Thread: Math education

Since *Gillianren* mentioned it over in the Small Media thread, I'm making a topic about it here.What is the general high-school level of math knowledge every student needs to know in your country?Maybe I misunderstood, but Gillian sounded like trigonometry is elective in the US. It's a rather integral (pun not intended) part of high school maths in Austria and Sweden at least, as far as I know.I'll try to put up a list of upper-grade maths needed for the final exam (aka university entrance pass) in Austria (source) (http://www.bmukk.gv.at/medienpool/11...s_07.pdf):Year 1 (14-15yrs): Numbers and number systems; 1- and 2-variable equations (linear and square algebra); functions (tables, formulae, text problems); basic trigonometry (sin, cos, tan, log); vectors and 2d geometryYear 2: Powers, roots, logarithms; sequences (monotony, convergence); more linear algebra (up to 3 vars); real functions; 3d geometry; stochasticsYear 3: Algebraic polynomial equations and complex numbers; differential equations; nonlinear analytic geometry (cone sections etc.); more stochasticsYear 4: Integrals; dynamic processes (anything from flow diagrams to differential equations to describe a process); probability distributions.Then of course there's just one math class over here, not several courses on different topics that you pick from. So you can't, say, learn algebra and calculus in parallel.So how does it look for you? I have no idea if that is a lot or a little when it comes to what every person in university should at least have heard of once (even if they don't remember it). I think it's pretty normal for Europe, though. What do you think?;)

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Watt Balance

Well, in my small remote area of the U.S.A. my high school required Algebra I & II, and Geometry. Pre-Calculus, Calculus, and Trigonometry were all electives, and I actually believe that Trig was not even offered as a course my senior year, so I would definately have to say that we're far behind the curve.

Meh. Trig is not really necessary for most jobs. If you want to talk about expanding your brain by working on difficult puzzles, then all puzzles of equivalent difficulty are equal. In the current age, I would argue that logical puzzles have more relevancy than trig or calculus.

Anyone fit to pursue engineering or the sciences is probably going to take advanced math classes anyway.

You bring a great point up ... I sometimes am really surprised how little logic some people in the engineering / computer fields actually have. Some simple tasks are either blocked or done wrong because the person working on them is either too lazy on incapable to solve the problem. I guess that adding logic problems to an engineering degree may be difficult because some students may just not be able to graduate ... which then is an ethical problem. I think that the schools want to teach what they can teach and then allow open capitalism to weed out those that lack the logic abilities as problem solvers ... however I am not sure that's efficient either.

Originally Posted by bgbirdsey

Meh. Trig is not really necessary for most jobs. If you want to talk about expanding your brain by working on difficult puzzles, then all puzzles of equivalent difficulty are equal. In the current age, I would argue that logical puzzles have more relevancy than trig or calculus.

Anyone fit to pursue engineering or the sciences is probably going to take advanced math classes anyway.

I just graduated last month and it's really kind of sad how easy the "required" classes are to graduate. My friend managed to graduate high school only taking basic algebra and a geometry class. Most of the kids in our accelerated program go through Pre-cal which is honestly just a repeat of trig but with matricies. Then the kids that are going to college for some engineering, physics, medical, etc. degree do calc. so short story long only basic algebra and geometry are a must to graduate but all the kids that are going to college do probably two more classes after that, maybe three.