• Question: why shud i do maths?

    Asked by jemimabrown on 14 Jan 2020.
    • Photo: Amy Mason

      Amy Mason answered on 14 Jan 2020:

      This is difficult to answer because I don’t know you.

      I do maths because I really enjoy the challenge, the way the answers fit together with the questions logically and the satisfaction of completing a puzzle when I get something right.

      Other people might do maths because it is a really useful subject for getting a job – there are very few careers that don’t need some maths. At the very least, you will want enough maths to understand and manage your own household bills as an adult! University mathematics degrees are highly prized in STEM careers like zoologist or doctor because you are able to understand and explain current research to other people at your work.

      I hope this helps!

    • Photo: Fiona Macfarlane

      Fiona Macfarlane answered on 15 Jan 2020:

      Maths is very useful for day to day life, as well as lots of different careers. For example, you need to be able to budget your finances, which can involve arithmetic and predicting how much you will spend. You also use maths without really thinking about it, for example calculating distances and length of time to travel when going somewhere

    • Photo: Samantha Durbin

      Samantha Durbin answered on 16 Jan 2020:

      To add to Amy and Fiona’s answers, maths also helps to teach you to think in a certain way and give you the tools to analyse things.
      For example, if eating more bacon gives me a 20% increased cancer risk (see https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-47947965), what does that actually mean and do I need to change my behavior and stop eating bacon? Well, if my basic level of risk is really tiny, then an extra 20% won’t make much difference, but if I have a medium-high level of risk to begin with it might be something to worry about (for comparison, 20% of 10p is 2p, but 20% of £1million is £200,000 – you can do a lot more with £200,000 than 2p!). Studying maths gives you the tools to do that reasoning and make informed decisions. There seem to be increasing levels of fake news and people using statistics/data in misleading ways, so it’s crucial that all of us have the skills to be able to analyse what we are being told and use the information appropriately.

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