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Oceanography is highly competitive field. To get a job whose salary is a livable wage, you need to go to not just and grad school but one of the better ones. To get into those grad schools you need to be a competitive student with grades and gre scores to match.
I say this as a researcher and as someone who has taught at a marine science high school for gifted STEM students. And btw I give those kids (who tend to be downright gifted in math) the same speech.
It is a lovely platitude to say anyone can do anything but that also leads to ridiculous amounts of student debt. If you are wealthy and the pay doesn't matter. Go nuts. Otherwise you need to be realistic about your odds of not only passing the advanced math classes but being able to get into a good program AND doing the actual math for the day to day aspects of the job.
Seriously, you should go look at a phys oce book and look at the stuff on fluid dynamics before you make decisions that will have lasting repercussions.
I've already familiarized myself with that stuff. Keep it coming. I'm not some kid, I'm a professional with a 20 year career. I know all about finances and paying for school and everything else you brought up. I plan on graduating debt free, but that's not what this thread is about.
If you need to feel special by telling other people they simply couldn't ever work in your field, then go nuts I kid, I don't think that's your attitude, but it does come across that way. You may not realize how your posts read.
Quote:
Originally Posted by lkb0714
Oceanography is highly competitive field. To get a job whose salary is a livable wage, you need to go to not just and grad school but one of the better ones. To get into those grad schools you need to be a competitive student with grades and gre scores to match.
I say this as a researcher and as someone who has taught at a marine science high school for gifted STEM students. And btw I give those kids (who tend to be downright gifted in math) the same speech.
It is a lovely platitude to say anyone can do anything but that also leads to ridiculous amounts of student debt. If you are wealthy and the pay doesn't matter. Go nuts. Otherwise you need to be realistic about your odds of not only passing the advanced math classes but being able to get into a good program AND doing the actual math for the day to day aspects of the job.
Seriously, you should go look at a phys oce book and look at the stuff on fluid dynamics before you make decisions that will have lasting repercussions.
In theory, my job requires math to be used on a daily basis. In reality, it never happens. And, you can find grad schools that do not require a GRE. Or, if they do, they do not discard students who have problems with the math portion.
This is exactly the question I'm asking. Most colleges now require 1 math class for graduation even for humanities majors. I say it's not necessary to make it an across-the-board requirement. As earlier-referenced articles have pointed out, the gratuitous math requirement is preventing a lot of kids from graduating.
The fact that many math functions CAN be expressed algebraically, as you say, doesn't mean they HAVE to be. It doesn't mean that algebra is needed in daily life at all. The fact that someone COULD twist a basic calculation (subtraction, division) into an algebra formula is no justification for requiring everyone to take math in college. Remember, the OP is asking why algebra should be a requirement in college at all, given that so many struggle with it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sally_Sparrow
Exactly. Most of those examples given earlier about algebra in real life are things that could be figured out with lower levels of math knowledge. I don't see any everyday person in everyday life turning them into algebraic equations just for fun when there is a simpler way to find the solution. In those examples given, I would be able to figure that stuff out using the math I learned in high school, and I never passed high school algebra. I took "Consumer Math" and another math fundamentals course instead.
math requirement at the college level, but specifically with a College Algebra course being required when a course like "Math for Liberal Arts Majors" will suffice. I've looked at various BA degrees at various schools and there doesn't seem to be any consistency here, where one school requires College Algebra and the other offers Liberal Arts Math, to earn the same degree. I've taken Liberal Arts Math and I've taken a bunch of "pre-Algebra" remedial courses, for me there's a huge difference in difficulty.
I'm not going to answer every post replied to mine as I have been ridiculously verbose on this thread already and I believe my points have been stated enough that anything more is just going to go around and around, and that's of no use.
The above is where I tend to be in agreement, and actually feel that the "baby steps," or the basic knowledge of math should be strengthened for the non math requiring major, and adding real life uses for math in personal finance, business finance (including government issues) should be strengthened. I do not believe that spending hours and hours toiling over advanced algebra creates magical ways of thinking about life that can't be learned through the study of other things. Strengthening basic math, including real life uses while introducing more advanced concepts could actually inspire more students to tackle advanced math, and lead to a lot less giving up out of sheer frustration. There are plenty of subjects I find essential are happily dropped because they can't be tested on.
In most cases strengthening everyday math will create a nicely rounded person and good worker/citizen when taken in addition to a good variety of other courses, yet not prevent so many people from graduating, or even attempting college. Even in this very limited thread we have seen examples of this, an intelligent young man worried about his future because of the algebra requirement, a high level career person who lacks a degree because if it, people finding schools that accept other ways because of it, people using connections to get a passing grade, or teachers finding ways to pass students who never actually learned the course. That's insane, no other subject creates this kind of crisis for people who went to a halfway decent elementary and high schools. Lack of prep in all subjects leading to college failure tends to be more of a problem in very poor schools, and that's a whole other can of worms.
There may be math teachers here who are just a heck of a lot better than the ones I, and so many others had, so they don't believe this is the case, those good teachers are not the majority in the 3 states I have lived in, I wish they were. It's been my experience from questioning people, and reading on this subject that college algebra is indeed a true detriment to student's graduating, and that leaves me thinking of 2 main options, we either need better teaching methods that somehow change this problem with those methods offered to everyone in high school, or changing the requirement in some ways. I'm not the person to figure out the answer, and if it's true that the wrong people are working on the answers, I guess it's another one of my frustrations that aren't likely to change.
One example from the NY times:
California’s two university systems, for instance, consider applications only from students who have taken three years of mathematics and in that way exclude many applicants who might excel in fields like art or history. Community college students face an equally prohibitive mathematics wall. A study of two-year schools found that fewer than a quarter of their entrants passed the algebra classes they were required to take.
“There are students taking these courses three, four, five times,” says Barbara Bonham of Appalachian State University. While some ultimately pass, she adds, “many drop out.”
Another dropout statistic should cause equal chagrin. Of all who embark on higher education, only 58 percent end up with bachelor’s degrees. The main impediment to graduation: freshman math. The City University of New York, where I have taught since 1971, found that 57 percent of its students didn’t pass its mandated algebra course. The depressing conclusion of a faculty report: “failing math at all levels affects retention more than any other academic factor.” A national sample of transcripts found mathematics had twice as many F’s and D’s compared as other subjects.
From US news: Remedial math is a dream killer for many students, says Robyn Toman, a math professor at Anne Arundel Community College in Maryland. More than 70 percent of students start—and often end—in noncredit developmental classes, she says. "Remedial math has become the largest single barrier to student advancement." For many, math requirements are an insurmountable barrier, a study found.
Something else I found interesting about the teachers in other countries:
[i]"The main reason why these countries are doing so well
is the high quality mathematical learning experiences they provide to children."
Contrary to what many may think, mathematics lessons in Singapore and Japan (the two countries I am most familiar with), are generally lively, thoughtful and engaging, characterized by problem solving, analysis and discussion of multiple solution methods as well as errors,
and a high level of rigor. Teachers know their subject matter, as well as know how to communicate it to children in interesting ways.
This is from the Daily Mail, but likely applies to the US as well:
But the report warns the main problem is the poor standard of teachers. Countries which perform better in maths – including Finland, Japan and Singapore – have more mathematically competent teachers who ‘outperform British teachers in mathematics tests’, it claims.
The report is by David Burghes, who is professor of mathematics teaching at the University of Plymouth and director of the Centre for Innovation in Mathematics Teaching.
He said: ‘We have too few teachers at primary school with a real understanding of mathematics, leading to children not being fully extended; the pupils continue into the secondary stage, where there is a shortage of adequately trained mathematicians.
I don't believe discalculia is the problem or answer for most who are suffering due to math requirements, and we need observant teachers, probably in elementary school to recognize when it is the problem, with so many struggling too many will accept a disability. I read teachers saying they would like to work with people to learn where their problem is, clearly there are problems and answers that my teacher did not have, she could not help me other than by drilling the same things over and over which could never work as my problem had nothing to so with laziness, or lack of basic intelligence.
"Mathematics is the language with which God wrote the universe." -Galileo Galilei
On that note, I was extremely disappointed when I saw a student wearing a shirt with the image below written on it, and when I asked him if he knew what it meant he said he thought it was Hebrew :::facepalm:::
Thanks for the tips and encouragement. We sound similar, except I'm a dude. It's nice to hear someone else in a STEM degree plan who struggles with the math.
We'll do it. Then we'll mentally tell those who didn't believe in us to suck it!
Good luck! It's sounds like you are going to do what it takes.
I thought you were female too, I'm not sure if it's the math stereotype, or the stereotype that men won't ever admit a weakness.
Sounds to me like less than full adult ability to process in the abstract. That is most peoples problem with algebra. Until you have the frontal lobe development, and enlargement to deal with things such as abstract reasoning, it is not gonna "take."
I teach algebra, most folks get it, and those that do, get it pretty quick. At the same time, very few respond positively to remediation, since too often their difficulty is with abstract thought, not math.
This has nothing to do with intelligence, just the timing of the ability to deal abstractly.
I don't understand why some posters are questioning why everyday problems have to be twisted in to algebraic forms in order to be solved. It's the other way around. If you are solving these innocuous everyday calculations all the time, you are in fact using your knowledge of (basic) algebra principles. You can't deny it ... you do GET algebra, like it or not.
Can you solve the following problems in your heads or will you need to break it down somehow?
A person can clean an office in 30 min. His younger sister can clean the office in 40 min. How long will it take the two of them together to clean the office?
A tap fill a tank in 60 minutes & other can empty it in 50 minutes. If the tank is full & both the taps are opened how much time until the tank is emptied?
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I kid, I don't think that's your attitude, but it does come across that way. You may not realize how your posts read. 
