why study calculus?

[aposiopetic]

The intarweb is less than helpful on this subject. The best arguments I can find are ones I've already thought of, which aren't terribly convincing to me (hence consulting the informatio-sphere). Any thoughts

Comments

[hwasone]

i would suggest letting her here it straight from the horse's mouth, so to speak. get her involved in some sort of veterinary mentorship or jr vet program or something, so she can experience a little of what it's like to be a vet and, more importantly, talk to one. that way she can ask someone who's actually gone through a vet program how much math they had to do. i would guess that despite all the rate math in drug delivery, that few practicing vets actually do the math rather than get an estimate with the aid of a lookup table. i'd bet that the vets that do this math are university research types more than animal docs.

regardless of the math issue, i recommend trying some sort of intern/mentor/whatevs-ership. i did two such programs around 7th or 8th grade. one with an architect, and one with a limnologist (not many marine biologists in minnesota). guess which two things i decided i didn't want to do?

and, like big bad al said, the kid doesn't really know what she wants to be in 8th grade, anyway. i'm still working on that one, and i'd bet some of you are, too. so let her take art or history instead of math. it's wholly possible she'll figure it all out on her own without much outside help.

[aposiopetic]

Good idea - and yes, I think almost everyone thinks about what they "really" want to be doing with their life.

I think if she wants to study art, that's fine too. But I just hope she doesn't discount calculus simply because she heard somewhere that you don't need it for anything. That just seems like some person who never would or never could learn it is rationalizing things to make themselves feel better.