11–20 of 32 posts
If you sit in the front row of the classroom, you'll also get straight A's.
Actually a study in Colorado showed that sitting in front does improve performance: http://www.psycho.uni-duesseldorf.de/abteilungen/ddp/Dokumen...
Whenever I sit in the back, I always struggle much more to pay attention, even when the lecturer is good.
Yes, I asked about this a while ago, with an interesting discussion ensuing. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=633540 As the submitted article here notes, "Of course, finding qualified teachers to teach advanced maths courses will not be easy." Not easy by far. Here is a detailed article about just how difficult it is to find elementary school teachers who know even very basic math http://www.ams.org/notices/200502…
Teach for America and Teach First (the British equivalent) are actually doing a great job at addressing this problem. They are able to recruit teachers from top universities to work in some of the worst schools, precisely by focussing on the difficulties and challenges of the job. From a different economist article: http://www.economist.com/world/britain/displaystory.cfm?stor... "Nearly a tenth of Oxford’s class of 2…
Note that I think anyone in Teach for America is probably generally smarter than a random graduate of a teacher training college, but I'm still not sure if every Teach for America teacher without exception has a profound understanding of fundamental mathematics.
http://www.aft.org/pubs-reports/american_educator/fall99/ame...
No causation required.
Alternatively smart people and/or hard working people make more money, they also tend to take "hard" courses such as advanced math while in highschool. No causation required.
I would imagine this to be true. I have done a quite a bit of math as a requirement for getting my CS degree, but I have never been very good at all. This finds me balking from math heavy software development jobs because I feel like my math skills will hold me back(or at least slow me down). This is sad, because many of the most lucrative software development jobs I see are generally pretty math heavy. I would ventu…
Abstract algebra and analysis (Calculus the way it should be) changed my perspective a hell of a lot more than any of the CS courses I took, and the time in formal math makes the process of turning academic papers into working code a lot easier.
I even implemented the thinking style I picked up in Analysis, such as the notion of a compact space [as it relates to social cohesion], while writing a paper on Aristotle's Politics in my sophomore year. I didn't use any math words at all, and instead drew a diagram to illustrate what I meant, and really enhanced my argument.
Anyway, bottom line: I took a shitload of math to make myself smarter and to enhance my nerd cred; nobody seems to care; maybe someone here will give a care; since I'm ultimately probably going to be self-employed anyway, perhaps my improved mental acumen will pay off financially, but as of yet it's unclear.
I would imagine this to be true. I have done a quite a bit of math as a requirement for getting my CS degree, but I have never been very good at all. This finds me balking from math heavy software development jobs because I feel like my math skills will hold me back(or at least slow me down). This is sad, because many of the most lucrative software development jobs I see are generally pretty math heavy. I would ventu…
This is why I skipped CS, and got a degree in Mathematics. It's not that it's impossible to pick up some solid math skills on your own, but if you're already programming for a hobby, learning a lot of what gets covered in CS is pretty simple, compared to picking up higher-level mathematics. Abstract algebra and analysis (Calculus the way it should be) changed my perspective a hell of a lot more than any of the CS cou…
Alternatively smart people and/or hard working people make more money, they also tend to take "hard" courses such as advanced math while in highschool. No causation required.