I’m passionate about Mathematics, and of recent I’ve been thinking about how much the subject of mathematics is not just dreaded but underrated among students and even adults.
The thought of mathematics as being abstract and inapplicable belittles the usefulness of science and its components. I say so because Mathematics is the foundation and the backbone of rational science. Influential men in mathematics such as Newton were not seeking to “intentionally” add x and y to maths and establish vapid complexities. They were out to solve problems that would someday transcend generations and leave their work forever written in our world.
However, as a result of past experiences with its difficulty, people tend to head for the hills at the sound of numbers. After reflecting on this, I decided to start rediscovering maths with the aim to help with:
- changing your outlook on maths and its perceived difficulty
- encouraging you and your wards to choose STEM courses and careers.
Is maths a standalone subject?
As students in school, many of us were all puzzled and confused as to what we would do with the theorems or the calculus after school. During my five years in school, I had people walk up to me, asking questions like: “In which fields can you apply mathematics in the workplace?”
Because we were not exposed to the practical applications of our courses, some of us attempted to figure out exactly how to apply our knowledge, the larger percentage of the class had made up their minds on settling with other more passionate subjects/careers post-school.
Now, I find it interesting that mathematics can be applied to almost every discipline ranging from the marketplace to the hospital. Here are a few applications of maths in the industry.
- How can you control the quality of your products in a biscuit production company?
- How might Coronavirus spread in China, and how would it be contained?
- How can a bank use smarter scheduling to reduce costs and time of customers?
- Can fuel production be optimized to combat negative implications on the world’s economy and the environment?
- How do we use major advances in computing power to incorporate knowledge about interactions between the oceans, the atmosphere and living ecosystems into models used to predict long-term change? (I tried to work on something related to this for my undergrad project and there is a lot of work going on in this area!)
- How can you mathematically model the spread of a forest fire and its dependence on weather, ground cover and type of trees?
- How can mathematics improve the rating prediction performance of e-commerce systems and help enhance the consumer experience based on their past purchases, behaviour and interests?
These are just a few real-life scenarios that can be solved using mathematics in the industry. For more information, you can visit:
- https://www.siam.org/students-education/programs-initiatives/thinking-of-a-career-in-applied-mathematics
- https://mathigon.org/applications
I also stumbled on this picture over the weekend and hope it brings you more comfort and conviction than it did me.
Enjoy the week!
P.S: Some information/examples were gotten from the career brochure at siam.org
Love,
Ayobambo