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I am working on an Associates Degree in Business Management...and my question for ya'll is this:
Do any of you ever use algebra in your job? At all? If so, what kind of job is it?
I fail to see the use of this god-forsaken subject for a business manager.
Right now Id like to do all sorts of mean and unmentionable things to the person who invented it...
WHY is it taught to those who likely will never use it? Engineers, scientists, etc, I can understand ;but good grief this is rotten stuff!
I know a lady who is working on a degree in early childhood education: she wants to be a preschool teacher. Why would she need it?
Sorry, Im ranting a bit. But Im curious as to others thoughts on the subject.
Teaching the mindset it takes to logically and systematically solve problems is important to future leaders in the business world. Sure, you might never sit down and 'solve for x' as a manager, but you better learn to look at problems and filter out the extraneous stuff, you need to be able to fix something as a problem, and not as just an emotional response to a situation. Math teaches this kind of thinking better than anything else...
In order to do budget estimates (yes, managers have to give spending estimates for the office), among other things, algebra is useful. And it's actually useful in everday life! I think you don't yet realize it. It's not that difficult. It's a way of thinking.
I used to think calculus was difficult until I actually had to use it everyday at work. Now it's part of the background noise I need to find answers.
You sound exactly like me when I was forced to learn it in 8th grade. I now find myself using it to solve problems without realizing I'm using it. It's just there.
I agree that it teaches a mindset that is required to get ahead. Remember, the person you're up against for that promotion might be good at it and it will show up in their work. You want it to show up in yours, too.
Excellent tool. Hang in there! Get some help if you need it.
This link is not meant as a put down. These are good books, I use them when I need help.
Algebra For Dummies:Book Information - For Dummies (http://tinyurl.com/5pnycf - broken link)
Forgot to answer:
I don't really use it in my work so much any more. I did when I was a draftsman, but as a computer consultant, no. I do use it in everyday life, however, from something as simple as figuring out the best price/cost ratio in a grocery store to designing our retirement home. In the store it drives my wife nuts when I compare three items in my head and get the answer before she does using a calculator.
And no, I'm not some genius geek type. My mother was very good at math and when I was young I asked her how she did it. She told me she pictured a black board in her mind and used it. I've been doing it ever since. Beating the dust off the erasers is the only problem I've run into so far.
It can teach a systematic way of thinking. Then, when someone gets into the business world, he/she doesn't have to actually put down, X=? and Y=X+4, the orderly way of thinking it out in stuck in the brain somewhere and begins working to give the correct answer. We use the process automatically without thinking about it being Algebra.
It's the process of laying out a problem in an orderly fashion rather than hit or miss.
The closest example of how we learn to think orderly in math that I can think of is simply adding up a long column of figures. That is, A+B+C+D...=X with X being the correct answer. We were taught, over and over again, to start at either the top or bottom of the column and add the outer numbers first, then go to the next, etc. It would be possible to just hop about and add one here and one there and get the correct answer, but the best way is to think of doing it in sequence as we were taught.
My unwillingness to succeed at algebra and other higher maths is the sole reason I am in the situation Im in today. A part of me wants to start over but the other bigger part says make do. If I would have taken higher maths more seriously there is no doubt that I would have earned a degree in Journalism.
I use algebra every day: calculating and comparing unit prices at the grocery store, figuring a percentage discount, doubling or halving a recipe, figuring gas mileage, determining the time required to drive a certain distance, figuring out how my 2 percent raise will translate into dollars per week.
Anytime you have to calcluate a variable, you're using algebra.
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Algebra! It's nor just for classrooms anymore!
