Taking more math in school will raise your income

http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2009/08/how_to_get_smart.cfm

by cwan • 17 years ago

31 29 17 years ago

economist.com

tokenadult4• 17 years ago

Yes, I asked about this a while ago, with an interesting discussion ensuing.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=633540

As the submitted article here notes,

"Of course, finding qualified teachers to teach advanced maths courses will not be easy."

Not easy by far. Here is a detailed article about just how difficult it is to find elementary school teachers who know even very basic math

http://www.ams.org/notices/200502/fea-kenschaft.pdf

and how especially lacking such teachers are in school districts with mostly poor students from ethnic minorities. One finding from that article illustrates the grave nature of the problem:

"in my first visit in 1986 to a K-6 elementary school, I discovered that not a single teacher knew how to find the area of a rectangle."

sethjohn• 17 years ago

Teach for America and Teach First (the British equivalent) are actually doing a great job at addressing this problem. They are able to recruit teachers from top universities to work in some of the worst schools, precisely by focussing on the difficulties and challenges of the job.

From a different economist article: http://www.economist.com/world/britain/displaystory.cfm?stor... "Nearly a tenth of Oxford’s class of 2009 will be Teaching First this autumn."

I've heard the statistics are similar with a huge percentage of Harvard's graduating class going into Teach for America.

cwan• 17 years ago

Unfortunately, unions strongly oppose Teach for America: "Teach for America -- the privately funded program that sends college grads into America's poorest school districts for two years -- received 35,000 applications this year, up 42% from 2008. ... Union and bureaucratic opposition is so strong that Teach for America is allotted a mere 3,800 teaching slots nationwide" http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124061253951954349.html

tokenadult4• 17 years ago

How many studies have there been of the actual teaching competence (as contrasted with the higher education credentials) of Teach for America teachers? Harvard's admission selection is stringent enough that I could well believe that ANY Harvard graduate in any major can determine the area of a rectangle. But, in general, how many of the graduates of Ivy League universities who go into Teach for America are the graduates who had a strong math background at university? There are some very non-quantitative majors at some of those universities, after all.

Note that I think anyone in Teach for America is probably generally smarter than a random graduate of a teacher training college, but I'm still not sure if every Teach for America teacher without exception has a profound understanding of fundamental mathematics.

http://www.aft.org/pubs-reports/american_educator/fall99/ame...

proee• 17 years ago

If you sit in the front row of the classroom, you'll also get straight A's.

mattheww• 17 years ago

Actually a study in Colorado showed that sitting in front does improve performance:

http://www.psycho.uni-duesseldorf.de/abteilungen/ddp/Dokumen...

likpok• 17 years ago

This makes sense with how I feel when I go to classes.

Whenever I sit in the back, I always struggle much more to pay attention, even when the lecturer is good.

mgrouchy2• 17 years ago

I would imagine this to be true. I have done a quite a bit of math as a requirement for getting my CS degree, but I have never been very good at all.

This finds me balking from math heavy software development jobs because I feel like my math skills will hold me back(or at least slow me down). This is sad, because many of the most lucrative software development jobs I see are generally pretty math heavy. I would venture to guess this is the same in other fields as well.

donw• 17 years ago

This is why I skipped CS, and got a degree in Mathematics. It's not that it's impossible to pick up some solid math skills on your own, but if you're already programming for a hobby, learning a lot of what gets covered in CS is pretty simple, compared to picking up higher-level mathematics.

Abstract algebra and analysis (Calculus the way it should be) changed my perspective a hell of a lot more than any of the CS courses I took, and the time in formal math makes the process of turning academic papers into working code a lot easier.

timwiseman• 17 years ago

I largely agree. I went for a Math rather than a CS degree myself. With that said, you will be required to learn a lot of math in a decent CS course and an interested student can pick up on the rest themselves relatively easily.

teehee• 17 years ago

Greenspun had a good post related to this: http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2009/08/11/comfortable-wi...

I once lost out on a job because of my Calculus grade in college.

stanleydrew• 17 years ago

It doesn't look like this generalizes. It's true for young black males at low levels of math education based on this study, but there's nothing to suggest anything more than that. I have a math degree and I wish everybody would take more math, but I don't think there's much causality between taking math and earning more at higher levels of math education. There certainly may be correlation though.

nazgulnarsil• 17 years ago

I don't think it's about math degree levels of math education. it's about the fact that all the highest earning majors with the exception of maybe law require at least the calculus series.

njharman• 17 years ago

Alternatively smart people and/or hard working people make more money, they also tend to take "hard" courses such as advanced math while in highschool.

No causation required.

shawndrost2• 17 years ago

Individual effort is controlled for in the study discussed: "each extra required maths course raised the annual income of black males by 15%". Of course, this study still doesn't make a strong case for causation -- the number of required math courses in a school is likely correlated with school quality, which is likely correlated with other socioeconomic factors.

jey• 17 years ago

Huh? How do you infer that individual effort was controlled for by quoting "each extra required maths course raised the annual income of black males by 15%"?

lutorm• 17 years ago

Yeah, it's hard to figure out from that article how the study was done. Unless it's a true randomized study where people were randomly assigned to take either more or less math, it's hard to know how much of that is self selection.

zackattack4• 17 years ago

I just graduated from University, and I intuitively believed that taking more math would make me a smarter person. So although my major was Psych, I took courses in Analysis, Algebra, Discrete, and Number Theory. Of course, potential employers have neither seem to have given a fuck nor realized just how difficult Analysis was, but whatever-

I even implemented the thinking style I picked up in Analysis, such as the notion of a compact space [as it relates to social cohesion], while writing a paper on Aristotle's Politics in my sophomore year. I didn't use any math words at all, and instead drew a diagram to illustrate what I meant, and really enhanced my argument.

Anyway, bottom line: I took a shitload of math to make myself smarter and to enhance my nerd cred; nobody seems to care; maybe someone here will give a care; since I'm ultimately probably going to be self-employed anyway, perhaps my improved mental acumen will pay off financially, but as of yet it's unclear.

tokenadult4• 17 years ago

What did you expect to do after graduation with your major in psychology? What are some of the most interesting things you learned in your psychology courses? (I ask, because I am writing a working paper in psychology--about IQ testing--just now.)

zackattack4• 17 years ago

Favorite topics: working memory; attention; instrumental conditioning; emotional regulation.

travisjeffery• 17 years ago

There is a big difference between majoring in Psych. while taking a lot of Math courses and being a major or specialist in Mathematics.

So on one hand employers should probably take your courses into account slightly on the other I agree with them.

Did you get a BA or BSc?

zackattack4• 17 years ago

You're a meanie.

dschobel• 17 years ago

What a revelation! I can't wait to tell it to my lawyer friend who hasn't taken a math class since his sophomore year of highschool and makes $145k/yr three years removed from an English degree.

Won't his face be red!

online• 17 years ago

Really? I have a bachelor in applied mathematics, I like math and algorithm, but when i was interviewed with a software engineer position, i had been asked all kinds of c++ programming questions, and these "do you have experience on this and that". I had to spend extra time on these things, i just felt why i didn't directly get into computer science program and spending more time on these detailed engineering things at school

jpwagner• 17 years ago

good old 6th-grader-quality research.

correlation mistaken for causation...so frustratingly pervasive in our society.

Taking more math in school will raise your income

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