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Magres posted:College level math classes in particular are often, in my experience, stupid as gently caress if you want to learn things like 'Calculus you will actually find useful in life.' If someone has a decent base of Trig and Algebra, I can teach them the basics of Calculus in about twenty minutes. Like all you really need, in my experience, is to understand what Derivatives and Integrals actually physically mean when applied to the real world, so you can figure out when they're applicable to something. From there, you just figure out a function to describe what you're looking at (which is where you need the Trig/Algebra) and then go throw it into Mathematica (or Wolfram Alpha if you don't have Mathematica available for free). That was Differential Equations to Engineering majors at my university.
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May 14, 2014 02:14
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It's pretty telling that any discussion of math pedagogy in the States starts and ends with algebra and calculus.
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May 14, 2014 02:28
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There's going to be another Tea Party march on Washington this week to kick Obama and Boehner out of the White House. But there's a twist! Some right wing groups think that this is part of a false flag operation to blame patriots for the death of John Crisco, the guy who was running against Clay Aiken in that primary until he died a day before he would have conceded.
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May 14, 2014 02:31
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shrike82 posted:It's pretty telling that any discussion of math pedagogy in the States starts and ends with algebra and calculus. Can you elaborate? Seems like the start of an interesting discussion.
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May 14, 2014 02:32
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Buffer posted:Physics is why fortran will never die. Also the fact there's nothing wrong with FORTRAN to begin with. shrike82 posted:It's pretty telling that any discussion of math pedagogy in the States starts and ends with algebra and calculus. There was someone once who pretended trigonometry was some kind of arcane high level math, that was a fun one.
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May 14, 2014 02:33
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Jerry Manderbilt posted:I've already posted this in the previous thread, but they did a great writeup on Lara Logan's fuckup and potential motivations earlier this month.
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May 14, 2014 02:39
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Install Windows posted:Also the fact there's nothing wrong with FORTRAN to begin with. Modern versions, sure. There's still a ton of FORTRAN 77 though, which there is a lot wrong with.
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May 14, 2014 02:39
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agarjogger posted:Can you elaborate? Seems like the start of an interesting discussion. As someone who struggled a lot with calculus, I mostly found it hard to grasp the abstract nature of it. Hell, even just the simple concept of a limit doesn't have a physical counterpart and you can't really visualize it. Not to mention one of my teachers had such a thick German accent he would frequently substitute German words for English ones and he lectured at a break-neck pace and just kind of scribbled notes wherever he felt like on the board. So in my defense it might've just been that I had a really bad teacher.
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May 14, 2014 02:39
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Buffer posted:Physics is why fortran will never die. (It's just one guy, he's just really productive so it's funnier to tell the story this way.)
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May 14, 2014 02:43
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agarjogger posted:Can you elaborate? Seems like the start of an interesting discussion. It's the traditional sequence for white non-poors.
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May 14, 2014 02:55
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Raskolnikov38 posted:As one of the non-engineers working with y'all all day I can assure you that you're fooling no one.
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May 14, 2014 02:55
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Buffer posted:Modern versions, sure. There's still a ton of FORTRAN 77 though, which there is a lot wrong with. FORTRAN's a hammer and some people insist on trying to use it as a saw. Not much you can do about that.
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May 14, 2014 02:56
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DACK FAYDEN posted:Not just physics! My jaw almost hit the floor when I found out what percentage of the work coming out of my econ department used FORTRAN 77. I took Fortran instead of C++ back when I was studying to be an Aerospace Engineer. It came in handy when I had to teach myself Matlab for an orbital mechanics class.
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May 14, 2014 02:58
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comes along bort posted:It's the traditional sequence for white non-poors. Well, yeah, I took it. What other maths did I miss out on? He seemed to imply that there was something missing from our math education here.
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May 14, 2014 03:01
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Buffer posted:Physics is why fortran will never die. Wait, what? Perl is the old man's broken bio-computing code (hello human genome project). Python is the up and comer, while Bio-ruby seems more regarded as a curiosity at this stage. The ruby on rails to biology nerd convert is rarer than may be expected. Or who knows, maybe different departments have their own purestrain beliefs. At Georgia Tech it's perl all the way down if you're taking classes. Any usable python code is probably at most 5-10 years old at this point, compared to a lot of physics fortran code that is indeed still from the 80s-90s. Also R. If you want to do sick statistics and graphs learn R, y'all. P.S. it will be the worst learning curve ever until you get it, then it's great.
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May 14, 2014 03:03
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agarjogger posted:Well, yeah, I took it. What other maths did I miss out on? He seemed to imply that there was something missing from our math education here. There's also Differential Equations and Linear Algebra for engineers, other pure science majors (mostly math/physics) would take much more advanced courses as well.
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May 14, 2014 03:06
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inkblot posted:As someone who struggled a lot with calculus, I mostly found it hard to grasp the abstract nature of it. Hell, even just the simple concept of a limit doesn't have a physical counterpart and you can't really visualize it. Not to mention one of my teachers had such a thick German accent he would frequently substitute German words for English ones and he lectured at a break-neck pace and just kind of scribbled notes wherever he felt like on the board. Yeah no that's just because you had a bad teacher. There are like five 'classic' limit examples that make Limits reasonable intuitive. My favorite is Sin(x)/x  Pretty simple looking, right? Except that at zero, Sin(x) is zero and x is zero, so your function is 0/0 and undefined. But you can see that as you get really, really goddamned close to zero but not quite zero, your function approaches 1. Basically any teacher worth their salt is going to use Sin(x)/x because it's the best example of Limits in existence  shrike82 posted:It's pretty telling that any discussion of math pedagogy in the States starts and ends with algebra and calculus. What do you mean?
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May 14, 2014 03:06
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agarjogger posted:Well, yeah, I took it. What other maths did I miss out on? He seemed to imply that there was something missing from our math education here. The entire field of discrete math is ignored.
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May 14, 2014 03:07
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computer parts posted:There's also Differential Equations and Linear Algebra for engineers, other pure science majors (mostly math/physics) would take much more advanced courses as well. I (and assuming the other dude too) was referring more to high school curricula.
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May 14, 2014 03:10
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slightlyslow posted:Wait, what? Perl is the old man's broken bio-computing code (hello human genome project). Python is the up and comer, while Bio-ruby seems more regarded as a curiosity at this stage. The ruby on rails to biology nerd convert is rarer than may be expected. Or who knows, maybe different departments have their own purestrain beliefs. At Georgia Tech it's perl all the way down if you're taking classes. I need to second the R recommendation in the strongest possible terms.
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May 14, 2014 03:11
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I don't think Whitehead or Broad actually have much if any perl left though. It all seems to be python. Then again that could be selection bias in that that's not my field and people only want to talk about newer things.
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May 14, 2014 03:14
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agarjogger posted:Well, yeah, I took it. What other maths did I miss out on? He seemed to imply that there was something missing from our math education here. Discrete stuff which is generally covered under courses called applied/advanced/business/etc. math geared toward non-college prep students. You didn't really miss out on it, it just isn't covered in as extreme depth in the usual algebra-geometry-algebra ii-precal-calculus sequence.
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May 14, 2014 03:17
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I was a Physics major in college (and turned Nuclear Engineer in grad school) and other than a little bit of Linear Algebra for Quantum Mechanics, I never needed anything past Multivariable Calculus for my undergrad degree, and have only ever needed basic Diff EQs in grad school. Like I basically slept through Linear Algebra and got a C in it and never understood a bit of it and it has never mattered, QM linear algebra is basic as hell. Also I straight up never took Vector Calculus (I got to sub in another class for it because reasons) and have never needed it  poo poo's useless as far as I'm concerned.
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May 14, 2014 03:18
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Joementum posted:There's going to be another Tea Party march on Washington this week to kick Obama and Boehner out of the White House. But there's a twist! Some right wing groups think that this is part of a false flag operation to blame patriots for the death of John Crisco, the guy who was running against Clay Aiken in that primary until he died a day before he would have conceded. Do these people even believe that 10 to 30 million people will show up. they didn't the last time. Dapper_Swindler fucked around with this message at 03:24 on May 14, 2014 |
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May 14, 2014 03:19
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It's true, but every major artery leading into DC was clogged by fatty deposits who got distracted by Cracker Barrels and Chick-fil-as. The hum of the scooters as they puttered along in huge packs was said to be deafening.
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May 14, 2014 03:22
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I think I initially misinterpreted your statement, Magres, about teaching math in college as "a bunch a useless poo poo for ivory tower intellectuals". But I read it again and I think what your saying is that math is actually very useful to learn but it's taught in a way such that it's a 'filter' to weed out students who are unworthy or whatever of doing a field. Is that what you meant or are you actually saying math in college is garbage?Magres posted:I was a Physics major in college (and turned Nuclear Engineer in grad school) and other than a little bit of Linear Algebra for Quantum Mechanics, I never needed anything past Multivariable Calculus for my undergrad degree, and have only ever needed basic Diff EQs in grad school. Like I basically slept through Linear Algebra and got a C in it and never understood a bit of it and it has never mattered, QM linear algebra is basic as hell. Also I straight up never took Vector Calculus (I got to sub in another class for it because reasons) and have never needed it Wait a minute. Is the physics major/ nuclear engineer proposing that learning a discipline that nurtures abstract thought is worthless? You realize that college is more than just rote instruction on tools to use in a profession right? Rexicon1 fucked around with this message at 03:26 on May 14, 2014 |
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May 14, 2014 03:23
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pengun101 posted:Do these people even believe that 10 to 30 million people will show up. they didn't the last time. 30 million people showed up but Obama's mind beams tricked everyone into thinking there were only 3000.
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May 14, 2014 03:25
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On Terra Firma posted:How does anyone have this train of thought: I think US politics is causing some weird bedfellows.
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May 14, 2014 03:30
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Dystram posted:I was one of those kids who "just didn't get math," now I do Math stuff on Khan Academy and Udacity sometimes and I think it's the coolest and I understand it. This is a very good point. And I for one don't really buy the idea that people "just aren't good at Math". That is a horrible lie people buy into when they have been done a great educational disservice. I suppose having had a good grounding in Math at a younger age is yet one more sign of my privilege though. I guess my perspective on "engineering school is tough" is a bit different. Before I did that, I got a degree in music performance and then survived a chunk of a music career before downshifting life into easy mode. I can't speak to how my BS in Electronics Engineering compares to a degree in Chemistry, Medicine, History, or pre-Law...but I sure as gently caress can compare it to that music degree, and it's not even on the same PLANET in terms of difficulty. And mind you, I don't just have some in-born talent in Math and Science that I lack as a musician. I've always been a talented musician, good enough to obtain through audition a full tuition scholarship to the top private music school in my state, one of only three people out of the incoming class of roughly 200 music students that year to do so. And music school was STILL mind-numbingly, soul-destroyingly difficult. People who whine about how abstract and infuriating Calculus is have never had to deal with Forms and Analysis or fourth semester music theory. People who think juggling four lab sciences is challenging have never had to deal with simultaneously preparing for a violin jury (major instrument), trombone jury (minor instrument), piano jury (proficiency requirement), and composers symposium (write original music, badger people into playing it for you, and herd cats to make it sound good on the big day), while also working on the 15 page report on how the Florentine Camerata affected political change through the arts for the Ancient Musical History class, keeping up with the aforementioned ridiculous Forms and Analysis homework, writing a 30 piece orchestra arrangement from a figured bass melody for the arrangement class, and let's not forget attending rehearsal for the university orchestra and university band and practicing those parts during your free time. Oh, also you're going to play in the basketball band AND in the pit orchestra for every single musical theater performance; these aren't for actual college credit, but if you refuse, the university will take away your music scholarship. Back then, between the mandatory rehearsals and the requisite individual practice time, I averaged seven hours a day just playing my violin, before you even get into other instruments or the less performancy aspects of the degree! I'll admit that music school did manage to take me from being a fairly talented violinist to becoming a multitalented musical abomination...but it was also so ridiculous and stressful, I am still saddled to this day with several irreversible medical conditions, to say nothing of the psychological damage. And then for all of that, I won the pleasure of experiencing the utter hell that is being a career musician in America. Getting a EE was basically a vacation compared to that!
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May 14, 2014 03:31
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pengun101 posted:Do these people even believe that 10 to 30 million people will show up. they didn't the last time. Sensationalism is all that matters in today's 24-hour News-Entertainment media.
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May 14, 2014 03:31
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DACK FAYDEN posted:Not just physics! My jaw almost hit the floor when I found out what percentage of the work coming out of my econ department used FORTRAN 77. Seismologists use Fortran for everything too. If you ask one to send you a calculation then they send you a Fortran routine, with only the tiniest amount of documentation.
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May 14, 2014 03:32
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FAUXTON posted:I wonder why (civil, aeronautical, etc) engineers don't consider the looming mortality of their field more often. They've always been the lawyers between the laws of nature and the litigants of design. The problem is that actual law is highly analog while poo poo like physics can and will eventually be computerized to such a degree that many engineering fields will just be rendered obsolete by increasingly capable CAD suites and environmental modeling. The real world is analog, and at the end of the day you have to design things that work in the real world. A CAD program is only as good as your model of reality. It's not going to give you the right answers if you don't know what questions to ask. You can't just render every little detail of say a radio transmitter and push the "simulate physics" button because simulating the real universe to arbitrary granularity is computationally impractical. And there's no substitute for the creative aspect of design and the understanding of concepts required, unless we're talking about honest-to-goodness AI that would every area of creative human endeavor redundant as well. It replaces some gruntwork and some draftwork. It saves building and test time, it can alert you to issues if you've overlooked something that the programmers have modelled. And sure, that can hurt engineering employment if the prductivity gains from that are hoovered up by the capitalist class (as they are these days). But saying SPICE can replace electrical engineers is exactly as asinine as saying we can get rid of lawyers because "it's just following a decision tree, I can program a better lawyer" would be. Most of the criticisms I see in DnD about the arrogrance, insularity, and naïveté of people in my field are spot-on, but hot drat that post. (Edit: and this isn't some "oh my holy engineering is as the gods" post. Overdepending on simulations without understanding the basic concepts behind it is the rookiest of rookie engineer mistakes. If you don't have some idea what the answer should be before you use a computer, you can't know when the computer is spitting out something insanely wrong.) VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 03:42 on May 14, 2014 |
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May 14, 2014 03:33
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Rexicon1 posted:I think I initially misinterpreted your statement, Magres, about teaching math in college as "a bunch a useless poo poo for ivory tower intellectuals". But I read it again and I think what your saying is that math is actually very useful to learn but it's taught in a way such that it's a 'filter' to weed out students who are unworthy or whatever of doing a field. Is that what you meant or are you actually saying math in college is garbage? You'd have a point if cal2 was more than "memorize this table of integrals". All you need is the chain rule and time but noo you better have the anti derivative of csch memorized to make it through an exam!
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May 14, 2014 03:35
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Magres posted:I was a Physics major in college (and turned Nuclear Engineer in grad school) and other than a little bit of Linear Algebra for Quantum Mechanics, I never needed anything past Multivariable Calculus for my undergrad degree, and have only ever needed basic Diff EQs in grad school. Like I basically slept through Linear Algebra and got a C in it and never understood a bit of it and it has never mattered, QM linear algebra is basic as hell. Also I straight up never took Vector Calculus (I got to sub in another class for it because reasons) and have never needed it As a consequence I can probably explain mathematical thinking better than most K-12 teachers now, and math makes so much more sense, it's actually pretty easy to pick up new skills now  .
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May 14, 2014 03:35
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Er integration by parts. I mangled a cal1 and cal2 rant there (cal 2 was far worse about that stuff)
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May 14, 2014 03:37
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Justus posted:
Just another whiny undergrad I'm kidding, but I often tell my students that in music school the most important - and most difficult - skill to learn is Saying No To Things. Anytime I hear people in other fields complain about their undergraduate experience(or graduate for that matter), I'm like "wow, you're mind of a bitch, aren't you?" Because it sounds like the easiest semester ever for a music major.
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May 14, 2014 03:39
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Rexicon1 posted:I think I initially misinterpreted your statement, Magres, about teaching math in college as "a bunch a useless poo poo for ivory tower intellectuals". But I read it again and I think what your saying is that math is actually very useful to learn but it's taught in a way such that it's a 'filter' to weed out students who are unworthy or whatever of doing a field. Is that what you meant or are you actually saying math in college is garbage? Not at all, I support knowledge for the sake of knowledge. I don't think it should arbitrarily be forced on me as part of my program though. Give me some core requirements of some math and then a list of various math classes to choose from for another 2-3 classes. Learning simply to learn is loving beautiful and should actually BE required, but it should be things that you choose to learn. Also yes, my objection to Math is that I think it is made overly hard in an arbitrary and pointless way so only the ~worthy~ students can get their alleged golden ticket to success aka STEM degree. It also lends itself to the STEM student "we're smarter than all those liberal arts slackers" bullshit because when you are being arbitrarily made to loving suffer taking goddamned hard classes that you have no interest in and have little/no application in your other classes for no god damned reason at all you want to find a reason. The way college math is taught is loving awful, because non-Math STEM departments make their students take upper level (I had to take several 400-500 level Math classes that were clearly geared towards Mathematics majors and not towards people who need to know how to use Math but don't give a poo poo about the underlying proofs. It's kinda similar to my experience with Quantum Mechanics. I loving hate QM. I hate the Math, specifically. I utterly loving despise Linear Algebra and I will never, ever stop hating Bra-Ket notation with a fiery passion. But QM itself is really, really cool and I'm really glad I know the QM I know because it's AWESOME. In grad school, last Spring I took a class called "Neutron Interaction Theory" that was basically Quantum Mechanics for people who don't want to deal with rigor and just walk to look at and talk about the super cool effects QM has. We went over a bunch of basic QM - enough to get the idea of how QM is applicable to various scenarios and how it interacts with other fields of Nuclear Engineering, but without digging into all of the specific math - and it was one of the most fun classes I've ever taken, and I felt I got a lot out of it. Not a lot of stuff that's at all applicable to my day to day work, because my research is all Thermal Hydraulics and no Neutronics, but it was super cool and I feel I have a deeper understanding of the overall field of Nuclear Engineering for having taken it, and I love that. Ghost of Reagan Past posted:People always laugh at us philosophers for having a useless humanities degree, but I learned more about doing math in my graduate mathematical logic courses (taught in the philosophy department by philosophers) than in any math class I ever took. I loving love philosophy degrees. Like learning how to think and think well is incalculably valuable. Magres fucked around with this message at 04:02 on May 14, 2014 |
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May 14, 2014 03:40
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Boy I cannot wait for election season. 
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May 14, 2014 03:41
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It doesn't help that the engineering field in the US, especially aerospace, is tied to defense spending. Most high prestige engineering schools were literally DoD startups. Aerospace engineers are particularly landlocked since they often go into a heavily subsidized field while holding onto some pretty awful personal/political views. I knew quite a few of them that did this.
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May 14, 2014 03:42
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Buffer posted:I don't think Whitehead or Broad actually have much if any perl left though. It all seems to be python. I guess I misunderstood your point then. I view current fortan usage as mostly maintaining legacy code or begrudgingly accepting its speed at matrix multiplication. I don't see why anyone would willingly choose fortan over something more modern. Or do current programs actually advocate learning fortan77? perl vs python vs ruby is more a mess about which language you find "pure" "good" "whatever"
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May 14, 2014 03:43
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