i used to know so much math in college. ever since i've started working, despite my computer science / engineering background, i barely remember any math...

do you guys try to keep your memory of math up by watching Khan Academy or anything or do you feel it's not needed now that we have jobs and shit?

edit:
i'd like to expand this to not just include math. do any of you feel stupid now that college is done and watch things like MIT OpenCourseware or Khan Academy or anything to continue education in different ways? I don't mean just reading about new programming languages and stuff - we're so specialized into programming that we forget everything else outside our field. do you agree? and if so, what are you doing about it to keep up?

[Edited on March 3, 2011 at 5:15 AM. Reason : .]

3/3/2011 5:14:12 AM

It would come back to you (and me) quickly if you had to use it.

Most of what we learned were "tricks" to solve problems. If you had to do it by hand rather than jamming it into Matlab, you could do it, albeit slowly at first.

3/3/2011 6:40:15 AM

The nice thing about learning no math in college is that everything you learn after the fact is new!

3/3/2011 8:43:54 AM

My BS is in Applied Math and Master's in OR.

Still, I have forgotten a lot, as the only courses I teach are Precalc, Calc 1, Calc 2, Stat, and Diff Eq.

However, I do know that if I had to relearn something it would come back very quickly.

3/3/2011 8:49:10 AM

i'm just using enough math for business analytics and such (statistics, a little bit of calc, lots of algebra) for programming. but everything else is gone. I do feel that way at times. I'd review some advanced math stuff...but I don't use it, so I just allocate my time towards other things.

3/3/2011 9:11:54 AM

Every now and then I come across something that I can't figure out and remember that I used to know how. It usually only takes a few mins going through Google to find some stuff that brings me back to where I need to be.

3/3/2011 9:20:00 AM

I too wonder how much would just "come back to me".

I'm about 98% sure given some integration tables I could still rock out the basics but I'm about equally sure I've forgotten some of the elegant methods like doing stuff by parts. Hopefully a reference book would bring it all back quick.

In related news I did pull out my statics and dynamics book from before I switched majors and worked a few problems. It was a cool flashback.

3/3/2011 10:24:44 AM

i thought i forgot a lot of math until i started studying for the GMAT. it comes back pretty quick.

3/3/2011 11:58:42 AM

I'm still pretty good with everything up to calculus. Then i start getting confused. I never really had to use calculus except for doing calculus coursework, and some physics coursework.

still, I'd love to be able to drop knowledge if it was ever relevant to something I was doing, but I wouldn't remember.

3/3/2011 1:05:52 PM

I guess I always viewed college math courses as simply a demonstration to the world that you are able to learn and work the concepts. In the end, when you go to the real world, you're only going to have to work with a fraction of the concepts in some highly specialized way.

I only keep up with the math that I use at work or for hobbies. Even then, so much of it is automated now, that I still need to dig up a reference book every now and then to quickly remember some concepts.

3/3/2011 1:37:48 PM

I was always terrible at math anyway, so....

3/3/2011 8:08:51 PM

Actually had this discussion today with some coworkers. I had to take a ton of stats in grad school. In the work world, hardly ever.
I'd like to say that I stay in practice, but let's be honest.... I don't find myself doing much structural equation modeling in my free time, just to keep on my toes.

3/3/2011 8:40:44 PM

calculus is barely a distant memory to me anymore - waste of time in school in my case

3/3/2011 10:05:34 PM

yeah i excelled through 3 semesters of calc, + diffeq and whatever else

but i had a friend ask for some help with some calc 1ish problems and it took a few for me to catch on since i don't use it anymore

i surely wouldn't call it a waste, but i don't use it daily or anything

3/3/2011 11:53:20 PM

All I've retained is stuff I use in work or sports. I can do a mean regression analysis on crude futures or calculate Matt Ryan's QB rating in games against division opponents, but as for actively seeking out math problems just for the sake of solving them...that ship sailed a long time ago.

As far as I'm concerned, the square root of 69 is 8 something, and that's as far as I care to go.

3/4/2011 3:17:50 PM

I'm still incredibly good at basic math (addition, subtraction, division, square roots, etc.) and I can crank out answers to most things in my head quite quickly, but I don't think I could do a single bit of calculus anymore.

3/4/2011 4:40:06 PM

Quote :

"but i had a friend ask for some help with some calc 1ish problems and it took a few for me to catch on since i don't use it anymore"

yeah exactly! that's when it dawned on me...he was like oh you took this in college didn't you? can you help?

and then i looked at the problems and i had to tell him i couldn't remember it anymore.

i'm sure for most people this happens twice in their lives - once is now when you feel "old" when you can't help your college friends with math stuff after you've finished and they're still in school. and the second time is when your kids grow up and you can't help them either after a certain grade. it's like a pre-midlife crisis haha

3/4/2011 7:09:11 PM

Haha, I had this very same problem last semester for a business stats class. I took calc AB, BC in high school in 2003 and then Calc 3 in 2004. That's the last time I've done integrals and other calc shit, till last semester when our prof hit the ground running on day 1 with calc. I was like... 5 mins later, it all came back to me and I was tutoring hot chicks again.

Never in my life was I excited to do calc problems till that point, only because I actually remembered how to do it (with of course wiki's help).

3/5/2011 5:39:33 AM

This is why Wolfram create Alpha.

3/5/2011 12:26:36 PM

i lost all my math around junior year. fucking civil engineering.

should have done mechanical. or just applied math, for that matter.

3/6/2011 10:30:51 PM

some things, i dont remember all the possible methods of calculating... but feel confident enough that if i look back at a formula sheet i'd pick it up pretty quick

like someone said, the brute force is there, the tricks are what i'd need a refresher on.

but, I've thought about refreshing some of my course work... like there was a project euler thing that was floating around a few years ago... i never got far, but maybe i'd give it a crack to reassure myself that i still remember shit.

3/6/2011 11:39:49 PM

some things I have to look up. I've always thought knowing what to solve was more important. There are plenty of great tools matlab,mathcad,maple, and even wolframalpha. I use all of them of and on. (maple only for symbolic)

3/7/2011 8:42:57 AM

Excel keeps me fresh in logic. The last real math class I took was AP Calc at Athens. Took some stats in college though.

3/7/2011 9:48:01 AM

for most jobs, all you need to understand is math up to the basic concepts of derivatives and integrals

3/7/2011 2:21:07 PM

I've forgotten all of the little tricks you use to solve some of the tricky Calculus problems. I can even get to a point where I think to myself, "I know for a fact that I learned a trick to get past this point, and can remember the entire context of the solution, but can't remember what it is.

3/7/2011 3:17:53 PM

yes. its all gone

3/7/2011 3:58:08 PM

but i was never very good at it to start with

3/7/2011 3:58:30 PM

Mostly in my day job I find I took the wrong damn math all throughout my education. I was heavy into analysis and geometry and never took a course in statistics, numerical analysis, or stochastic processes. The latter shit comes up all the time but I haven't touched any of the three courses of differential geometry I took since the last lecture ended.

3/8/2011 2:35:14 AM

differential geometry is fun, while statistics is gritty

explains why the former is rare in industry while the latter is common

3/8/2011 4:22:57 AM

i have forgotten a shitton

[Edited on March 8, 2011 at 7:54 AM. Reason : i mean who the fuck is going to memorize what a hessian matrix is just to know it]

3/8/2011 7:53:29 AM

http://shirt.woot.com/shirts/trigonometree

3/8/2011 1:39:27 PM

i think y'all will love this

http://www.youtube.com/user/glad2teach

bonus: his VERY indian accent

3/9/2011 4:24:44 PM

my calculus teacher at State back in 1999 was Chinese, so everytime he said "factor" the class laughed because it sounded like fuc*ed her... mature, i know.

[Edited on March 9, 2011 at 5:49 PM. Reason : year?]

3/9/2011 5:49:13 PM

Quote :

"calculus is barely a distant memory to me anymore - waste of time in school in my case"

i'm assuming you took calculus in both high school and college

if my assumption is correct, you didn't take calculus at a fucking trade school where you should expect everything you do to translate directly to your vocation

you took it at a university where you were learning to think and solve problems

3/9/2011 6:44:00 PM

^thou speakest teh truth

Not even "Business Calculus" is taught in such a disarrayed and applied manner.

3/9/2011 8:30:26 PM