<p>Stargazer – probably fewer of those. The truth is, high school math is most people’s real exposure to math, and even I have to say, AP Physics was probably cooler than AP Calculus back in the day. I wonder if I’d have been a math major if I didn’t study a bunch of math past AP Calculus in high school in the first place. It’s because I got to some of the juicy stuff that I actually realized it was for me. </p>
<p>A friend of mine who is in college and loves subjects like history actually explained to me that she preferred biology and physics in high school vastly to math basically because the math was dry on average, and unfortunately by the time she took BC Calculus (in senior year), which could’ve been somewhat interesting, she no longer cared enough to take it seriously. </p>
<p>The abstraction barrier that must be crossed before one can generally make beautiful observations in math tends to turn many away. Somehow or the other, I have convinced my electrical engineering buddies to sample some higher level math, promising I’d help them get through it if need be!</p>
<p>Most students are not patient enough, is the truth – I see all these biology students doing research, CS students doing projects and internships – what do the pure mathematicians do? Unless they’re into something requiring “cleverness” rather than mounds upon mounds of technical machinery and abstraction, there is little taste of research that most of them can get into. This is probably part of the issue, and maybe if pmvd is in fact real, this is part of what turns him off about the subject/major.</p>
<p>And as I said, I respond to OP’s arguments taking it with a grain of salt whether they are officially heeded, as whether it’s all a hoax or not, there’s plenty of information to be thrown out there!</p>