Maths

WindSock

Did you like maths in school? Were you any good at it? I was up until secondary school. I had the most horrible of teachers in first year. A right geebag. I pretty much lost interest after that and reckon the old gender stereotype took over or something. I stayed in ordinary level up to the leaving.

Stheno

Yeah loved it, did maths and language based subjects exclusively for the leaving, and did higher maths.

I'd to go to the boys school for higher maths as the girls school didn't offer it, there were three of us traipsing up there every day and twice on Fridays!

I liked the puzzle side of it, figuring things out. Did chemistry too, that was great fun, I managed to blow a hole in the lab ceiling during one failed experiment

sillyputty

I really enjoyed maths, one of those geeky girls that also enjoyed higher level physics and got an A in my leaving and then ended up doing a completely worthless degree.

ellieh1

I adore Maths in school, my Maths teacher was absolutely fantastic and really gave me a love of the subject. I think because she really made an effort to help everyone understand each topic on the syllabus, this allowed me to really enjoy the subject. I hold the record for the higest result in a pre-leaving maths exam in the school, 97%, and that was set 14 years ago!!

Silverfish

I sucked at it.

I had a looper of a teacher in primary school, I got one question wrong in 4th class, and he made me sit in the storage press for maths for the rest of time I was in his class, which was 4th and 5th. So I missed two years of book learnin'.

So ordinary level for me. I still ended up several jobs that required higher level maths by passing the exams they gave to applicants. It's a mystery.

I remember meeting that teacher later and telling him what I did for a living, and he said 'I knew I taught you well'. That lousy fecker.

K4t

Lad here.

I like maths. I respect maths. But I can't stand the bloody thing! I don't buy into the whole 'nerd' thing either. I know a few maths wizards and they are the soundest, most down to earth people I know. I generally find that they are the craziest fckers in school tbh!

rainbowtrout

I loved maths at school. I had a really poor maths teacher for leaving cert and while I did higher level, I lost interest and went on to do science instead, which I also liked. But here I am now back doing a maths degree in the evening and I'm really enjoying it

metaoblivia

I always hated maths! It was my worst subject. What made me hate it even more was that I would test into the advanced maths courses because I'm really good at understanding mathematical concepts, even the really abstract ones. But I'm horrible at computation! I can't subtract or divide to save my life. And I just generally hate working with numbers. So I would be stuck in these advanced courses and I beg to be put in the standard courses for everyone else, but the teachers would say, "No, your test scores show that you understand maths very well. You just need to apply yourself." Grr! But I can't DO it!
I could do maths in a tight situation. Several times I would be failing a math course and would have to ace the final exam to squeak by, and I managed to every time, but that was only because I would resort to solving the problems in a way I understood, not the way the teacher had taught us and I would check and double check my computation on a calculator. In high school, I went down to the standard classes where I could do the homework in the first 10 minutes of class, then zone out for the rest of the time, and get good test scores without putting in any effort.
Once I fulfilled the math requirements for my undergrad degree in writing, I was done with it. That was a happy day.

Novella

I failed Maths in the Junior Cert......



HOWEVER!



I did get an A in the Leaving Cert! So yeah, I pretty much liked it!

Lia_lia

HATED maths. Always was horrible at it.

Still must do a bit of it in college in relation to computer science, not as bad as school though.

Gig Bee

I aced maths because when I was in 1st yr my teacher was brilliant. he said once u undrstand infinity then u will get maths:)

Otis Driftwood

Loved maths up to my JC but barely passed it for my LC.
However Ive consistenly gotten A's in any accountancy or finance subject in school or college.
Always wondered about that.

loved maths when I had the right teacher. same with everything in school tbh.

Was MADE do pass maths for junior cert even though I wanted to do honours and then in transition year my teacher though it was madness and I did honours at leaving cert level. Also did honour physics. So there!

SarcasticFairy

Loved maths and was always pretty good at it up until the LC. Did HL, and was technically well able for it, except I had the most awful teacher who took a dislike to me, and I just got a bit lost. Should have taken the OL paper, really, in hindsight!

If I end up repeating next year I'm going to take the HL again though. Only I'll have a decent teacher all year, and I'm going to make sure I own the exam!

Wibbs

Utterly crap at maths. I run out of mathematic ability when I run out of fingers.

dfx-

nouggatti wrote: »

Did chemistry too, that was great fun, I managed to blow a hole in the lab ceiling during one failed experiment

Impressive:cool::D

Love maths/chemistry and a brief affair with physics. Can't stand biology, so it must be the more mathematical subjects rather than simply science

dfx-

dfx- wrote: »

Impressive:cool::D

Love maths/chemistry and a brief affair with physics. Can't stand biology, so it must be the more mathematical subjects rather than simply science

nah, I did biology physics and chemistry, along with the two blow in science subjects geography and home ec!

gidget

I can honestly hold my hands up and say that i never have and never will have the brains for maths. God help me if i ever have a child and have to do maths homework with them.

My mam and dad even brought me to a place in Rathgar to see a specialist when i was 6 to find out why i wasn't good at maths. My dad didn't help matters by having a short temper when it came to helping me with my maths homework at night either and i believe he made things worse by turning me against the subject. I even had to do foundation level in the Leaving Cert Even now, even though i'm unemployed and looking for work i try to avoid jobs were there is maths involved in the duties because i'm afraid of messing up.

To be honest, i really wish they would change the syllabus when it comes to maths and just teach us in areas that we are going to need in everyday life and get rid of the stupid stuff such as algebra, geometry and all that crap.

One thing i always hated was when starting a new maths problem, when they would have the sample question and answer at the start and then you would start doing it and think " yeah okay this is easy" and then the further you went the questions would start getting more complicated by putting extra numbers or extra areas to work out as well as the full math problem and thats when it would start getting confusing.

i hate to admit this but i'm 29 next month and if i'm honest i would love do a course to try and start over again beginning with the basics right up to the crap stuff and have someone teaching who's both helpful and patient and try and get re-acquaintd with the subject.

b3t4

I absolutely adored maths. It was my favourite subject. I loved how there was a final answer to it. No waffle, the answer was the answer and that was it. A lot of other subjects were open to interpretation and I hated that. It took me a very long time, and one very good teacher, to get me to like, not loathe, English

Also, there was the thrill of finding the answer. The, absolute, joy of figuring it out. I hardly ever studied for a maths exam, once I got it I got it. I recall studying the theorems you'd have to learn but more to learn the names of them than anything.

This love goes a long way to explaining why I'm a programmer. I've found that a lot of the above transfers to it.

Busi_Girl08

My relationship with Maths was...rocky at best...
It was piss easy in Primary school, except for Long Division...seriously, can ANYONE remember howto do that??!! (primary teachers, don't answer that )

1st year, my teacher was lovely, a bit mad, made it fun really.
She left in April on maternity leave. Her sub was just terrible. Spent the whole time yeling at us for wasting time. :rolleyes: We just barely got the course finished in time.

2nd n 3rd year, our teacher was ok, the sub kind of tampered with my attitude towards it I suppose.
Ended up with a C overall, so I was happy enough

5th Year, I was basically in the "slower" HL class. Our teacher was pretty slow. She'd spend ages on on section, and wasn't really that great at explaining.
6th year, she moved down to teaching OL, so I got a new teacher. He was a grumpy, bitter old man, who clearly hated teaching.
Guess how that went? :rolleyes:

Got a D2 in the end.

Now I am doing business, and have very little Math's to worry about.

useful_contacts

WindSock wrote: »

Did you like maths in school? Were you any good at it? I was up until secondary school. I had the most horrible of teachers in first year. A right geebag. I pretty much lost interest after that and reckon the old gender stereotype took over or something. I stayed in ordinary level up to the leaving.

Oh dear god no. never liked it and could never do it. I was fine until long division came up. The endless nights with my stepmam trying to teach me it.

Never grasped it- its like when you are looking at something you thinks v boring (for me its cricket- i mean whats the point) and you just go "Meh"

I only passed cos my folks paid for grinds- which i hated but still did for them:)

So thats my long answer

Short answer = no

useful_contacts

Silverfish wrote: »

I sucked at it.

I had a looper of a teacher in primary school, I got one question wrong in 4th class, and he made me sit in the storage press for maths for the rest of time I was in his class, which was 4th and 5th. So I missed two years of book learnin'.

Is that legal?

They do that today and there would be a court case

Piste

God I hate maths. I was clearing out my LC notes and books today and for every subject but maths I paused a little and felt bad about throwing on stuff I spent 2 years working on. For maths I felt nothing but joy as I ripped up those pages.

Hate maths.


Funnily enough all the courses on my CAO are science courses, I'm just going to have to avoid as much maths as possible.

C.D.

gidget wrote: »

..

To be honest, i really wish they would change the syllabus when it comes to maths and just teach us in areas that we are going to need in everyday life and get rid of the stupid stuff such as algebra, geometry and all that crap.

..

Definitely think it is taught the wrong way in schools but doing topics for the Junior Cert like Algebra etc. which then progresses to topics like Calculus etc. is absolutely essential to producing school leavers able to go into Science/Engineering/Economics etc. I really think the government needs to revise the teaching methods as opposed to "dumbing down" maths. I understand why many many people dislike it, but literally everything made today, whether it be a physical product or piece of software had a huge amount of "maths" somewhere between design and manufacture. It's everywhere! Not to mention the very funky mathematical coincidences found in nature (golden mean etc.)

I'lllearnye

Didn't like Maths in primary school, didn't like Maths in secondary school. So in my wisdom, I decided to do a degree in it. :rolleyes:

However I can't complain, Maths made me what I am today....a number in the system :pac:

rainbow kirby

Love it. It was my favourite subject in school, I got an A1 at higher level in the LC and used to enjoy trying to come up with better solutions than my teachers would to problems. I also did applied maths, physics, chemistry and accounting - pretty much straight numerical subjects. I love the logical way of thinking that the subject encourages, which would probably explain why I (eventually) got a degree in computer science. My final year project was also on a very maths-heavy topic, and I quite enjoyed it.

LightningBolt

Was really good at maths up to junior cert and then lost interest. Really good with doing calculations in the head etc but now when it comes to abstract stuff I'm lost. It's a shame because it's only through college that I realised how important it was for my masters and the area that I'll be working in soon. Had hoped to get into economics of some sort eventually but you need pretty good math to get by in that so I've just decided to learn another language instead and use that to my advantage in the future.

A lot of us asked the question that teachers hate to hear "What use is this stuff to me?". I worked with a guy who was one of New Zealand's premier homebuilders (yes they have magazines for that stuff), anyway I was shocked when all his carpenters were using maths formulas to work out how much wood etc they'd need to use for certain fancy designs. If schools got highly skilled tradesmen into schools for a quick talk there'd be a definite change in attitude.

Aoibheann

I ended up liking it (and physics) so much that during my first year of studying something completely different, I realised I wanted to study them instead. So here I am finishing my year out and shall be studying Theoretical Physics come September all things going well.

Loved it in primary school. Found JC maths very easy. Got a wee bit of a shock when I found that LC maths did involve applying oneself somehow and my teacher and I clashed fairly frequently. In the end though, his strange form of encouragement led me to loving both maths and physics (he taught me both) and doing really well in the leaving cert exams. So it's thanks to him that I've completely re-thought my entire life-plan.. well, in terms of careers anyway!

In short, hurrah for maths! :P

Das Kitty

I love Maths, but I'm crap at it.

I have problems reading numbers, if they're over 8 digits long they get garbled somewhere between my eyes and brain. This also happens with equations.

I did pass maths for my leaving and got an excellent grade, but I put that down to my teacher understanding my problem and helping me find ways around it.

I could also never learn my times tables in primary school, if I didn't understand why 6x6=36 I couldn't remember. I still have to work everything back to addition, so in the above case I go 6+6+6+6+6+6=36 or even 6+6=12, 12+12+12=36.

I can really appreciate the elegance of mathematics and how the entire world can be expressed in mathematical form, so I wish I was more natural with numbers, but alas, no.

Probability and Statistics I am good at though.

Ginny

I loved Maths up to 5th year, but I was doing H Maths, Chem Bio and Physics, something had to give so I dropped down to O Maths for the LC. Still managed to get a degree in maths though...:D

jellie

i always liked maths, probably cause i always found it pretty easy. A in hons in JC & LC