM.  It's a matter of no matter what country you from most careers don't have a use for Calculus.  [/quote]

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