Tricia Sallee Assignment 5

My grandmother and other people often ask me if I want to be a teacher. This is because I am a math major. I am also a computer science major which makes this assumption surprising. I usually explain to them that computer science and math go hand in hand. Math is used in every branch of computer science. I must provide examples for them to understand how important math is. I tell them math is used for machine learning, artificial intelligence, building robots, testing, etc. There next question is usually where I will get a job after I graduate. This question is sometimes difficult for me to answer because I’m not sure. There are so many different possibilities. I tell them I could work in any manufacturing company that uses robots, in the medical field to program medical equipment, for the National Security Agency, almost anywhere because most places use some sort of technology that will need monitoring. These career possibilities all need a great deal of mathematical knowledge. We could show many people throughout our lives that mathematics involves more than just jumbled up notation and numbers. Most people are swayed away because of this.

                I don’t believe our individual conversations with people can influence how the nation thinks about math. We can write our senators and representatives and request that more funds be given to mathematics and science but the probability of that actually happening seems low. To help the amount of money that is invested into math and science we could make people more aware that we are underfunded. Also, as we get into our careers and are financially stable we should donate money toward programs ourselves. Many agencies within our government are already aware of how important math and science are (i.e. NSA). The people within these types of organization should persuade those with the ability to fund math and science education/research to make donations.