Maths

Chocoholic84

I absolutely HATED Maths. It wasn't too bad in primary school, apart from the oul long division, which I couldn't make head nor tail of!

But then secondary school...jeeeeeeeez, it was horrific. I just scraped a pass in Ordinary Level in the LC...I think it's seriously unfair how you have to do Ordinary or Higher in order to get into college...in my course, there was no maths whatsoever and whether I passed or failed it in secondary should have no relevance whatsoever :mad: I can do basic maths, what the hell do I need to know all the sin, cos and tan sh!te for?

Xiney

I was great at Maths. I even earned quite a tidy sum of money tutoring classmates in Maths in High School.

I was good at school in general though. And anyway, my dad's a Physicist so being crap at Maths would never have been considered an acceptable excuse :P

fits

I've a weird relationship with maths. Failed my leaving cert mocks spectacularly and then got a B1 in the real thing and should have done better. I also studied physics and chemistry for the leaving, got a first in engineering and I'm still working with maths to a certain extent now.

Fugly

I love love love maths! . I pretty much always have, all through school, occasionally a teacher would make it less fun. For LC maths I had a teacher who was also the guidance counsellor, so every new topic involved lots of discussions about how we "felt" about it.:rolleyes: Hippies!
Entered a science degree so maths was first a core and then later an option.
Still love it! .
I know a bad teacher can put a stdent off a student for life, but I hate when people moan about having to learn the "useless" parts of maths. It's used everywhere, incl Art!

Silverfish

Xiney wrote: »

I was great at Maths. I even earned quite a tidy sum of money tutoring classmates in Maths in High School.

I was good at school in general though. And anyway, my dad's a Physicist so being crap at Maths would never have been considered an acceptable excuse :P

LOOKIT THE BIG BRAINS ON XINEY!





Teach me stuff pls.

allabouteve

Math was my favourite subject throughout High School, followed by Chemistry.

Contrary to what one or two of my ex's would say, I'm a fan of logic.

Xiney

Silverfish wrote: »

LOOKIT THE BIG BRAINS ON XINEY!





Teach me stuff pls.

haha :P

I don`t remember any of it anymore really

MLE

Maths was my favourite subject too. Did Higher level all the way and got a 1.1 in an honours degree in applied maths also.

But I still can't add.... thats what calculators were invented for.

coffee_cake

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.

Yeah always loved it, but I've always loved maths + languages.
Ended up with maths as part of my masters and now my career

Abi

I had the angriest Maths teacher ever. Literally everybody was afraid to ask him anything. He was an ill-tempered beast, and it totally knocked my confidence that I could get a good grade. So I dropped to O level before the exams, which I regret doing now- I got an A and could probably have done very well at honours level. Bastard

SeekUp

I liked it and was good at up until I was about 14. Didn't make top grades, but did okay for a couple of years after that . . . until calculus. No CLUE what was being said, and could not wrap my head around the concepts. And even when I thought I had it, I was wrong!

That's when I left mathematics land and never looked back.

lemon_sherbert

Ah, I still love maths... I'm considering specialising in economics pretty much so I can do more number work and less legal mumbo-jumbo.

My parent's were a big factor, as both studied maths in college and went into numberical professions. One of my favourite memories is a rainy holiday away when my dad taught me co-ordinate geometry even though I was only in 2nd class.

I have encountered shock and disbelief from quite a few in college, however, whenever I say I like maths, or offer to help others with stats etc.

chocgirl

Didn't particularly like it but I was good at it.

Still find it funny that people presume all girls do pass maths at school. I remember shortly after doing my leaving my boss at the time asked if I did honours subjects. When I said yeah he replied "except maths of course". He couldn't believe they taught girls higher maths.

Pythia

Loved maths in school. Got an A1 in Honours in the LC. Also did the other maths subjects like Applied Maths and Physics. Did maths as a major part of my degree and now work in a mathsy job. My father's also a mathematician so it's in the genes I suppose. Maths

JC 2K3

It's funny, you rarely hear anyone say "I hate reading/writing, all those letters and words just confuse me".

Why is it that illiteracy is an embarassment, but innumeracy is acceptable?

Hearing people say they hate maths saddens me a little, I have to say. I think society needs to change its attitude towards it and look upon decent mathematical skills as ordinary rather than reserved for a small group of nerds. I think because of common attitudes, students are more inclined to slip into an "I hate maths" mindset from an early age if they have even the slightest difficulty with it.

I always found maths a breeze. Far from being the hardest and most time expensive subject on my LC, as the teachers kept telling us, I actually found it enjoyable and got an A1 without much effort. Taught myself applied maths and got an A2 (damn messed up exam) too.

I do Computer Science now. I like the maths involved in it less than LC maths, I have to say.

The Sweeper

I was never any good at maths. Out of 120 leaving cert students in my all-girls convent school, I think about 12 did honours maths for the leaving.

I did pass maths for the LC, came out happy with my B - but my brain doesn't "do" maths. I believe different hemispheres hold the capability for maths / languages / art etc. I've always been good at the languages and the art, and always rubbish at the maths. (Walked out of the LC with As in honours Art and English).

I seem to 'overthink' mathematical problems and as a result end up light years away from the answer, having convinced myself it's a trick question. On the flip side I can tackle a cryptic crossword and have an extremely good memory for names, faces and random statistical information - as long as I've read a page with it written down.

Snowie

I was crap at maths english, science, writeing, didnt do irish, french or german because im to dyslexic. Tho having said that I loved history and got honors in my jc same with geography my history teacher was cool... I left after my JC
My home ec teacher used to glare at me simply because i could cook better then her ...

tho my best subject was coming up with excuse's for getting out off detentions or getting the teacher not to tell my folks i smoked....

Crumble Froo

i wasn't too bad at maths. twas always my weaker subject in primary, but that just meant that i'd get two sums wrong max, as opposed to actually being weak at it.

in secondary, i found it alright in first year, but when we were divided to honours and pass in second year, i found honours pretty tough going, but my folks were adamant that i had to do honours for my junior. put my blood sweat and tears into it (well, definitely tears, anyway...) and actually came out with a B. i'd been aiming for anything over 40%, so i can't even begin to tell you waht a shock to the system that was.

came out of my junior dancing cos i'd never have to do hons maths again.

so 5th year rolls around and i got put into the first honours class. i was actually too scared of my teacher at the time to tell her that i had no intention of ever doing honours and had already bought the pass book. took me about a week, i think, but she insisted that i at least wait till the exam results come out... in that time, we had a chapter test, which i really struggled with, and apparently, most of the rest of the class did too... i think i got 38%, and could have passed if i'd attempted the last two questions. so the exam results came out and i got my B and the teacher said there was no way she was letting me do pass... that i should try stick it out till christmas.

it has to be said, she was a lovely lovely person, and an awesome teacher. she put so much time into her classes, and made the effort to make sure you were following. the next two years were characterised by me not being sure i wanted to do honours, and her helping and encouraging me, and then me doing a little better than i thought i could in tests.

even by the end of 6th year, i wasn't sure i'd do honours... i made a point of doing ordinary mocks as well as honours, just to see if i could do ordinary, cos there's a good bit not covered in hte hons course.

did my leaving and and actually managed to get a D1. can't even begin to tell ye how proud i was, i put so so so much effort into maths, as much to prove to my teacher that she was right in not giving up on me, as to myself that i could do it. shame, in a way, because other subjects did sort of suffer because of it... by all rights, i should have outright failed maths, and gotten an A or a high B in history... and got a D1 in both...

though i do have to give kudos where due to one of my best mates at school who spent a lot of time explaining my homework to me... crazy bitch ended up getting her degree in maths not too long ago and is now working a job that involves sums of some sort and is stupidly happy about that fact.

Doghouse

Good thread!

Maths was a bit traumatic for me in school as my mum is a maths teacher and she and my LC maths teacher used to have big arguments about what was the best way to teach them, what options to do etc etc and my maths teachers would often say in class "well Mrs x (my mum) wouldn't approve but we're going to do it this way".

Tbh I never particularly liked maths. I was very lazy and I found that, for me, it involved the most work of any subject for the leaving (I did honours). However there was a great sense of satisfaction when I finally figured out a problem and also the relative brevity of maths solutions compared to some of the other subjects I was doing e.g. history, was very welcome. I got an A2 in the end, so both my mum and the maths teacher were pleased :rolleyes:

I do a good bit of stats and science these days so being good at mathematical reasoning is definitely helpful, even if I've never had cause to use most of the stuff that was on the LC course since.

Anouilh

A lot seems to depend on the year in which one studied, as this jokey site reveals:

http://www.basicjokes.com/djoke.php?id=267

There are so many areas to mathematics that school tuition does not give an overall view. School text books are to maths what knitting manuals are to fashion.

I tend to use the fact that I find trigonometry fun when composing photos in an urban setting.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

Twee.

I hated maths until 5th year. I was bad at it anyway, but then had to deal with awful teachers who didn't give a crap about me. I stopped doing the homework in 1st year by Christmas as I couldn't do it and no one batted an eyelid!
THEN in 5th year we got a lovely teacher. He was young and cool and seemed to give a toss. We were a bit behind the other maths classes for the two years but in the end did better grade wise. I ended up really liking the subject, and with his help and outside grinds, I got a B1 in OL Leaving Cert!

Aisling(",)

I hate maths
did honours till the halloween of 6th year and then dropped.still awaiting the results

ive never had a very mathsy brain,even in chemistry the maths bits were my weakest parts.
just a subject ive never gotton a good grasp of.

shivvyban

I hated math in school but my Dad was for some reason confident in my abilites and made me stay in honours.

When I was in Junior cert I told the Nun that was teaching us that I wanted to go back and do pass knowing full well that the pass class was full so I got to sit at the back of the classroom (she made me turn my desk around so my back was to the front of the class) and do nothing. Somehow I got a C and ended up doing honours for my Leaving.

This nun terrified me and its probably why I don't like it. If you were caught yawning in her class you were made either do Jumping Jacks in front of the class (skirts were mandatory for us) or do a lap around the school....

But then again I've always been more of a languages/history person (and the teachers didn't make you do lunges! )

Twinkle-star15

I hated maths right up to 6th year. Funnily enough, it was never my worst subject, I just didn't really like it.
But this year, it kind of became my 'break' subject- the one I had to stop myself from studying! It was just so much easier and straightforward than my other subjects lol. Probably helped that I did pass.
Because of this year though, I think I'm actually going to be doing maths in college! Never thought I'd say that...

Acacia

Terrible at maths. Was great at every other subject (and modest, lol:pac:) but maths ... FAIL.

Things picked up in secondary school when I got a brilliant teacher and got an A in my Junior Cert (Ordinary Level, but after years of being crap at maths I was chuffed.) Did well in the Leaving Cert too.

I'm more of a English /languages/humanities nerd.

Does the old gender stereotype still exist with maths? Plenty of girls in my year did honours maths.

rainbow kirby

Acacia wrote: »

Does the old gender stereotype still exist with maths? Plenty of girls in my year did honours maths.

120 in my year at school (I did my LC in 2002), 20 did honours maths, 6 did physics and 1 did applied maths (me).

All-girls school, languages were pushed to a far great extent than maths and science.

Fugly

Acacia wrote: »

Does the old gender stereotype still exist with maths? Plenty of girls in my year did honours maths.

I must admit I wasn't aware of this stereotype until recently,:o. Not sure how I never came across it. All the female members of my family are quite good at maths, but I always just saw that as the normal level of competency in math. . I know in my family that it was just expected we all did honours in school as did majority of girls I know.

IvyTheTerrible

I love love love maths! Every since baby infants it was always the homework I did first!

It always felt like a game or a puzzle to me, really satisfying when you figure it out. I found it tought in uni but I suppose that's cos I didn't study enough.

It's a pity that more people don't like maths. You think it's "useless" at school but actually it can help you understand so many things in real life.

kittenkiller

I loved it until I did it in college.
Totally took the fun out of it (if you can really say that).

I was good at maths in school, but sh1te in college so I guess that helped in the change of feeling.