why study calculus?

[aposiopetic]

The intarweb is less than helpful on this subject. The best arguments I can find are ones I've already thought of, which aren't terribly convincing to me (hence consulting the informatio-sphere). Any thoughts

Comments

[big_bad_al]

It's a tricky issue, now that I think about it. Here are some thoughts, though:

Reasons for studying calculus:

• More practical examples: calculus (and in particular differential equations) is used when determining drug doses and methods of drug delivery (pills, IVs, etc). It's used in hormone regulation. It's used in disease modeling, both in how the disease spreads through a population and how the disease works within a single organism (my clinic project was to model tumor growth, and the whole thing was governed by DEs). It's used in the design of prosthetics, as well as estimating populations (for instance, to make sure the deer in the local forest stay at a healthy size). Admittedly, however, these are tangential to veterinary medicine itself.
• If she wants to be a vet, and vet schools encourage calculus, it seems like it would be a way to strengthen her college applications. Granted, this is a long-term goal and not something every 8th grader will find convincing, but it's still a reason.
• I suspect that in the past she's wanted to be

[aposiopetic]

Thanks! About the school - she will go to the same HS that I went to, which has the IB (International Baccalaureate) program. There is only a slight stigma about IB and higher level courses, as you get labeled as "one of the IB kids", and for the most part that's OK. Also, there are plenty of IB kids, who migrate to this school to take the program, so IB has its own social circle of like-minded people (which is GREAT, IMO).

[kushali]

I've actually been using calculus and discrete the last couple weeks for work. A lot of probability theory is based on calculus and/or summations. I've been using probability and statistics to help analyze data from our program. We're trying to answer simple questions like "What are kids finding hard?", "What videos are more fun?", "Is this record for an adult or a kid?". Since we can't actually ask our clients we have to do it with data analysis, and that means math

[aposiopetic]

She will probably take it Junior year - they don't plan to push her, but she's smart enough to see where this is going. Calculus is wrapped up in the decision for which HS to go to (which is 95% decided now, thanks to IB).

Actually, the published research thing is another good example - though Jason is right about her probably veering in another direction besides vet eventually. I'm just hoping she doesn't get turned off by calculus for the wrong reasons.

[macdaddyfrosh]

Previous posters make a variety of good points. I add "because daddy won't buy you a car unless you take calculus" to the list. Buying them off works, it really does.

[aposiopetic]

What did Daddy buy you?

[macdaddyfrosh]

"...a Mercedes-Benz / my friends all had Porsches, and I must make amends / worked hard for my money / no help from my friends / oh Daddy, won't you buy me a Mercedes-Benz?"

I took Calculus because I Like Math. However, I already had a car by that point.

[hwasone]

i would suggest letting her here it straight from the horse's mouth, so to speak. get her involved in some sort of veterinary mentorship or jr vet program or something, so she can experience a little of what it's like to be a vet and, more importantly, talk to one. that way she can ask someone who's actually gone through a vet program how much math they had to do. i would guess that despite all the rate math in drug delivery, that few practicing vets actually do the math rather than get an estimate with the aid of a lookup table. i'd bet that the vets that do this math are university research types more than animal docs

[aposiopetic]

Good idea - and yes, I think almost everyone thinks about what they "really" want to be doing with their life.

I think if she wants to study art, that's fine too. But I just hope she doesn't discount calculus simply because she heard somewhere that you don't need it for anything. That just seems like some person who never would or never could learn it is rationalizing things to make themselves feel better.

[amoken]

mtbg sent me