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!

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

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.

WindSock

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.