arian487

I'm a Math major and have dabbled in tutoring and the comment I get very often is: "I'm terrible at Math! I just can't do it!" They say this enthusiastically as if it isn't a problem and this to me is the biggest problem in our society. It's 'okay' to be bad at math, and it isn't instilled from the kids at a young age that it ISN'T okay. If someone said something similar about reading they would be ridiculed and it becomes a huge problem. "I'm terrible at reading! I don't get it!" would be met with a different tone than the math equivalent.

My question is, what needs to happen for this societal shift to take place? It's about fucking time we started seeing Math as just another language and necessary skill, as opposed to an optional thing.

To be able to do this, you obviously need to be in excellent physical condition. Do you mind briefly going over the type of preparation you had to go through before you did this? On a somewhat related note, what type of food did you eat while on the journey? I imagine you were quite selective with what you ate given the type of strain your body was under.

I'm not sure yet. I'm going to work for a year and then likely go to Grad School for Graphics Computation (My degree is in CS with a Mathematics option). I'm going to work for Google for a year.

But yes I agree we need voices. I've said for many years that America needs to start at home. We need better education and we need to encourage education. One thing I love is what the guys at courseera and Khan Academy are doing. Something that used to be hard to access is now free and online, taught by very capable people.

That being said, I really think it needs to start earlier. I'm not sure how it can be done exactly but if someone says: "I'm bad at Math, I'm horrible at it", it needs to be met with the same criticism if they had said Reading instead of Math.