<p>zagy-
Your son will be competing for spots with kids who have taken 4 years of math as recommended.
CSULB is a popular, desired, affordable college for SoCal students.
Is it possible he is over exaggerating his math suffering and you are sympathizing?
He will have to take a math placement test when he enters any college, even cc.</p>
<p>I, too, was a humanities kid by nature. I skipped math in 12th grade to create a block of time for my district’s out-of-the-building 12th grade gifted program.</p>
<p>I found in college, to my chagrin, that math is sequential, and you really have to stick with it, consistently, until you are fully and finally finished with it. Especially if you are not a math person by nature.</p>
<p>I think that unless a kid is committed to a BFA degree, and really talented in the arts, 12th grade math is a small price for a college-bound student to pay, for keeping curricular and career options open, as a teenager matures.</p>
<p>Not a parent but a CC transfer as most pointed out it “says” only three years but I am afraid that wont be competitive enough. My BIGGEST regret was not taking more math in HS I also thought - well hey ill take it in college no biggie. HUGE BIGGIE. I’ve always struggled with math and once I got to college I just dropped it. Its faster and theres a lot less help. In HS the pace is much more forgiving to those who I like to call mathlesic. Business majors to be competitive are taking upto calc 1 and even calc 2. Also, with CSULB being so heavily impacted you want to be able to keep the doors open for other campuses as well. If my child was a business major I’d make him take math regardless and drop an AP class if he wants.</p>
<p>Oh also, I would keep AP Econ no matter what AP Eng and Ap gov as well but drop chem to take stats or math. </p>
<p>Remember math in college is harder and whether you do it now or later it’s got to get done. Might as well do it now where the resources are plentiful are bountiful and cheap.</p>
<p>I am ambivalent about this. I agree with most of the advice given here, and I encouraged my kids to keep taking math, more than either of them wanted to.</p>
<p>On the other hand, the four years of math I took in high school have absolutely no effect on my life. None. I use math all the time, but it’s all math I learned by 8th grade. (I had a pretty good school, so my 8th-grade math was probably the equivalent of Algebra I and Geometry I.) Somewhere in the CC archives is a mammoth thread I started years ago called “What’s so great about calculus?” I learned a lot from that thread – maybe more than I learned in my AP Calculus course.</p>
<p>Just as not everyone instinctively appreciates poetry or feels its importance to, not everyone instinctively appreciates math. In my experience, math teachers, on average, are exceptionally bad at communicating the benefits of knowing more math than the simple arithmetic necessary for daily life. I do believe that more statistics ought to be incorporated into the common educational requirements for everyone.</p>
<p>Nelliah – You wrote: “Missed your marketing comment. Math is a fundamental skill for that major. The marketing folks I work with spend much if their time with models and stats.”</p>
<p>Oh really? I owned a fairly successful marketing and promotions agency in the entertainment industry and the stats I produced were logic-based supported by fundamental mathematics principles, not trigonometry, calculus or algebra.</p>
<p>However, as the CSULB web pages indicate, math through calculus and statistics is required for business majors (including marketing option) there.</p>
<p>Mathmom – You replied to my comment, “And really, who can blame him?” “And this is why the US does so poorly compared to the rest of the world in math. Math is fundamental to so many fields. If he quits now he’s going to have to catch up if he ends up in one of them.”</p>
<p>Obviously you are a “MathMom” who is very proud of being one or you wouldn’t be calling yourself that. I may as well call myself “SkaterMom” because my son is on the verge of becoming a professional skateboarder and could give one whit about math. I would contend that the US does so poorly in math compared to the rest of the world because its ability to connect it to real-life learning contexts is virtually non-existent, public school teaching methods are antiquated, in-school support woefully understaffed, unsupportive teachers are kept on – or as my son’s algebra II teacher is fond of saying frequently in class, “I’m not getting paid enough for this” – and instruction during early-school years is both irrelevant and not reinforced consistently. </p>
<p>Sorry for the rant. You are Mathmom. Not all kids are students of Mathmoms or even have interest in or a mindset for math. My son’s dad is naturally gifted at math. I am a writer, and couldn’t begin to assist my son in even basic algebra. Both parents believe that pushing kids into complex subjects they do not naturally gravitate toward diminishes their appetite and enthusiasm for education. </p>
<p>My son had the fortunate opportunity to have a full year of marketing as a freshman, and was encouraged by his teacher to take a second year of honors marketing as a sophomore. He knows what he’s good at and what he’s not, what he enjoys and what he doesn’t.</p>
<p>But the bottom line is:</p>
<p>Calculus is required for his major at CSULB.
To take calculus, he needs to take precalculus/trigonometry.
Either he takes it in high school next year, or he takes it as a remedial course in college.
When would he rather take it?</p>
<p>aldfig & beth’s mom - Quite right – I see your point about keeping math skills from going “stale” by taking it again in his senior year. </p>
<p>Consolation – There’s a world of marketing that does not require more than basic math skills. I know, because I owned a successful marketing and promotions agency. </p>
<p>Sikorsky, DecideSomeHow, Fieldsports, Ineedadegree – and anyone else who weighed in on the merits of trig/stats and math in general – I appreciate your feedback. I personally wouldn’t begin to comprehend what trig is and my friend who is a successful hedge fund manager looks at my son’s Algebra II and just groans. For all of my peers, we look back at our days in high school Algebra as painful. Granted, I live in Los Angeles, and am surrounded by a lot of creative types. But there’s a whole world of marketing and business out there – especially in creative fields – that is not math driven beyond fundamentals.</p>
<p>Ineedadegree - I think that Chemistry and/or Physics is a graduation requirement. I’m not sure which is the lesser of two evils. (For all others who read this: I fully expect blowback from the “I’m not sure which is the lesser of two evils” comment, so in advance, spare yourselves the effort.)</p>
<p>JHS - I COULDN’T AGREE WITH YOU MORE!</p>
<p>UcbaAlumnus - Thanks for the clarification on CSULB marketing/business majors. I will let my son know about this tonight. Looks like, if he wants to carry on in college with the two years of marketing he already had in high school, he’ll have to “suffer” (please don’t beat me up for using this word, but it’s true for him) through remedial calculus in college – he’s signed up for trig/stats next year and double-dosing math in the same year would just crush him and his spirit.</p>
<p>TO EVERYONE ELSE WHO WEIGHED IN: THANK YOU!</p>
<p>I’d like to say one more thing about taking math in high school. Sadly, I admit that I’d been teaching math in high school for several years before I came to see my work this way.</p>
<p>My job as a high-school math teacher is to equip students to study anything they want to study in college. In college, many students are exposed to disciplines they never had the chance to explore in high school. So if one of my students should get to college and discover that she’s really interested in geology or astronomy or economics or business, she shouldn’t have to say, “…but I could never study that because I couldn’t learn enough math.”</p>
<p>I know your son says he wants to study marketing, but college kids change their minds and their majors all the time. I did. And it makes little sense to shut the door to whole areas of learning because one didn’t want to take any more math after the 11th grade.</p>
<p>I remember the day when my own daughter came home from school and said to me, “Daddy, I just don’t like math any more.” I told her, “That’s perfectly all right. You don’t have to like math. But you still have to learn math.” I didn’t make her take calculus, but after precalc/trig in the 11th grade, she did take statistics.</p>
<p>The real issue here isn’t whether your son should take the fourth year of high school math. It’s what he can do to overcome his difficulty with math – a difficulty that may cause problems for him in college. </p>
<p>Somewhere along the way, he stopped understanding some of the concepts and skills he needs to succeed in math. This can happen at any point during the school years, but algebra is often the sticking point. After he became confused, he has been half-faking it, not really understanding what he’s doing, but still maintaining a passing grade because kids can somehow do this even though they’re mostly bewildered by what they’re doing.</p>
<p>The solution, in my opinion, is to work one-on-one with a really good math tutor – one who can work with him to figure out where he’s confused and help him to re-learn the skills he didn’t learn thoroughly the first time. Yes, it’s expensive. And it’s time-consuming. But students rarely overcome math difficulties on their own.</p>
<p>OP- you remind me of a poster a few years ago who came on this board to lament (and hopefully get support, and a counter- strategy) for her son who had been admitted to his first choice large State U- but not in the program he wanted. It took us a while to tease out… but it turned out her son had not take the "recommended " HS curriculum to be admitted to this program. Then we got her rantings about how arbitrary it all is- which of course is true- but many of the experienced posters pointed out that if you have 11 applicants for 10 spots, you are likely going to admit the 10 who have actually fulfilled the requirements, and eliminate the 1 who has not. How much more so in a truly competitive situation where you are looking at 20,000 applications for 10,000 seats? or however the math works out.</p>
<p>You can post all you want about how bad, stupid, etc. the requirements are- but once your son gets to college and decides he wants to study urban planning or econ; or even once he starts marketing and decides he’s more interested in a career path as a media buyer or in decision support vs. the kind of marketing you do, or even that he learns that he hates marketing but can’t take a finance track or study supply chain management in the business school because he’s never taken Calc… then what???</p>
<p>So yes, it’s all stupid and arbitrary. Ceterus Paribus, colleges are going to admit the kids who meet or exceed the stupid and arbitrary pre-req’s in favor of those who do not.</p>
<p>Actually, if CSULB is like other CSUs, taking more math than the minimum required for eligibility does not matter for frosh admissions. CSUs generally calculate an eligibility index of GPA and test scores and admit in descending order until the major or campus is filled.</p>
<p>However, because calculus is required for the intended major, the student will have to take precalculus/trigonometry as a prerequisite to calculus. He will therefore have to take precalculus/trigonometry either in high school, or as a remedial course in college.</p>
<p>This does bring up something that seems to be often ignored on these forums when “what high school courses should I take?” questions come up: Choosing rigorous courses in high school is not just to build up credentials for college admissions; it is to prepare the college-bound student for college courses, including those which may be required for the student’s intended major.</p>
<p>I don’t think it helps matters that my son is still somewhat ambivalent about going to college. On the one hand, he is a nationally sponsored skateboarder who has every reason to believe he has a shot at going pro (Plan A). On the other, he’s a junior in high school who wants to hedge his bets and thus is maintaining a 3.5+ gpa and would consider pursuing a marketing career in the skateboarding industry (Plan B in the event Plan A doesn’t work out). As it is, he’s planning on taking a gap year to fully explore Plan A, which we support.</p>
<p>Personally, I believe that God is math, because the symmetry of math is found everywhere in nature. But that belief unfortunately doesn’t translate into my understanding of math, or my son’s appreciation of it. Nonetheless, I am grateful to the math geeks who populate our planet and wish we could change up our curriculum to help ignite the fire in the bright fence-straddlers like my son.</p>
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<p>You should start a discussion on this. It would be interesting.</p>
<p>Jumping in here really quick:
I’d advise him to take math for the fourth year. I’ve known many kids that struggle with Algebra but love geometry that do very well in trig.
Is also advise him NOT to take physics. It would almost be like a second math class. Chemistry would be a better option. </p>
<p>Like math or not, I think it could potentially harm either his college admissions chances or make it more difficult when he has to take a math class in college. </p>
<p>Nothing wrong with choosing a major that has less of what you don’t like and more of what you do! Just keep your options open.</p>
<p>SCGMom - Thank you for the word on trig. I have a feeling it will all work out okay because my son was seriously gifted in geometry, though he detests algebra. He gets it; he just thinks it’s stupid and consequently is in resistance. Statistics would appear to be the most useful of all, which he will take next year. If he puts off remedial calculus until college, so be it. Also thanks for the heads up on Chemistry. I did a search on this very thing this morning, and yes, I verified Chem would be easier than Physics.</p>
<p>Calculus is not remedial.</p>
<p>However, precalculus/trigonometry is generally considered remedial for college students; having to take remedial courses in college can delay graduation due to prerequisite sequencing. Since he need to take calculus for his major, he needs to take precalculus/trigonometry before then; better to take it in high school rather than wait until college for that.</p>
<p>And how much calculus is required to do marketing, single-variable or multi-variable calculus?</p>