What’s in a Math Class?

To be completely honest, I’m not very good at math. I’m the type of person to say that 3 + 4 is equal to 12 without blinking an eye (true story). But still, I find math to be a fascinating subject, and many of the things that I’ve learned have real significance. So today, I will be rating math subjects based on a variety of factors, including personal enjoyment, difficulty, and usefulness. Let’s jump right in!

 

Geometry

Frankly, I don’t really like geometry. I remember suffering under the wrath of two-column proofs and the hundred different theorems that we had to memorize and then spit back out. All in all, it wasn’t fun. I took the class 5 years ago so I don’t remember too much, but this is definitely one of the less enjoyable math subjects. I also don’t know when knowing the types of triangle congruency will ever be useful. So overall, not a great class (in my opinion).

Q.E.D.

 

Statistics

Statistics is a weird one. It’s like a blend of math and english, which was a big surprise to me when I came into the class. The math part isn’t too hard as of right now, but some of the writing in that class can get very, very specific. There’s also a lot of terminology that can get quite confusing (like, what even is the difference between nonresponse and undercoverage bias?). However, I think it’s one of the more useful math classes, as the material that it covers can easily be used for many different applications, like in science and engineering.

 

Algebra 2

Algebra 2 is the first “conventional” math class on this list. I didn’t have too many fond memories of it – after all, I took it during the pandemic, when everyone was learning in a virtual environment. Looking back on it, e-learning made the class a lot harder than it needed to be. The content was still better than geometry, though. The topics that I remember – that is, polynomials, quadratics, probability and such – were much more interesting to me. Algebra 2 is like the foundation that everything else, from precalculus all the way to multivariable calculus, is built on.

 

Precalculus

I don’t know whether it was my teachers or the return to a more standard learning format, but precalculus was definitely more enjoyable in my experience. The level of difficulty was manageable, but I still learned a lot from the class, and in retrospect things like conics, trigonometry, logarithms, and so on were definitely worth learning. Mr. Kim’s SIN-SIN-COCO-SIN will be remembered for a long time, even if I forget everything else. Some other content also planted some seeds that later became very useful in calculus and physics – especially vectors. Vectors were really useful later on.

 

Calculus BC

Believe it or not, calculus is actually my favorite math subject. It’s quite different from everything that I had encountered before, but I found the two main topics – derivatives and integrals – to be quite fascinating. Calculus takes many of the things that we learned in previous years and gives it an unique twist. In terms of difficulty, it’s 100% the most challenging subject on the list so far. It also has very real applications from the get-go, especially in physics. Calculus helps you learn the relationship between a lot of physical concepts, such as velocity and acceleration, torque and angular momentum, and force and potential energy. So even though the class was difficult, I’d say that it was worth it.

 

Multivariable Calculus

I personally haven’t taken this class, but I’ve heard horror stories from people who did. Things get really crazy in MVC, even more than BC. You start getting things like double or triple integrals and calculus in three-dimensions, which is absolutely mind blowing to me. Honestly, I’m kind of terrified to take this class in college.

 

Linear Algebra

Now, I don’t know a lot about this class. When I first heard about it I thought, “Oh, it’s just linear algebra. y=mx+b, right? Pretty simple.” Well, apparently not. I’ve taken a look at some of Andy’s homework from that class and it doesn’t seem fun. First of all, proofs are back. Second, everything in that class has to deal with matrices. I remember learning those in precalc and wanting to never see them again. So, I will also be dreading taking this class in college.

 

Well, that’s it from me. Let me know your thoughts about your favorite math subjects. Hope you all enjoyed!