My blog daughter Mathcog Idiocy has proposed a discussion on whether or not Math is Hard. She points to a very short post on Ars Mathematica that simply says "discuss" and mathematicians proceed to give their point of view.

Since my point is off at a tangent I thought I would post it here.

Now you must understand, I have not reached the higher branches of mathematics I have a minor in Applied Mathematics and I was 2 courses shy of a double major in Computer Science /Applied Math - but I didn't have the time or energy to finish the last 2 classes way back then.

What I found - returning to school as an adult student is that (for me at least) math simply required concentration on my part. Very diligent concentration - I had to make every class - I did all the office hours I could - I did all my homework (even without the incentive of a homework grade). When I did all this - I did very well in the math classes. I am NOT by any means a natural mathematician... I worked damned hard at it. The thing I am most proud of was my second test in my Calc 2 class where I got a 100% - I so wanted to frame that baby and hang it on my wall! I loved Calc 2!

Now here I will repeat myself for the umteenth time (sorry but it still annoys me so much it makes my head nearly explode). When I decided to go back for my CS degree I had to go back and retake College Algebra and Trigonometry. I had taken those classes way back in high school and then had to repeat them in college the first time I was there. (they were my math credit for my Nursing School degree... I should have known then that Nursing was not quite the thing for me... but I digress)

When I went to enroll in those 2 classes - the counselor at the Community College said "are you sure you want to do that - math is hard"!!! Yes, she actually said this to me. I wanted to bite her... but instead I just smiled and said, well don't worry about it, just sign me up for the classes. She said, "well maybe you should just take one of these". As I clamped my finger nails into the palms of my hands I said, "I've already taken these classes 2 other times, I think I can handle it, just sign me up".

I continue to wonder how in the hell we EVER have women who major in math subjects with counseling like this!

After the refresher semester at the Community College, I moved on to the University. I had looked at all my options and decided to go with the Computer Science degree and the theoretical emphasis. Mainly because this looked like the one most likely to tell me how everything worked - down to the nitty gritty. If you know the basics - you can always learn the applications that are built from it. Well, the guy who was the head of the department (at that time CS was a fairly new major... maybe about 5 years old or so) was a math PhD. He would get together with groups of students before they entered the program and talk to them about the differing types of emphasis.

After the group discussion, which seemed to be aimed primarily at younger kids (I was 32 had a husband 2 kids and a dog - not the traditional student), he talked to each of us individually. When he got to me he said, "are you sure you want to do the theoretical emphasis? The math is hard you know. You might like something such as the application emphasis more"!!! This from a man who was a Math Professor! I just gritted my teeth and said, "oh I like math I think I'll be okay" and then I had to walk away.

I could only attend school part time because of the kids so it took me a total of 5 years to finish 2.5 years worth of work. On asking people in every class I took... I never found one other person that had been told "math is hard" by the department head - not the girls and certainly not the guys. There weren't any other housewife types like me and none in my emphasis! (I am paranoid and begin to wonder if the word STUPID is tattooed on my forehead and I just don't see it...)

Back to the post on Ars Mathematica... one of the commenters (PeterMcB) says...

Teaching undergraduate computer scientists has led me to the belief that if maths is hard, then computer science is harder. While it is true that mathematics CAN require abstract thought, not all mathematicians are good at the kind of abstract thought required to be a programmer.

This simply blew me away! I always thought programming was so very much easier than any of the math I had to do. (mind you I find it nearly impossible to write a program with pencil and paper and I have a very difficult time following a printed out program - put it on a computer... I'm good to go) Sometimes the concept of how to logically code a program was difficult - but it is logical and as such a programmer can outline what they want the program to do, and then write that program in the language used in the class. I wrote programs in Fortran, COBOL, C, Pascal, Assembler (IBM and PC)... maybe one or two others I don't remember right now. It was simply a matter of getting the correct language oddities into the correct places - once you had a pattern in your head of how the logic worked.

In the end - math and programming both have their difficulties. For me the math difficulty is that I don't retain what I don't use - so all those math classes wouldn't help me a bit now - I don't use Calculus for anything or Linear Algebra for that matter. I think the only thing that makes math "hard" is when someone is not the least interested in learning about it. Once you decide you don't want to learn - you certainly won't learn.

Math is Hard... poppycock!

Posted by: Teresa in Education at 07:03 PM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
Post contains 1080 words, total size 6 kb.

1 Math is hard. Maybe not for you, but for a lot of people it is hard. Math always came natural to me, yet I hate it. I hated my math classes in college. Sure I received good grades in it, but I hated it. I thought it was boring and tedious. Since I hated it so much it made it hard for me to do the homework, it felt like a waste of time. As you had said, if you don't do the homework you lose it. I would cram for tests and get good grades.

But back to my point, some people hate math and can't figure it out. It would be like me saying Law is easy. I love law, I can read briefs and statutes all day long and retain it for years. Most people need someone like me to interpret it for them.

Posted by: Contagion at December 29, 2005 04:18 AM (Q5WxB)

2 Actually if you think about it, depending on the person any particular subject can be "hard" - math seems to be singled out for this distinction far more often than any other subject.

Therefore in the grand scheme of things Math is no more hard or easy than say... Law (as you pointed out), History, English composition, Science, name your subject.

Posted by: Teresa at December 29, 2005 04:22 AM (FZwDL)

3 In college (also for Computer Science) I found math extremely difficult. (Calc 2 was my nemesis- the only class I failed...but we won't discuss that). It took me a long time to "get" the concepts in Calc 2. Well, it is a slow day here at work... here we go...

1. The teacher is very important. I had several math teachers who could barely speak english, and only taught the examples in the book. As a student, it was my role to work around the situation and learn the material any way possible, but having a teacher (or TA) who you can communicate with, and who is interested in presenting material such that students can relate to it and learn it, is very helpful.

2. I think Math and Science classes are less subjective in their material: on exams, the answer/approach is correct, or it isn't. Many other disciplines have more subjectivity in the homework. (A differential equations problem has but one correct approach: if you write an essay, you can structure it in many different ways.)

3. I guess my top 5 "difficult" courses would be: chemistry, biology, philosophy, calculus, and accounting.

4. My favorite college teacher quote came from my Physics 2 professor. After handing back an exam in which the average grade was 22%, he was asked if he'd be scaling the grades. His very passionate response was "NO! Absolutely not! If I scale the grades, then you will not try to learn.. The only way to teach you people is through violence!!!!" (I vividly remember my head falling into my hands and wondering what had I gotten myself into...)

Posted by: Allan at December 29, 2005 06:31 AM (phwde)

4 "2. I think Math and Science classes are less subjective in their material: on exams, the answer/approach is correct, or it isn't. Many other disciplines have more subjectivity in the homework. (A differential equations problem has but one correct approach: if you write an essay, you can structure it in many different ways.)"

And this is why I HATED English classes and why I had such a hard time with things like psychology and sociology... I literally avoided them like the plague when I returned to school. I'm not good enough at "reading" the teacher for what they want in an essay therefore I had a much much much more difficult time with those things.

As for Calc 2 - well all Calculus classes really - I loved them because I could actually draw a picture and see what I was trying to find (the area under a curve, the area of a sphere...etc) Very concrete (that's me *grin*). Yes, it does help immensely when you have a teacher you can understand. I was very lucky in Calc 1 and 2 to have terrific teachers - Calc 3 was a Chinese Grad Student and it was a bit more difficult for me. But I'll take that over an English essay any day of the week and please don't ask me to write a fictional story!!!

Posted by: Teresa at December 29, 2005 06:44 AM (FZwDL)

5 as a freshman mathematics major in college, i've had a lot of both sides of the argument thrown at me -- until the people get to know me. then, they think i can move mountains with my calculus work!

Posted by: amelie at December 29, 2005 09:41 AM (og1il)

6 You're correct, that pretty much is what I was trying to say. However, I know more people that think math is hard then find it easy.

Posted by: Contagion at December 29, 2005 02:00 PM (e8b4J)

7 Well, I just answered the "math is hard" question. And it's way too long to post here. The short version in my opinion is that we have a cultural myth that says "math is hard."

Posted by: Jacqui at December 29, 2005 02:50 PM (AcY54)

8 I excelled in English but could never, ever do math of any sort. After 5th or 6th grade I just lost the thread. I had tutors that pulled their hair out in clumps because I just.couldn't.get.it. The only reason why I graduated high school? They put me in a "remedial" math class, where we were taught to balance check books. I was mortified, and would have done anything to make things different, but my brain just doesn't compute math!
STILL doesn't, though hubby has brought some new comprehension into my life... He has a way of describing it so that I can understand the basics better, bless him.
Or maybe I'm just older.

That inadequacy has plagued me for years, especially because everyone I know seems to be a math wiz. There goes the myth.

Posted by: pam at December 30, 2005 06:26 AM (l6NIn)

9 Thanks, Teresa, for quoting my comment to the other blog!

I agree with your subsequent comment that what is hard can depend on the person. One of the nice consequences of the video game revolution is that lots of kids who don't have good verbal or written skills have now become expert programmers. You no longer need to master command-line interfaces to program well, and you don't even need to master programming to have a great career at the cutting edge of IT!

Not everyone thinks in the same way, and some disciplines favour some kinds of thinking over others. This is what I was trying to say regarding the poor performance I have witnessed of good pure math students struggling with programming: some people, even brilliant mathematicians, just don't get the thought processes needed to be a programmer.

Most academic mathematicians, however, IME find this hard to believe, since they think of themselves as the top of the tree, difficulty-wise.

Posted by: Peter McB. at January 02, 2006 10:12 AM (RRz/W)

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