What does one need a graphing calculator for?

[Martin]

Taken partly from this thread, but I've noticed it before as well. People love their graphing calculators.

So what exactly do you use them for? You shouldn't need one in HS (or your teacher is doing something wrong) while in engineering all calculators were banned in math classes, and only the most basic scientific ones were allowed in others.

 

[darkxshade]

Originally posted by: Martin
So what exactly do you use them for?

Graphing

 

[xSauronx]

ive never had one but i always thought the answer was "games" or some such.

 

[funkymatt]

you can program formulas and stuff into it. I think there's even a notepad you can use to keep common information in.

 

[CraKaJaX]

Engineers do get homework. You can't use them on calc exams, but you can use them on others. Also come in handy when you have projects and shit to do with graphs, etc.

 

[Sumguy]

Graphing, mostly.

I also use it to teach myself some things I forget............and games.

 

[Anubis]

Originally posted by: Martin
Taken partly from this thread, but I've noticed it before as well. People love their graphing calculators.

So what exactly do you use them for? You shouldn't need one in HS (or your teacher is doing something wrong) while in engineering all calculators were banned in math classes, and only the most basic scientific ones were allowed in others.

when i was in HS we were required to have them for Pre Calc/Calc and AP Calc to graph functions (and play games)

in College we used them for everything we could, and were allowed to. Profs didnt care because they didnt wxpect us to do some of that by hand because no one did

I majored in Physics

 

[DarrelSPowers]

Originally posted by: Anubis

Originally posted by: Martin
Taken partly from this thread, but I've noticed it before as well. People love their graphing calculators.

So what exactly do you use them for? You shouldn't need one in HS (or your teacher is doing something wrong) while in engineering all calculators were banned in math classes, and only the most basic scientific ones were allowed in others.

when i was in HS we were required to have them for Pre Calc/Calc and AP Calc to graph functions (and play games)

in College we used them for everything we could, and were allowed to. Profs didnt care because they didnt expect us to do some of that by hand because no one did

I majored in Engineering

Exactly this, but fixed for me.

 

[silverpig]

Originally posted by: Anubis
when i was in HS we were required to have them for Pre Calc/Calc and AP Calc to graph functions (and play games)

in College we used them for everything we could, and were allowed to. Profs didnt care because they didnt wxpect us to do some of that by hand because no one did

I majored in Physics

Pretty much the same here. We were required to have them in grade 11 and 12 math, and there were specific graphing calculator units in those classes.

In university we could use them, but no one did because they weren't useful at all. Either you needed to find the arcsin of some number (scientific calculator), you had to do some complicated linear regression (mathematica), solve some god-awful integral (maple), or simulate a physical system (fortran77 baby!).

I also majored in physics.

 

[BurnItDwn]

Originally posted by: Anubis

Originally posted by: Martin
Taken partly from this thread, but I've noticed it before as well. People love their graphing calculators.

So what exactly do you use them for? You shouldn't need one in HS (or your teacher is doing something wrong) while in engineering all calculators were banned in math classes, and only the most basic scientific ones were allowed in others.

when i was in HS we were required to have them for Pre Calc/Calc and AP Calc to graph functions (and play games)

in College we used them for everything we could, and were allowed to. Profs didnt care because they didnt wxpect us to do some of that by hand because no one did

I Dropped out after 2 years (Made it through Calc 2, Calc 3, Diff EQ, Linear Algebra, a stat 350 course, and a bunch of programming classes and some physics classes.)

You never really "needed" a calculator, but having one meant you could save time and learn faster.

 

[Ricochet]

Went through the college of engineering without one. Every test prohibited it. Scientific calculator FTW.

 

[Anubis]

Originally posted by: silverpig

Originally posted by: Anubis
when i was in HS we were required to have them for Pre Calc/Calc and AP Calc to graph functions (and play games)

in College we used them for everything we could, and were allowed to. Profs didnt care because they didnt wxpect us to do some of that by hand because no one did

I majored in Physics

Pretty much the same here. We were required to have them in grade 11 and 12 math, and there were specific graphing calculator units in those classes.

In university we could use them, but no one did because they weren't useful at all. Either you needed to find the arcsin of some number (scientific calculator), you had to do some complicated linear regression (mathematica), solve some god-awful integral (maple), or simulate a physical system (fortran77 baby!).

I also majored in physics.

sadly i think i like fortran more then maple, god i hated maple

and yes i dont think we used the graphing part of them in college much if at all, (did that on comps) however IMO even if you dont use it the layout and large screen of a graphing calc makes doing even simple things easier

 

[sindows]

Originally posted by: Martin
Taken partly from this thread, but I've noticed it before as well. People love their graphing calculators.

So what exactly do you use them for? You shouldn't need one in HS (or your teacher is doing something wrong) while in engineering all calculators were banned in math classes, and only the most basic scientific ones were allowed in others.

I took the AP Calc AB and BC tests in high school. You definitely needed a graphing calculator to survive the homework.

I can't vouch for college as I don't need to take any proper mathematics classes

 

[KeypoX]

advanced math classes lol... even further you need to use computers and programming

 

[silverpig]

Originally posted by: Anubis

sadly i think i like fortran more then maple, god i &
hated maple

fixed

 

[Anubis]

Originally posted by: silverpig

Originally posted by: Anubis

sadly i think i like fortran more then maple, god i &
hated maple

fixed

ARRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

 

[dullard]

I liked mine. I used it daily. It held the formulas for the chemistry, phyics, and engineering classes. It did the complicated math for my math classes (from beginning calculus through advanced PhD level math). It helped with the programming class. It helped with homework and most professors allowed it for tests (although I took most of those classes as honors classes so maybe that was why).

The key is the focus of the teacher. Does the teacher want you to do rote simple formulas (ie no calculator allowed) or does the teacher want you to move on to advanced concepts and let the calculator do the simple rote work?

I'm in favor of a combination of both. On the test (1) force the student to show the work step by step on the fundamentals (calculators generally won't do that for you and instead skip to the answer). Then (2) have the student use the calculators and tackle much more critical problems - the type of problems that you face in the real world. You just can't do #2 without a good calculator (I don't care whether the calculator is a hand-held such as the TI line of calculators or a laptop).

 

[Cabages]

In the past couple months it saved me on some tests.

I was able to look at the graphs of sin and cos, which answered some questions for me.

 

[txrandom]

We were encouraged to use our graphing calculators in my calculus class. But it was an honors class. The calculator didn't help much.

 

[torpid]

College math.

 

[OpenThirdEye]

Drug Wars

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

Needed it in precalc in highschool tests were setup to where you didn't have time to do everything by hand. College Calc they were banned but the base math was keep VERY simple so you didn't need something to number crunch for you. Other classes they were generally allowed.

 

[Insomniator]

Cheating on High School math tests.

Used it in college calc also, although we were not allowed ANY form of calculator for Calc 1 and Calc 2 exams. That doesn't sound right now that I think about it but I'm pretty sure that was the difference between Calc 1/2 for liberal arts and Calc 1/2 for Science and Engineering.

hmm..

 

[ConstipatedVigilante]

We always used them in High School when we were supposed to talk about the specifics of a function (ie, after we had already been taught how to graph it and were expected to be able to - and yes, there were no-calc tests where we had to graph on our own).

 

[Whisper]

We were required to use them way back when I took Calculus in the 12th grade (the school provided them), and I vaguely recall borrowing one from a friend during Calc II my freshman year of undergrad. That was about 8-10 years ago, though, and I haven't messed with one since.

My trusty ol' TI-34, which I've had for the better part of two decades, and SPSS do everything I need at this point.