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Hardest math courses for me while getting my B.S. in electrical engineering were Calculus 1,2,3, Differential equations, Linear Algebra, Applied Mathematics, Fourier and Laplace Transforms as well as Discrete Mathematics, and Complex variables. An enough math for 10 lifetimes. I was pretty good at math in HS but this was another ball game, didn’t know math can be that hard. I had to go to night school to pass some of those courses, the professors that taught at night gave us breaks because they thought we working days while going to school at night. I am retired now and hate math, can’t even add 2 + 2. Actually took me 5 years to get my degree. It’s funny today that kids can’t even calculate change from a dollar. I now have no desire to practice Math. Can any of you guys still do Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication, Division in your head or for that matter on paper ? Had a belly full of it. That’s what calculators are for. Rules of PEMDAS, Parentheses first, Exponents next, Left to right for Multiplication & Division, Left to right for Addition & Subtraction. Do you guys hate math as much as me ?

I was terrible at math in high school, but, oddly enough, I enjoyed it at Uni. Had a lot to do with my professors who could actually teach it. A lot of math in the health sciences, just not a lot of COS/TAN etc. When I started teaching at Uni we had a math exam the students needed to pass before continuing with their clinical courses. It was a terrible exam with around a 79% fail rate. The faculty finally got around to introducing a math course that had a computerized component. We got great results, the fail rate went down to under 9% and for several years it worked great. In my second last year teaching before I went back full-time into the clinics I heard the new students whining about the 'stupid' math program they had to buy. What followed was some inept excuses amongst faculty and they got rid of the PC math system and went back to the 'old ways'. Sure enough the fail rate went back up, this time to around 90% leaving the faculty with egg on their faces and the sudden allowance of taking the test until one passed. So dumb. Anyway, I got turned on to math when I was an undergrad by a really cool prof from Scotland who was specializing in theoretical math science (with her having multiple PhD's).

Interesting Leaf, thanks for sharing your math experience. When I started studying math at college we used slide rules, they worked. What is different most of my math professors were Cuban. Sounds like you can still some math.

I also did some math as part of training to become a radar technician. I remember doing the calculus stuff too, but unless you have a day-to-day application for it, it disappears over the years.

I mean, I learned it once I could learn it again, but I don't have an application for it, no real-world use. For those math problems I do need now & then, I simply Google it & adapt the knowledge on a per-use basis. I can do a little algebra so finding formulas connected to what I need is adequate.

I despised math with every fiber of my being when I was in school.

I was never good at maths and pretty much hated it in school.

So Imagine my surprise when I started my apprenticeship with the imcumbent post & telegraph office as a telecommunications technical/administrative hopeful, hopefully on a fast track to a lucrative and brilliant career.

The money was no good and I found myself in training learning to solder, convert between decimal, binary, and hex as well as drawing and calculating circuitry including making the aquaintance of Thevening (eqivalent, generator) and messrs Fourier and Laplace. Then I spent all my working life avoiding that stuff.

Well, I actually remember when I was managing a project, dimensioning a network of subscriberlines based off the tables calculated by a famous engineer called Erlang, the real engineers doing this sort of work every day went to check my numbers and they came back quite astonished that my numbers were correct!

Since then I’ve forgotten almost everything and today struggle to remember Ohm’s Law.

I sometimes do mental additions when shopping just to take my two braincells for some exercise and amuse myself by guesstimating certain figures, loosely based on Fermi’s methodology and then calculating the sums properly afterwards, to see how far I was off in my estimate, but that’s about it.

I am with PM, despise math today even though I had to take every math course imaginable in school. Doing that I have had enough math to last 10 lifetimes. Funny thing is that with all the advanced math classes I had to take in college to get my degree never used any of them in my job as an Electrical Engineer, all we used was Excel.

You’re a funny guy McG, using your 2 brain cells for exercise and amuse yourself. I am Sicilian, a common phrase in our family was “ You are dead in my eyes “, Math is now for me is “ You are dead in my eyes “. I laughed, thanks for the chuckle Sir.

F4U, I know you taught Calculus. Going to school for my B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering I had to take a lot of math classes, Calculus 1/2/3 was a challenge for me and I considered myself pretty good in math but Calculus was a whole new ballgame. Could have used your tutoring F4U while I was taking all those math courses. Even after calculus 1/2/ 3 still had a plethora of math courses to complete, Advanced Applied math, Nodal analysis, Differential Mathematics, Real and Complex Analysis, Numerical Analysis / Numerical Methods, etc etc. The funny thing is that I never used any of that math once I started working, did everything on Excel, had to make some macros using mathematical symbols to create a formula, but most of that was already done by the company, so I could have skipped college and would be able to do the job right out of HS.

Come again?

You made a post in PWEC about that but I misinterpreted it, you just posted about an article about teachers that taught calculus, I wrongly thought you did, sorry my bad. The title of your thread was “ I teach calculus at Berkeley “ so I assumed it was you, my mistake. Sorry buddy, it was a good article you posted though.

Yeah, I know PM.

40 years ago at Glasgow University an ordinary engineering student did more maths than an honours maths student ...
still not sure how that escaped me before I went ... .😱

I forgot 99.9 % of what math I learned in college, never used it on the job.

I might have had some interest in math when I was in school had the teachers not taught the subject in such a dreadfully boring manner.

I have to do math instantly in my head for my profession, and be able to infer and calculate statistical ratios, relationships and progression at the glance of a page of financial statements.

This sort of work is possible without that, but would take infinitely longer to be good at.


We all have gifts given to us by God, and he wants us to use them. What saddens me is how so many never use their gifts, and instead remain chained to jobs and career paths that don't take advantage of those unique talents.


Also, the problem with how math is taught in school is typically students aren't taught shortcuts to effectively employ math quickly in their minds. Instead they end up convinced its a bunch of junk they'll never need to use, and that's a bummer.

If you don’t mind me asking you Mr_Blastman what is your profession ? Doing math in my head instantly would be difficult for me. Very impressive that you can.

I'm a Wealth Manager, and analyze and invest in companies for a living. I do my own research and analysis, and construct and trade portfolios I build from mainly hand picked stocks, along with other instruments. I subscribe to the Buffett school of thought of value investing. To do this well one must be able to extrapolate and dissect massive amounts of data very quickly, and discern relationships between the numbers. Reason is that 80% of the day is spent reading about industry, economics, news, trends and firms, so when looking at actual financials, time is already short, and there's a mountain of garbage in the investing ocean.

Quite impressive Blastman. I could not do what you do.