I think either our college kids are very dumb or very lazy.

[Zodiark1593]

We're neck deep in advanced statistics and y = mx + b is kicking their butts.

They keep texting me, asking how to find Y. I tell them. They send more texts asking how to find X.

They dont understand that Y = b + X + Z is a similar formula to Y = X^2 + X + b.
They dont understand what it means that you have multiple inputs to get your output.

Wait......

Just got another text. They dont know what slope is. They dont know what y-intercept is.

How the fuck did these people get thru intro statistics and 3 courses of calculus?

How did they get into college? I thought this stuff was pretty basic in high school. Please don't tell me a random ATOT dude who loathes college is smarter than half an advanced statistics class.

 

[alkemyst]

How did they get into college? I thought this stuff was pretty basic in high school. Please don't tell me a random ATOT dude who loathes college is smarter than half an advanced statistics class.

shorty is living vicariously through his 'peers'.

Who the fuck is going to text someone like that?

 

[irishScott]

How did they get into college? I thought this stuff was pretty basic in high school. Please don't tell me a random ATOT dude who loathes college is smarter than half an advanced statistics class.

My freshman year RA was a senior at the time, I remember helping him find the slope of a line. Granted he was majoring in a non-math field (some precursor to dental school). I imagine it's something most people are taught once and quickly forget unless they take higher-level math classes. You can easily graduate college without learning more than basic statistics in many majors.

 

[dr150]

how the fuck did these people get thru intro statistics and 3 courses of calculus?

G
o
o
g
l
e

 

[Pr0d1gy]

by asking people like you for the answers of course.

Sometimes a thread should end with the first response. hehe

Here is some enjoyable math nerd tunes for everyone to decompress to:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBd46BbdTfs

 

[z1ggy]

Clearly, you're teaching at a public school. Sounds like college freshman taking their intro to math course that is required to get their BA in history or something.

 

[Brainonska511]

Expect more of this turdage dropping into college courtesy of common core thinking in public schools.

The Common Core thinking should actually improve the caliber of people, if we can get teachers to adopt better methods of teaching, especially in math. The goals of the Common Core are to teach people the concepts so they can apply them to new, unique situations, not simple rote memorization, where they'll fall flat when they encounter a new problem.

An interesting article on the current problems of math education in the US: link

 

[OverVolt]

The Common Core thinking should actually improve the caliber of people, if we can get teachers to adopt better methods of teaching, especially in math. The goals of the Common Core are to teach people the concepts so they can apply them to new, unique situations, not simple rote memorization, where they'll fall flat when they encounter a new problem.

An interesting article on the current problems of math education in the US: link

Yea I've read that article. Good read. NYT very enlightening at times.

I think it all boils down to ideology. We praise sports over smarts, we have our priorities backwards.

 

[Brainonska511]

Yea I've read that article. Good read. NYT very enlightening at times.

I think it all boils down to ideology. We praise sports over smarts, we have our priorities backwards.

We certainly undervalue intelligence, and that's prominently seen at the semiprofessional athletics level: people getting into top schools on athletic ability alone and being able to shirk their classes. But I think trying to narrow our educational problems to one cause is oversimplifying a complex problem.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

How did they get into college? I thought this stuff was pretty basic in high school. Please don't tell me a random ATOT dude who loathes college is smarter than half an advanced statistics class.

The slope intercept formula is basic high school stuff. But that doesn't mean you remember it.

You can absolutely get into (and out of) college without a math test. If your SAT/ACT math score is good enough sometimes they'll waive the math requirement altogether, meaning there are a lot of college grads in with degrees in non-STEM fields that haven't had a math class since high school.

I understand that the position of the majority of ATOT is that these people are not real college graduates and probably shouldn't exist.

Even if you didn't manage to waive it, you can take college algebra for non-majors 101 your freshman year and "D is for Diploma." Which is probably worse than somebody that managed a >30 on the ACT in the first place.

After, as OP mentions, 4 semesters of other math, they're at least Juniors, which means the slope intercept formula is something they possibly haven't thought about in 3-4 years. Possibly longer (assuming they learned it right in the first place.) It's entirely possible their particular professors didn't make much use of graphing, or relied very heavily on graphing calculators or Mathematica. If you emphasize "getting the right answer" over technique and process, you're fucked by the meta-stuff. (Personally, I think math should be taught without calculators. But that's old-fashioned me.)

 

[CPA]

We're neck deep in advanced statistics and y = mx + b is kicking their butts.

They keep texting me, asking how to find Y. I tell them. They send more texts asking how to find X.

They dont understand that Y = b + X + Z is a similar formula to Y = X^2 + X + b.
They dont understand what it means that you have multiple inputs to get your output.

Wait......

Just got another text. They dont know what slope is. They dont know what y-intercept is.

How the fuck did these people get thru intro statistics and 3 courses of calculus?

lol, my daughter learned all of this in 9th grade Pre-AP Algebra.

 

[SagaLore]

How the fuck did these people get thru intro statistics and 3 courses of calculus?

They keep texting me, asking how to find Y. I tell them. They send more texts asking how to find X.

:hmm:

 

[ajskydiver]

The Common Core thinking should actually improve the caliber of people, if we can get teachers to adopt better methods of teaching, especially in math. The goals of the Common Core are to teach people the concepts so they can apply them to new, unique situations, not simple rote memorization, where they'll fall flat when they encounter a new problem.

An interesting article on the current problems of math education in the US: link

Enjoyed the article. Thank you.

 

[shortylickens]

:hmm:

You dumb homo!

You cant ask for help on the mother fucking FINAL!

 

[JamesV]

Why are they trying to find the slope of a line in statistics? I remember that from 7th grade Algebra.

Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally helps kids remember order of operations.

 

[jskill2003]

This thread is so depressing.

 

[SMOGZINN]

I always hated stats and maths. Have no use for stats in my life now anyway. Then again, I am far from being a nerd and non Asian

I always hate it when people say this, because what they really mean is that they are not educated enough to do the math and so just do what everyone else is doing and hope for the best.

 

[Veliko]

I always hate it when people say this, because what they really mean is that they are not educated enough to do the math and so just do what everyone else is doing and hope for the best.

Oooh, I've bet you've been dying to find a way to prove how smart you are!

You intellectually insecure people are great value, keep it up!

 

[zokudu]

They dont understand that Y = b + X + Z is a similar formula to Y = X^2 + X + b.

I was laughing along with everyone else at the stupidity until I saw this line. I don't even know what you mean by this. Someone please explain, my edumacation has clearly failed me.

 

[Josh123]

The kids are really dumb because the public school system is so crappy.

Yup. My wife has been a physics teacher for about half a year now and is blown away at how the public school system works. Apparently physics isn't an elective anymore so they have these students coming in with no knowledge of simple math.

How the hell are students supposed to do physics without knowing basic math? So basically she has to hold the rest of the class back in order to keep the weakest student caught up.

 

[cbrunny]

Uh, the acronym goes:

Parenthesis
Exponents
Multiplication
Division
Addition
Subtraction

where in reality multiplication/division and addition/subtraction are of equal priority. So the answer is 41.

Wolfram Alpha confirms: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=40+++40+X+0++1

I was taught:

Brackets
Exponents
Division
Multiplication
Addition
Subtraction

So the acronym was BEDMAS. We always giggled. Bedmas. Puberty was a weird time.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

I had an online history class where one guy tried to BS and made a post about how Marx was a supporter of the capitalist system and banks, and that whoever the other guy was the opposite. I laughed my ass off, but then every single person started to reply with the exact same sentiment. I had to reread over and over to make sure I wasn't missing something, but in the end it became obvious that no one in that section had even heard of Karl Marx before.

EDIT: Made a thread about it.

 

[Kadarin]

I read this thinking that this is all stuff I knew and cared about 30 years ago, but have long since forgotten. And I went up through differential equations in college...

 

[MongGrel]

I had an online history class where one guy tried to BS and made a post about how Marx was a supporter of the capitalist system and banks, and that whoever the other guy was the opposite. I laughed my ass off, but then every single person started to reply with the exact same sentiment. I had to reread over and over to make sure I wasn't missing something, but in the end it became obvious that no one in that section had even heard of Karl Marx before.

EDIT: Made a thread about it.

I thought that was Groucho.

 

[videogames101]

Half of all people are of below average intelligence.

That being said, get over it.