Why contemplate a career in computer engineering when you don't like math?
That is the question I asked one of my night students.
Some of them just don't understand what they need to do to succeed in a chosen career.
The rantings of a teacher who retired from the classroom but not from education.
4 comments:
Um, yeah. That career move might have a few bumps in the road for someone who doesn't like math. No to mention some serious limitations. Programming is not actually much like playing a video game, you see...
Roger Ebert hates math too. Perhaps that explains why he uncritically accepted all the propaganda contained in the pro-charter film, "Waiting for Superman." Perhaps if he'd mastered logic, he'd know there was truly no magic bullet.
If you do one thing this year, read Diane Ravitch's new book. It is remarkable.
yeah I think I ruined some girls chances of going to college once. She was a senior in Algebra 1 and she said she needed it to graduate and then she would never have to take math again. I looked at her and said something like "you will have to take some in college" she said no she was going into some other major. I told her that every major has some general ed stuff including math.
Her mouth dropped open and was shocked. No one told her she would have to take math in college. Never knew if she went or not.
Several of my students want to take up computer engineering, or medicine. I told them that they must take two or three levels of calculus. I emphasized that you cannot get into med school unless you have passed calculusII. They were so taken aback by it that they asked me if it's truly necessary to take calculus. I told them that there's no if's or but's around it. One student made me laugh because she said that she'll get around it by leaving calculus for last, right before she graduates from college. So I said to her that she should try it and come back to let me know if her plan worked.
Sometimes you have to let them learn through experience that math or calculus is here to stay. When they get to college, they'll see it for themselves.
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