It’s really sad that in a technical age, where more and more people are engineers, scientists and computer programmers, we don’t have this deep societal appreciation for math and science. The same thing that makes people freely admit their math skills also affects college curricula. Look at the required curricula at most liberal arts colleges, which proudly proclaim the value of the “well-rounded” education that they give. There are very few math/science/computer/engineering classes, and extremely few math classes in particular. What requirements there are can always be filled by worthless classes. Then look at the curricula for technical, math/science-focused schools. They always have a substantial humanities requirement, and a totally unscientific survey of people I know has found that there tend to be few joke courses to fill those requirements, and that most students don’t take them.
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Anonymous2010-12-05 13:45
In this day and age, there is no excuse for brushing off math. It’s tough if you’re bad at it, especially since faking competency is a lot harder in math than in the humanities. Nevertheless, brushing it off and not caring is not an acceptable defense mechanism. There’s a part of me that really wants, next time I hear someone say “I was always bad at math” to respond with “Well, I guess you’re just stupid.” It’s obviously not the correct response, but at least it’d move the average in the right direction.
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Anonymous2010-12-05 14:05
>>9
The correct response would be "That's because you're being a sheep".