Math All Your Life??

Question

I am a high school senior and and have always enjoyed mathematics an been doing very well with ease all my acedemic career.
Since 9th grade, I have considered being a school teacher in mathematics a very appealing career.
However recently I have started to second guess myself, especailly after seeing all the complex university math in this section. I know this would go better in Education/Careers sections, but know there are alot of math teachers that post here. My question is whether anyone has any advice on doing university level math or entering the teaching proffesion in mathematics???

I already got accepted to a math program at university, got a 93% in grade 12 Math, and am running a 85% in pre-calculus

Thanks in advance

Answer 1

You'll be fine. If you enjoy math now, continue to work on it.Start out as a pure math major. Sure, college math is harder, but it's also deeper. Thus, your inherent ability to understand the beauties of math will actually make math easier. Also, the teachers in college in general are much better than high school teachers because they have PHD's, so they're on that deeper level. Just one word of advice: when you take calculus I, take physics I also. This will help you understand calculus better. Calculus will blow your mind, it's the first class in that deeper math level. This is because in calculus, you are not only dealing with, say the value of a variable A, you're also talking about how the value of A is changing with respect to something else, usually time. Then calculus 4, differential equations, will take you to the realm of equations that have A, its changing variable dA, plus more changes d^2A, d^3A, etc..all in the same equation. But don't sweat this. You'll also start to become inherently good at math, better able to "see" math. You'll be able to do a problem, look at you answer, and even if you don't have the true answer in front of you, you'll know if you did it right , or if you made an error along the way. I majored in engineering, so I had to take lots of math, and I loved all of them, especially statistics and probability theory.
You're performing at an A level in math now, and the key word is that you said that you "enjoy" it. You're set to go. Just one piece of advice: don't set in stone that you want to teach math yet. Be a pure math major. Once you get in there, you might really find stuff you like that's higher than high school level. You might sail through and go on to your masters and PHD. You may want to sit in a lab and discover new math equations.

But overall, it sounds to me like you are good to go.

Answer 2

If you love math and want to teach it, you shouldn't let mathematics that is above your current level scare you. Learning math is much like climbing a staircase: you have to progress in your knowledge in small increments. Just as it is beyond human capability to leap up the story of a building without a staircase, so it is to learn advanced mathematics without the requisite background. But trying to push yourself just slightly beyond where you are now is not that difficult, just as climbing one step is not difficult. You should have faith in yourself and think that you have the ability to understand what's directly in front of you. Think of how intimidated you would have been by pre-calculus at the beginning of 9th grade, but now it's not so tough, right? It's the same case with further mathematics studies. I wish you the best of luck in whatever you decide to do.

Answer 3

DO IT

The world is running low on Maths teachers.

If you have done final year high school maths with such a high grade, I would seriously consider uni maths and teaching senior high or Junior High or 7-12 schools like we have in Oz.

And, there are only two spelling errors in your well-written posting, so have some ability to express well on paper, in front of others, who knows.

Good luck

Answer 4

I really only use basic basic math (addition , multiplying, etc) in daily life...I do not think i've ever needed to know how to figure out the sin or cosine of anything in my life other than math class lolz...

Answer 5

Well im currently taking college precal and its very fun It might take some work but its incredibly cool with the stuff you can do with it. Im majoring in Engineering so I need alot of math classes You can also try that as well great pay and very fun
Well anyways the only difference in university math and highschool math ( atleast to me) is that for example in highschool they taught me about sin cos and tan and its recpricals but not in college they show you how they came about so basically if you know how they came about in terms of "proofs" then you have them memorized. Plus alot more complexed equations but once you figure them out its awesome.
Im planning to take as much math as possible before finishing my degree in Engineering.

Answer 6

Don't let the university math spook you, that's why there are teachers in college. I used to look at math books at the beginning of a semester and say "how the hell will I ever learn to do all that crap?" Well, I did.