10:27 p.m. - 06 March 2003
X is for x+y=z
X is for x+y=z
My sister is a math geek. A huge math geek. She went to the Governor’s School for Science and Math. She majored in math. She just sat for the Math GRE so that she can get into grad school and study more math.
Me? I finished a four-year degree without taking a single math class. Except physics, which is all formulas anyway. And I’m pretty damn proud of that. Now, I don’t even balance my own checkbook – that’s what Money is for. And I used a web-based program to do our taxes this year, and we paid someone else to do them last year. I don’t miss math at all.
It’s not that I disliked math because I wasn’t very good at it; rather, I exempted out of the math classes for the general education program portion of my degree due to a high score on the AP Calculus exam (the AB one, if you’re interested). My junk brain doesn’t discriminate when things decide to stick, so there are still some math formulas rolling around in there (maybe). But in high school, I had two consecutive years of a not very good teacher followed by one year of a very good teacher, and by graduation I’d had enough.
To finish early, I ended up having to take Algebra II and Trig at the same time, mostly because I didn’t know I was going to finish early when I started high school. If I had, I would have taken Geometry and Algebra II at the same time, which would have made a lot more sense. As it was, I was way behind for part of the year in Trig and then way ahead in Algebra at the end of the year. Since Trig was with the not very good teacher, I’m amazed I understood anything. Actually, the unit circle still mystifies me, truth be told.
Now, had I started at Converse a year or two later, I would have gotten a BS in Biology rather than a BA. One of the requirements of the BS, though, was taking a calculus-based physics where the students were expected to derive some of the formulas rather than just memorizing them from the book. When I start to think how nice it would have been to have a dual degree, I remember the calculus-based physics and reconsider.
Besides, if I ever really need math, I can call my sister. She’d be happy to help.
This has been an entry for AlphaBytes. I’m going backwards through the alphabet just because I can.
