[sysOpOpPERAND]

we are behind in a lot of areas, i am starting to wonder if it's because of our barrier to entry (college fees). i've also been told that we don't teach math in the most intuitive way in k-12. a lot of professors say they have to reteach math to students. many colleges and universities have dropped asking for testing scores from high school realizing they will have to reteach them anyways, kind of interesting to see but kinda sad that we have let our education system slip this far

[Isthatablackgsd]

If they would stop with the hardcore requirements (memorization of equations, paper-and-pen only, no open books, etc) with mathematics when we could be successful with this subject. Technology advanced so much that mathematics learning is extremely behind with the advancement. We have Khan Academy, Mathway, etc. We have great resources online for us to figure out the mathematics. But nooooo, they believe we will use trigonometry, calculus and paper&pen in the real world which rarely happens (ok maybe once in a lifetime). The last time I used my calculus in the real world is actually my undergraduate year.

[Datenstrom]

I have used calculus and trigonometry regularly throughout my entire career. It is the foundation of everything I work on and I would never have been successful without it.

[anyfoo]

Any electrical engineer needs trigonometry, calculous[1], and a lot more of those things (in the complex plane, no less) as absolute basics. The computers you are working on would not exist without electrical engineering.

In software it's less common because software engineers tend to work with discrete structures, but there is quite a bunch of solid math behind that as well. You won't get very far without at least basic understanding of exponential functions and logarithms for example. Once your work involves signal processing (and be it "just" audio or video), you are solidly back to needing trigonometry, calculous, and all of that in the complex plane.

In Germany, calculous is taught in the equivalent of high school, by the way. In university, you then learn building up algebra, calculous etc. from scratch (i.e. from axioms), and into the complex plane. (As far as I remember you learn complex numbers in high school, but don't extend calculous into it.)

[1] calculus/calculous, take a pick, they're both valid spellings.

[nautilius]

I'd say considering trigonometry a 'hardcore requirement' is a symptom of the very thing sysOpOpPERAND is decrying.

[kiba]

Desirable difficulty is adding difficulty to a problem that improves learning effectiveness and durability. So I wouldn't remove the 'hardcore' requirement without reasons.

Calculus and trigonometry is potentially a problem of not being able to find situations to use it, or when there' situation that do use it, one does not recognize the problem. This is known as learning transfer.

[SubiculumCode]

We train a huge proportion of scientists only to send them into the private sector to a)develop finance algorithms, b) targeted ad software, etc, because the science jobs just aren't there for even a third of them. Give them good paying science jobs at Universities and they'd stay.

[dandanua]

Why would you need scientists at Universities that do nothing when you have Musk with his private corporations? I thought he alone can solve any technical problem after a little bit of hard working.