...years?Most of it we learn at high school we'll never use after high schoo I have always wondered why people have to study maths for this long, esp. those who are not interested in it at all. Most of us will never care about drawing strange functions, solving their daily problems with the formula of the quadratic equation, nor logarithms and such stuff, except if you are in computing or sth like that. We will forget all these things after leaving high school, and use only basic math such as addition, substraction, multiplication, division and some percentage calculation. I don't want to offend anybody, but sometimes I think that maths lessons are just waste of time....
This is a good question. My answer to it comes in two parts: the first is in the form of a story, and the second is an observation.First: One summer I worked with a landscaper. He is an intelligent person who realizes the value of hard work, investment of time and money, and building relationships with his customers. We went to build a small walled garden one day, and he was puzzling over its design. Finally he asked me to help him. Using geometry principles, I used a tape measure and a stick stuck into the ground to design a symmetrical, circular design for the wall. My boss was impressed. Another time, he was trying to estimate how many wall blocks to order for a wall. If he just guessed, he might order too many (wasting money) or too few (wasting time because he'd have to go back to get more). He asked me to help him. I wrote an equation, solved it, and came up with just about exactly the number of bricks he needed to order. I could keep going, telling you of all kinds of situations in which both lower and higher mathematics could have helped us.After I left at the end of the summer, I don't know what he did in similar situations. It makes you wonder whether, back when he was in school, he thought to himself, "I want to be a landscaper, and I'll never need this math stuff, so I'm going to just do barely enough to pass."No matter what profession you're in, you'll need math.Second: Knowing as much as you can about a subject will help you to _relate_ to a person who uses that subject a lot in their career. This is important because you will always need to relate to other people, no matter what career you're in. For example, in marketing you need to know your customer very well, so that you can show them why your product is right for them--and if your customer is a person who uses a lot of math, then knowing math helps you sell your product. Think of any career, and this applies to it.I could give you more reasons, but these two are the best I know of right now. I hope this motivates you to give a good effort in math!Sincerely,A Seventh Grade Science Teacher
The value of learning about math isn't just knowing how to do math, although the previous answerer gave a convincing example about that. Learning about math also teaches you problem-solving and critical-thinking skills, which are important for any type of higher education and help you to have a better life. Even if you're not using the exact math formulas, you're using critical thinking to approach many problems in life.I think you might discover that you will use math more than you realize when you are an adult, though. After all, math helps you to keep track of your money, run your household, and plan for your future. A person who knows these skills can have a great life and not have to worry so much about how they are going to survive from day to day.