<p>My D desperately want to be a Math or Latin teacher on a secondary education level. She is, however, afraid of majoring in math with all the tech/engineering students. If someone is on track to teach are the classes different? She just would like a little input from someone who has been down this road.
She is reading the college course info for each college she is considering, but wants to see if there is any personal feedback out there.</p>
<p>Some colleges have different tracks within the math majors, for applied, pure, and secondary education, etc. Some colleges don’t. It might depend on that. No matter what, though, she will be studying some serious math, in most cases. What exactly does she have to fear from tech/engineering students? They usually don’t bite. Is she afraid that they’ll be smarter than her? I doubt it if she’s really good at math;she may be ahead of them.
Some colleges have a math major that is relatively light- they often call it something else, like applied math (although not all applied math majors are light) or actuarial science, or something else.
P.S.- math and latin are quite different, I think.</p>
<p>For an example here are some of the math majors offered at UCLA:</p>
<p>[Teaching[/url</a>]
[url="<a href="http://www.math.ucla.edu/ugrad/majors/major.aplmath.shtml"]Applied">http://www.math.ucla.edu/ugrad/majors/major.aplmath.shtml"]Applied</a> (the most popular I believe)](<a href=“Undergraduate Program | UCLA Department of Mathematics”>Undergraduate Program | UCLA Department of Mathematics)
[Pure</a> Math](<a href=“Undergraduate Program | UCLA Department of Mathematics”>Undergraduate Program | UCLA Department of Mathematics)</p>
<p>And here’s the [course</a> list](<a href=“http://www.math.ucla.edu/ugrad/courses/index.shtml"]course”>Undergraduate Course Landing | UCLA Department of Mathematics) for reference.</p>
<p>Although it varies somewhat by state, the MEd is getting to be the “standard” secondary teaching credential. At some universities, you can now set up a 5 year program that includes the normal undergraduate major in whatever field you wish to teach overlapping a part of the MEd curriculum. While it will require some extra time in school, it’s probably worth while for the potential salary bump, even if your state doesn’t require it.</p>
<p>At one point I was looking into teaching Latin so this is based on about 3 year old research:</p>
<p>In general, to teach a language you need a strong undergraduate major in that language (you’ll also have to pass something called a Praxis test in your subject). That doesn’t usually leave time for a second major, in your case Math. However, if your daughter can start college Latin at the 3rd year level (not unusual if your HS program is strong), she’ll have a decent shot at having the time for a double major or at least having enough undergrad credits to qualify. (Make sure to take Latin Prose Composition - in smaller programs it’s not offered every year and it will be important for her ability to teach the language.)</p>
<p>All that said, that’s a great combination - both subject areas are in high demand.</p>
<p>Just a note, it seems that Latin is being phased out in schools. I know my high school phased it out while I was there. Many schools are getting rid of Latin in favor of languages like Chinese. In math there is a much higher demand for teachers than something like Latin.</p>
<p>emerlus - lots of people have that perception and it was partially true 10-15 years ago -but not for the reason you think! A generation of Latin teachers was retiring and there were no replacements available! Somehow people got the idea that college should be about getting a job credential rather than an education and enrollment in Classics programs (and other humanities) shrank. (As did interest in underpaid entry level teaching positions.)</p>
<p>Today the Classics departments in major universities are actually growing and competition to get into graduate programs has become absolutely insane. In any given year several hundred Latin and Greek secondary school jobs are available (there are already 37 posted on the ACL job site for calendar year 2010).</p>
<p>Incidentally, there is currently a survey being prepared (see the CLASSICS-L archives for the last month or so) of the effect of HS Latin and Greek on college admissions - the preliminary anecdotal evidence appears to confirm a similar survey done some years ago: Classical languages have a disproportionatly large influence on admissions success, particularly compared with “pop” languages like Spanish and Mandarin. The effect is particularly large at highly competitive schools, be they SLACs or major universities.</p>