Victims of cheap online math "classes" in high school and college, speak your minds now!

The Maths program at Colorado State University. Hey people in the Chemistry and Physics department: Ever wonder why people fail your classes because they can't seem to do the math? Try learning it from the Computers! There are almost ''no'' tutors in there available for free (Sorry, don't say "hire a tutor" then - There are some of us who are trying to make ends meet and we can't use student loans to pay for those.) because all of the tutors that are available are being hogged for hours by other dyscalculaic students. Again, they're probably good tutors, but it's just that there are not enough, and that some of htem are not patient with having to explain stuff that to them is second nature for the ''fortieth'' time. I flat out gave up trying to take the test to get ''into'' the math classes (That's right - You have to test to get ''in'' to them, and there is nothing else that satisfies these requirements) when a math tutor yelled at me when I ''politely'' asked him how to solve the similar triangles problem. He told me, "oh my god - that's ''Similar Triangles''. Look at the damned video!" Well gee, I would - except guess what? ''It gives us an incompleted solution''. Whoever thought that was a good idea should be fired and placed into witness protection.

...This Troper had just taken a break from her Similar Triangles homework via RageQuit, and stumbled upon this. Funny how coincidences work out.

Played With for This Troper. While I'm naturally more skilled at art, music, linguistics, and history, I used to be quite good at math as well-- on standardized tests, I would consistently get every mathematical problem correct, giving me the highest score in my school. I was the top of my class in both Honors Algebra I and Honors Geometry. However, as soon as I began Algebra II, I started playing this trope straight. I have an A in every class but Algebra II, where I'm barely earning a D. What I once understood completely now seems like total gibberish...

I really worried about math. I'm good at writing and reading, but the classes are so boring and tautologous. (Why, in order to write a good story you must have a climax? I never knew! And the main character in Macbeth's fatal flaw is his pride? You don't say!) I'm bad at art, unlike seeming every other creative person, and I'm good at acting due to physical limitations. I'm absolutely hopeless at math, and I feel like everyone else is automatically making leaps of logic that I just can't get. It's always a minus sign here, or a square root here, and I mess everything up. One little slip, and the entire equation explodes. I'm good at History, but History's funness is largely dependent on the teacher. It seems like whatever class I turns to, I'm either hopelessly bored or hopelessly lost. Somewhere along the way this stopped being about math, but basically I feel like the stuff I AM good at are useless and really useful stuff, like Math, is lost to me. Math is one of the only things I don't get that I really, really wish I did. It's frustrating.

Subverted with this troper in that he loves math, but can't stand the way math is taught (especially in high schools - rote memory and mindless plugging and chugging). He firmly believes that if the math curriculum was overhauled to not be so mind-numbingly dull, we'd be seeing a lot more math majors.

Subverted by this troper and his friends as well, but he'd like to say that it's really the teacher who doesn't realize how bad he makes it; it's played straight by a classmate, who complains that our Physics teacher pretty much only "explains"calculus so far, by the way) to the ones who understand already and that people lagging behind like him aren't given the chance to catch up, no matter the new "teaching method" he uses or the attempts to include them in class activities.

Completely played straight with this troper (Seraphania.) She's a pretty amazing writer for her age (and completely modest about it) and not bad at other "artsy" things like drawing, singing, and acting. But give her anything above Geometry and she freaks out and runs as far away as she can. She figures that she knows more than enough to survive in the real world, and like many other writers knows that she's not going to need to know how to do things like graph rational functions and so on.

...Meredith?

You're not me (Devariouslevon), are you? This is way too much like me. Seriously.

This troper would like to third the uncanny similarities. She has a theory about those things: you're either a math and science person, or a writing and reading person. Not creative or creative. Smart or not smart. Depending on which one you are.

Suberted with the ex-girlfriend of this troper. She loved mathematics, studied it at university and is currently in training to be a maths teacher.

Unlike most, I absolutely love mathematics and sometimes even solved math problems for fun. Its English I despise and constantly do poorly in, although my main reason for doing poorly in English is not doing anything at all even though I'm perfectly capable doing better than almost everyone else I know that isn't in some advanced class. Yeah, I'm a dumbass in that regard...

This troper, full stop. While having straight A's on everything from AP English to AP American History, she is barely getting a C in math. This tells you something.

Inverted for this troper. Everybody he hangs out with at college loves math, especially pure, theoretical math. (The fact that most of them are math majors may have something to do with it.)

This trope is EXACTLY why this college-attending troper doesn't like revealing his major (Science): said major involves math classes that he himself can handle, but he has friends who fit this trope and he feels like shit every time they talk about how they find even the easiest math classes to be harder than becoming The Guy on Impossible.

This Troper has resorted to coming out with some sort of remark in order to diffuse the tension whenever he mentions that he's studying pure maths. Doesn't stop the next line being "I always hated maths" nine times out of ten.

This Troper was wondering if he had somehow logged onto TvTropes in his sleep/ drunken stupor and posted here without his knowledge.

This troper did very well on her Junior Cert exams, and did average enough in Maths, getting a C in the honours test. Roll on Home Ec. the next year, where we were calculating kilojoules or something along those lines. Anyway, me and my classmates had to do a simple maths sum: 14 x 17! I said to them that it was an easy enough sum, while they all said I was some sort of maths-loving 'swot' despite the fact the question was SO EASY it wouldn't enough come up on my or their (ordinary level) exams either! They didn't want to be seen doing long multiplication. ¬.¬; I mean, I barely like maths myself, but...!

This troper remembers his Junior Cert and being told in a round about way that he must have been a bit of a freak because he figured out a relatively simple problem, that everybody was approaching the wrong way. He also observed hatred for maths during his Leaving Cert where his honours class went from about 23 people to 6 people by the end of the year. Even though there was 6 of us, only 2 of us were exceptional at it but all 6 were still considered to be some sort of mutant. That said, this troper will admit to enjoying maths so much he chose it as a degree.

This troper is a subversion, as she is good at math and really doesn't mind it at all. ...Until you hit engineering-level calculus. When she attempted it, it took her three times to pass the first class with a C, and she failed the second course. Then she switched majors into microbiology and found all she needed was one more Calculus class... which she went into the final knowing that she had to get a '''4%''' in order to ''get a D'' in the class. Yes, she would have had to botch the final like she never did before to not pass. (No, I didn't do that. I got a B on my final, and a B in the class.)

What exactly constitutes "engineering-level calculus"? If you mean Stokes' theorem and stuff with integrals, if you have a little feeling for high-school math you could grasp that... But more played straight by most of my fellow physics students, for most don't like the more theoretical stuff (unless you major in both physics and math, in which case you are an alien)

No, integrals were surprisingly ''easy'' for me. Possibly due to taking calculus in high school (and struggling with that, but barely passing). It's stuff like polar quantities, things related to not-basic physics and complex calculations, all crammed into shorter than average quarters, with a large lecture, and the two nastiest (and more related to how it was taught) not expected to do homework (which makes it harder for the troper to force herself to do it) and expected to ''memorize'' every equation in the engineering classes. While I like math for the challenge, a formula sheet and ''forcing'' me to practice is the difference in between passing well or failing horribly. That and I ended up realizing I had been trying to get my father's approval, hence engineering, then realized how much I '''hated''' the details of the subject and how much I adored diseases. So while I have respect for the people who do math for a living, I'll never do it myself and I'm going to hug my plushie of the Black Death now.

This troper usually answered when asked if he would study Engineering or Computer Science in College (to quite a few people's shock, he's doing Journalism): "AM I STUPID ENOUGH TO PICK UP SOMETHING WITH MATH FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE?"

This unregistered trooper choose to go into Informatics and Computing Engineering. Also wouldn't the d/dx(EverybodyHatesMathematics) at the bottom of this page simply be equal to 0?

No, because the page isn't constant. We can let x be time, storage space, number of views or any other interesting dimension.

I'm a moron, thank you for correcting me.

Unless of course you assume that it is effectively constant for sufficiently small intervals of x.

Just to prevent misunderstanding: the original troper doesn't have anything against people who study CS and Engineering. But many people thought his major would be that, when he ''has'' something against Math.

In high school, this Troper had marks in the 95-100 range throughout Math 30 and 31 (Albertan equivalents of standard grade 12 math classes), yet never got above a 92 in anything else. He also took Math 20IB (IB being International Baccalaureate, a Nightmare Difficulty advanced program) and got an 81. Not bad, but math was generally laughably easy. Ask him about Chemistry, however...

...There is a traitor in our midst. Where's my Cylon-whackin' stick?

This troper's former secondary schoolmates.

This troper is a subversion, liking maths, being good at it, and being crazy enough to start trying to solve maths problems at the oddest times (e.g. in the middle of lunch break having found a sheet, on the way back from the airport having been awake for 25 hours). Some of this troper's maths classmates, however, embody this trope.

This troper is also a subversion in the geekiest way possible-at the moment, she's doing statistics homework while listening to Calculus the Musical. Yes. Calculus the Musical. The songs are actually quite catchy.

You, ma'am, are awesome. This troper doesn't do complex problems when bored, but she likes doing her addition, subtraction, and multiplication by hand if she has the time and doesn't mind putting in the effort to handwrite things.

Calculus the Musical???? Excellent, I must look that up.

This English major's reasons for choosing English as his major is two-fold: 1) '''MATH IS AWFUL''' and B) English is tolerable.

The same cannot be said of This Troper's Theatre Major. A major about Theatre Arts has REQUIRED math classes. Sure, the math classes aren't all that advanced, but I failed Algebra. In my placement exam my math score put me in the 2nd lowest math class (which is what my 10th grade brother is taking this year, which I failed in 10th grade). What's worse is that EVERY major requires math classes (because god knows actors use calculus on a regular basis). Which brings up a small question: what the hell is calculus?

It's a bunch of tricks for adding up an infinite amount of infinitely small slices.

This troper is a variation... though he loves Calculus, he can't stand Linear Algebra! This troper's doing Civil Engineering BTW.

So is this troper. He's doing Electrical Engineering (but considers moving to either Mathematics or Computer Science due to the excessive, annoying amount of Physics in EE)

I graduated several years ago with a degree in computer science. I adored calculus and linear algebra, but statistics was a hard slog for me. When I got a 3.0 in stats as my final grade, I treated myself to a pint of Ben & Jerry's and a couple of [=CDs=] as a private celebration.

This troper both loves and hates math. He got a C- in freshman level Algebra 2, took a senior level Trig/Stat class sophomore year and got a B, and is now in a sophomore level precalc class and is failing.

This troper did fairly well in math throughout school but still hated the subject as it was so boring. Then she got to college level calculus and hated math even more as it made no sense at all to her.

I hated maths. The teacher would help me solve it when I asked and prodded endlessly (I'm already no good at it), but the textbooks were fucking ''evil'' - they'd give you a formula. You're zipping along, understanding the original equations, then there's some sort of fucking subversion or flip '''that is not fully explained''' by either the book or the teacher. Then the paper tests would consist of all these subversions. Needless to say, he prays to God his major (Bio) won't rape him in the arse ''too'' much.

When this troper was an undergraduate, one of her math professors said that when he mentioned his job at a party, the most common response was, "Oh. I always hated math." Now that she's in graduate school and teaching mathematics, she's started to get this too.

This troper DOES NOT hate mathematics. He merely cannot see any beauty in numbers, and thus finds them less interesting than words.

This troper saw calculus as an easy subject to ace and liked it well enough. Then mathematics class introduced stochastics and analytic geometry. The former was salvaged somewhat by that one time we played roulette in class.

Fourth period math class is trouble. This is the class period in which NOBODY pays attention. This is the class period where we secretly play with Play-Doh while she lectures, start the wave when the teacher leaves the room, and play practical jokes on each other. For example, this troper found her purse in the recycling bin.

Everyone in this troper's class either really hates math or sort of dislikes math. Except for this troper, giving her a reputation for being a geek, and smart.

This troper was in Math 55, the Harvard class that is considered harder than hell. You start out with near 100 people and you end up with... 13-14 for the first semester. Then, for the second? 10, usually no more. Those 10, including me, ADORE math and want to have its beautiful babies. The ones that drop out early tend to give up on math, because it shows them that they aren't destined to be mathematicians. But they are still fond of it. Those that drop Math 55b halfway through the year, however, are constantly reminded of their failure, failure, failure. They tend to *rock* Math 25, but after 55, it seems just... pointless. They're idiots to think that they're idiots, but after the year of hell, anything is possible.

Normally I really like mathematics myself, but trying to do past Sixth Term Examination Papers, whether for fun, or for actually getting to study Mathematics at places like Cambridge University in the UK (which uses STEP papers as an entrance requirement for this subject), can often end up with me ragequitting while trying to do a question for fun. The vast majority of mathematicians will find the papers scary beyond belief. They are supposed to be aimed at the top 5% of A-Level students in mathematics. For people not from the UK, A-Level exams are the last thing you take before going to university. A-Level exams in Mathematics are absolutely trivial by comparison to STEP papers, which are used to find the elite mathematicians. For each paper (Step I and Step II if you only did one A-Level in mathematics, otherwise it's Step II and Step III), you have about 14 questions, and you may answer any 6 for a maximum of 120 marks. The time limit is THREE HOURS. For a grade 1 (the highest grade is grade S), doing really well in just 4-5 questions will be enough to get you one. If you're doing Step III, you can get a grade 1 with less than HALF of the total marks. This may sound generous, but only people who are super-geniuses should try 6. Advice from Cambridge recommends doing just 4 really well in some cases (that means 45 minutes per question for 4 questions, instead of 30 minutes per question for 6). The worst part is, even 45 minutes per question is NOT a lot of time. You have to make steps in the dark, instead of simply applying rules mechanically. If you don't 'see' a way of solving a problem with ingenuity, along with a high degree of skill in manipulating equations/algebra etc, then you are royally screwed. You need to get Grade 1s, or maybe 1 Grade 1 and 1 Grade 2 to pass IIRC. If you want to witness the horror, go to this link, there are plenty of past papers with solutions and examiner's comments. Just doing 2 mathematics A-Levels by itself proves extremely demanding, and there were only 7 people left in my class after the odd person dropped out (there weren't many to begin with, and the people who were there ranged from good to godlike at Mathematics, I ended up somewhere in the middle).

This troper is way into math and science, and actually started college as a biology major before realizing that she just wasn't inherently good enough with math to pursue it. Given a choice between struggling with something she liked and being comfortable with something she loved (literature), she naturally chose the latter. She likes math and science a lot more now she can read about it in her spare time instead.

THis troper averts this, but he knows waaaay too many people that doesn't know that percentual numbers means N/100.

This troper hates math, but hate is an attractive force, just like love... She keeps taking calculus classes while complaining to everyone how horrible it is. But math must be mastered, FOR SCIENCE!

This high-school senior Troper is okay at math. No genius, but she understood the concepts better than most of her classmates. This does still technically stand in her AP Calculus class, but it has been almost nightmarish. She barely passed the first semester, and God knows where she is now. She's considering going into Computer Science myself, but after hearing the stories about the math classes necessary... seriously reconsidering.

On top of that, math-heavy ''sciences'' are the devil for her. Honors Chemistry was a bit rough, but AP Physics C is seriously making her freak out. She can do problems in there that involve one formula, but any more complex and she starts to fade out.

This Troper is a variation, he doesn't really like maths (but doesn't hate it) but is quite good, at least up to high school level (justified as that is where this Troper is) and finished his maths one year before everyone else.

This Troper has Dyscalculia which means aside from basic math skills,(which I still have trouble with sometimes)I have no mathematical knowledge what so ever. I'm terrified of the day I'll have to do taxes or help my children with their math homework.

This troper can write five sentences in only ten minutes, can have a history quiz done within seconds of receiving it, but hates, ''hates'', '''HATES''' Math! Its evil! Evil, I tell you! Anyone else agree with me?

Oh my God...you must be my long-lost twin!

My goodness! I think that you and I are the same person!

I... am the exact opposite. Math is awesome, and the feeling I get after finally solving a math problem that I've been wrestling with for the past hour is beyond compare. It's like a well made video game, where the boss is really hard, but not hard enough to completely frustrate you and make you lose all hope, and you're exhilarated when he finally dies. But history is the ''worst.'' It's an abomination and ought to be wiped off the face of the earth! Who's with me??

I am with you, math is very awesome. In addition to getting rid of history, I would like to get rid of dumb english classes where I am forced to read something then over-analyze it and write a paper about it.

This troper, having heard of and deriding the OC-cliche that the girls despise math but love art and literature classes, created a Sailor Moon OC for whom math is her favorite subject--because the numbers don't change and she can find some peace and order when working out equations.

This troper is perfectly capable of doing math, even taking AP Calculus and doing very well on the AP exam back in the day. I just find math to be incredibly boring and would rather not do it.

This troper is discalculaic and is completely unable to understand anything beyond Algebra. To me it feels like I'm trying to play a puzzle game, then when you go to another round...the rules are changed and you aren't actually ''told'' so at all. A troper who said they flip and subvert the equations hit it ''on the dot''...we're taught only how to do ''one'' equation. When they flip it around, it's almost like making a whole different equation out of it! No ''wonder'' people read this and find it incomprehensible! For the record, the math hatred was what caused me to switch my major in the first place - One word, Calculus.

Another thing that also doesn't help is that Colorado State University has these Freshman level Math "Classes" that absolutely ''nobody'' learns from. Calling them "Classes" in the first place is pretty much an insult to the very theory of education itself, to show how utterly ''incompetent'' they are.

At this troper's university, Basic College Algebra is only taught one day a week. The rest of the time you must go to the MATHEMATICS LAB and learn from a COMPUTER, and there are like no math tutors. '''Mutation}} FFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUU--'''

Thistroper doesn't ''hate'' math per say but she doesn't like it. It's her worse subject. Even then, being that she's at least two grades ahead of her grade in every other class, she's average in math. She would probably be ahead if she knew basic division and most of her multiplication tables...

Played VERY straight for Anthony_H...

ThisTroper is starting to feel this way about statistics, differential equations, and calculus (beyond level 2), even though math was historically his best subject.

This is the VERY SOLE REASON WHY THIS TROPER QUIT COMPUTER SCIENCE AND WENT JOURNALISM INSTEAD! After all, writing is my passion.

This troper can't be the only person who finds the process of learning Calculus significantly easier than the process of learning Algebra. Calculus is only difficult because of the Algebra involved (which is unfortunately a lot), but feels that if you did well in Algebra Calculus should be a breeze since the amount of '''new''' material you learn in Calculus (starting from derivatives to multivariable calculus) is much less than the amount of new material you learn in Algebra/Precalculus.

This troper has trouble understanding math, is slow at it, and finds absolutely nothing about it to be interesting and/or intriguing. It's one of the major ways I differ from being a typical nerd. I suppose it does make me a classic case of WritersCanNotDoMath. Most of my closest friends here at college, though, are math/science people, so I sometimes feel a bit left out. However, the great thing about college is that I essentially don't have to take math or science classes at all except for like one in each category to fulfill curriculum requirements!

This troper is sort of a weird subversion. He loves mathematics; he finds an amazing amount of beauty in numbers and conceptually finds mathematics amazingly interesting. He's just horribly bad at maths.

This troper loves math, but the problem is he only loves math when it involves theoretical physics (Yes, the Einstein, Hawking, quantum mechanics sort of things), simply because it was interesting and ItAmusedMe. Oh, and he's horribly bad at writing equations.

This troper absolutely detests math, but it is generally quite adept at it and has little problem learning math. Physics, computer science, and engineering, on the other hand, are just grand, the more equations the merrier. It's really just the intellectual masturbation of pure math that turns him off, but he loves the applied equations and using them to actually do something. Unfortunately, one still has to take a lot of pure math before you get to the fun stuff. On the English and Arts side, he loved history but hated English and the rest for many years. Upon finally getting a decent English teacher (possibly the only one in existence) and starting to care about it, he got both adept at it and started to enjoy it. Still took Computer Science in university though.

This Troper had a MATH TEACHER who said many times that he, too, hated mathematics. Perhaps he was refering to the particular type of math, but still, quite ironic.

This troper - the original Trope Proposer - adores maths, largely for its purity. There's no woolly area - either something is right or it is wrong (the same reason a lot of arty types hate it, of course). But I've long since recognised that Maths was completely the wrong degree to study at university, due to the sheer pervasiveness of this trope among other people. I should have done joint honours Maths and Physics.

Math is fun. What's wrong with all you people? The teacher makes all the difference.

It's been argued (quite accurately) that the best maths teachers are usually the best mathematicians.

I can tell you what's wrong: Colorado State University's math program. It is an insult to the very theory of education itself...you have to learn math from ''a computer''. A computer that assumes you have a state-of-the-art-$600 calculator (Yeah, most of the foreign students are asking to be helped how to figure out the damned thing) ''doesn't even TEACH'' you how to do the fucking math problems in the first place(It would ''really'' '''''REALLY''''' help if I was told which subversions and the like would be actually ''on'' the test...the best way to pass these bloody "classes" are to ''memorize answers''.) I have reason to believe that the only reason it wasn't axed and the people behind it fired is because they got secret deals with the math tutors so they can charge $20 an hour, (And lemme ask you ''what'' College Freshman can afford ''that'' with Tuition being what it is?) since they ''know'' all of the "Free" tutors are being hogged by people who don't even know how to use a calculator and who're trying to figure out what it means, so unless you're willing to wait 6 hours for someone to come by and help you, time to pay through the nose for a math tutor. It's just an utter wall banger why they haven't removed this - I bet you they're also paying away the board of education from shutting it down and putting in some real regulations.

Wait a minute, I don't remember posting that!

No, you can have good teachers and still hate math. I am living proof. Math geniusessesesses don't understand how HARD and frustrating math is for math athiests.

While I resent the wilful ignorance in the phrasing of this statement, the point is entirely valid. This troper (the original YKTTW-er, for the record) has a degree in maths, and has been doing maths all his life. I get Maths. I see it as an entirely logical process, a series of well-ordered and well-defined steps from problem to solution with pretty much no need for fluff or deviation. And as such, I know I could never be a Maths teacher because I ''know'' I'll never understand why anybody can't follow the steps or the processes; they're clear, they're specific, there's no grey areas, where's the problem? (Of course, that probably ''is'' the problem; you can't BS your way through maths. It's the most exact and precise of all the subjects.) At which point, I'm forced to assume that it's not because people ''can't'' do maths, it's because they ''won't''. "It's too HARD and I HATE it and I'm NOT doing it and BAWWWWW!" And then I'm screwed as a teacher. (I have roughly the same feelings towards discalculists.)

To all who hate maths, I would pay particular attention to the above 2 statements. It's quite possible it's not your fault. Having a bad teacher in maths is probably worse than any other subject, because at least in all the other subjects you mostly use words, which you use every day.

This troper adores math. He finds it logical, and mostly easy to understand because everything boils down to the careful application of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. That still doesn't stop him from using Math classes to catch up on his sleep.

This troper is exatly the same. AP Calculus was her favourite subject back in ninth grade, but that didn't stop her from using most of the class time to program games on her calculator.

This troper's mom and dad think he should love math, being autistic and all. Well, when you know how to do it, math can be fun. Except that to me, it's more like you're playing a game, the people in charge change the rules, and don't fully explain them. I have reason to believe it's the teachers' faults...because it's like playing a game of ''TeamFortress2'', and then playing a round with Pyro, then suddenly being kicked from the server because you couldn't use pyros for the next round, you weren't told, then expected to know. and then the ''next'' round, you can use pyros again, except the only way you can actually use them or actually ''do'' anything without being kicked is if you walked behind someone and axed them. And then the next round, no medics, and you're supposed to ''win''.

This troper is good at math, and doesn't get the big deal. Though quite a few of her classmates do look at her funny for it...especially when, to stave off boredom, she started writing the prime factorization for every page in her notebook. She also marked perfect squares. Though, she does admit that when the class is dragging behind or skipping ahead, math is the worst. Subject. Ever.

I was quite happy with maths up to the point when it stopped being about solving puzzles about trains and people's multi-legged journeys to towns a conveniently round number of miles away. A good indicator of having gone too far is when the formulae contain more letters than numbers and most of those are greek.

So the formulae became all greek to you? Hey, me too!

The main reason I hate math? The teacher doesn't have enough time to teach us about how to do the subversions and flips, and the people who publish the books don't realize that usually, if you don't have the teacher ''right there'', you won't figure it out. It's like playing a game of ''NeedForSpeed'' when you win one race, then the game flips the controls around for the next race and expects you to ''somehow'' have the Psychic Power to know what the new controls are, then penalizes you for not realizing what the controls are. Really, can you imagine a ''video game'', or even a ''Liberal Arts'' class getting away with that? If it were a video game, they'd be crying "FakeDifficulty! ''FakeDifficulty''!" and trashing it because ItsHardSoItSucks, and if it were a liberal arts class, the professor would either get in trouble or get downrated into oblivion by the students.

There are multiple reasons this troper hates his math class. It may have something to do with the fact that half the class is done through an (by Mistake}} extremely buggy) computer program, which DOESN'T TEACH YOU MATH, and has all kinds of arbitrary limitations. And the other half of the class, it appears the instructor is just pulling shit out of his ass.

Oh yeah do ''I'' know that...I once got a question wrong on something that ''literally'' made the difference between passing and failing and I called a math instructor in because I had quite ''literally'' entered the ''correct answer'' and it ''still'' counted it as incorrect. Even they said it was a bug, but unfortunately, ''I had to take the bloody test again'' and they couldn't say "Hey, the program glitched he should have had this right."

This troper doesn't hate math per se, but he hates the concepts of it he cannot interpret visually (for example, integrals). If you saw him solve a complex geometry problem, you'd see him switch back and forth between writing the needed calculations on paper, and gesturing wildly as if he was operating the UnusualUserInterface from MinorityReport: this is because when he is gesturing, he is visualizing with his mind the shapes the problem is about, to figure out the solution by "seeing" how the shapes interact with each other. On the other hand, if you saw this troper attempting to develop an integral, you'd see him either almost immobile, concentrated on the next passage, or writing down the next passage when he figured it out. Unless he can't figure it out, so you'd see him do something else entirely to avoid that torture.

This is why I'm an EnglishMajor. Why? As I put it to my friends, "A good essay writer is a good BS'er": you can debate opinions and come up with interpretations in literature truth English studies and discourse studies. That's ''fun''. Trying to find a set answer that you can't interpret another way? Damned if it isn't hard. Ironically, my little sis is incredibly smart at math. Screw gender stereotypes!

At a gaming convention, I ended up getting lunch with a guy I was playing a game with, and his wife. During the discussion, the fact that she was working on a PhD in statistics came up, and when I said "Fun!", she replied that that was not the usual reaction she got from people (after first confirming that I was serious).

This Troper is very fond of maths. Unfortunately, maths does not feel the same what about me.

This Troper loves sciences, and maths by extension. This troper has a dyslexia. Math and Dyslexia do not mix well, as I was so neatly reminded of last week during a cash audit that wasn't working out well and eventually discovered I was ''consistently'' typing $21.12 as $12.21. If only schools taught a "Conceptual Math" like they do science....

Subverted, then played straight with this troper. He got a C at GCSE, which was his overall grade average (mostly C's, some B's and one D...in my favourite subject (music)). So, he took a maths A level. For AS, he got a U. He also took English Lit (he had B's for both sides at GCSE) and got a C for AS. He has since started taking an AS in English Language, due to also failing ICT, but by far more than possible to believe. the curious, he got a total in ICT of 44 marks...out of 300. For maths, he got 73 out of 300. An E in both is 40% of 300. Work it out. By a great irony, he is very good at making army lists for wargaming without a calculator and probability is his forté, to the extent that he uses that knowledge in wargaming all the time to determine what the odds are of him surviving or dying in an assault. For some reason, he often rolls far lower than the odds should be, while the opponent often rolls far higher than the odds should be. Funnily enough, maths was the only lesson he was indifferent about at GCSE: he either liked the others (ah, music...) or hated (english. There's irony for you...). Unsurprisingly, his best friend went on record as saying such gems as, "Maths is evil. It makes my head hurt" and "Examiners are evil." In front of an examiner's daughter. Luckily, she didn't end him (her being a friend of me helped a bit), just politely pointed out the fact, to which I kept reminding him whenever he made the comment again.

I'm an odd example, in that I'm actually not bad at math, but I hate it anyway.

I always got A's in math but nevertheless thought it was boring, annoying and way too much time was spent on it. The fact that my Grade eight teacher loved the subject to the point of teaching us math problems when she was supposed to be teaching English or history (preferred subjects for this troper)if she ran out of time during the actual math period, didn't help. Later I realized it wasn't math I hated but the teaching style that tends to go with teaching it.

This troper made the mistake of taking Physics in high school, found he couldn't make heads or tails of the physics equations, and pleaded with his parents to let him quit. They responded that it was "out of the question". They eventually changed their minds after seeing my report card, when I got a 43 and the teacher commented that, although I had a hard time with the material, I nonetheless put forth a consistent effort.

While I dropped Physics before I could fail it, I stuck it out in Math 30. I tried everything I could think of-private tutoring, after-school study sessions, extra paid courses, but nothing worked. On the day of my final exam, I realized that there was no conceivable way I could pass the test, so I just decided thatI'd pick random answers so I could get the hell out of there. I got a 31% and failed the test, getting around a 45% on my final mark for the class. My parents gave me clemency after seeing everything I went through to try and actually learn the material, but realized I just couldn't do it.

This Troper hated mathematics due to a combination of boredom, being unable to be specific in quantities (maths, unlike philosophy, require sharp specification, for example in philosophy 2+2 can become 5, but in math, 2+2=4 and it will always be 4), and accidental ''Pavlovian conditioning''. Before, I did badly at subjects, not because they are hard, but because they are dull. The maths teachers taught boringly. In fact, I am fascinated with Science, even though it is a body of knowledge that is heavily dependent on mathematics, and it is such because Science contained concepts and pictures that are eldritch yet elegant. Thus, I sometimes ignored math. My mother's response? Being the dogmatic [[strike:bitch]] authority that she is, she would force me to do mathematics, and when I fail, she would fucking beat me. I went on and on with the courses, and when I study math, I cannot bring myself to appreciate it, even though in advanced courses math actually had its share of spectacular {{Eldritch Abomination}}s like fractals. I studied some Psychology books, and after recalling my cause for math impairment, I found out that what my mother did was an accidental form of Pavlovian classical conditioning, where a neutral object is paired with a stimulus that causes an unconditioned response, and the pairing causes the neutral object to emit the almost same response. Take for example, a dog is shown food paired with a bell ringing, causing it to salivate, and it goes on and on until the dog salivates at the lone sound of a ringing bell. Basically, in the field of math, This Troper hates maths because I suffered ''AClockworkOrange''.

For this editor, any divisions between art and math can go and screw itself. I'm not much good at math (I DO have a grasp of basic concepts but that's about it) but found time and again that "logic and patterns" very much apply to, say, literary analysis and just life in general. He considers his personal CrowningMomentOfAwesome hammering into his cousin that the stuff that makes him good at math also makes him good at writing essays. Said cousin's score on the final exam very much proved his point.

It's not that I hate mathematics, I hate the phonology around it. Specifically, as an American English speaker, it's always been "math", never "maths". "Maths" just sounds terribly wrong to me for whatever reason. You wouldn't say, "I'm not good at sciences", you'd say, "I'm not good at science"! You wouldn't say, "I'm not good at arts", you'd say, "I'm not good at art"! You might say 'the sciences' or 'the arts', but for whatever reason saying 'the maths' also sounds wrong. It just-- it pisses me off! It sounds wrong, but there's no grammatical reason for it to be wrong!

As a British English speaker, I can say that I have the opposite experience -- "maths" sounds right to me, while "math" sounds... unfinished. It would be like saying "scien" or "ar" instead of "science" or "art".

Averted with this tropette. She has had the amazing capability of maintaining and practicing mathematical skills she has gained since the earliest years of her life, but she doesn't necessarily enjoy the subject, nor does she hate it.

This troper was considered to be among the smarter students at the math class in middle school, and understood an equation that was supposed to be taught at the [=12th=] grade when he was a ninth grader. And yet, he hated most branches of mathematics taught at middle school with passion. If the teacher wasn't such a nice guy, he probably would've been in prison for arson.

This is a bit of a pet peeve for this troper. Why is Math the one subject you're "allowed" to suck at? Nobody's ever proud to suck at History or Biology. It's not a good thing to suck at English. If you fail at Geography, you'll be mocked forever, even if the alleged failure is just not knowing what is the capital of Burkina Faso. But if it's Math? That's ok. Math's hard. You're not ''supposed'' to be good at it... Seriously, people. It's just as bad as sucking at any other subject. When you proudly declare you suck at Math, well... you ''proudly declare that YOU SUCK!'' Why would you want to do that?!

A lot of people just had bad math teachers or teachers who were incompatible with their learning styles, whereas it's kind of hard for a teacher of something as straighforward as Geography or as interpretive as English literature. (at least beyond comprehension) Even college professors hate teaching Algebra because there's no set way to explain it. You can explain something and maybe half the students will get it, whereas the other half will either get stuck on step B to Step C or D or think you just pulled random numbers out of your ass. Whereas something like "What is the capital of Norway?" is just remembering that. yeah I notice the DoubleStandard too, but if it was a poorly designed class then people will be more sympathetic towards you. One good example was my 12th grade English test. On one test we almost all ''universally'' failed because we had to somehow know stuff like what colour the character's shirt was during this period of time, what costume a character wore to a costume party, etc. You know...''completely unimportant background details'' that have ''no'' impact on the story whatsoever. Another thing might be because on tests with Essays on them, even if you're not sure on the answer, you can often BS your way through it if you defend your thesis well enough, or at least BS your way to partial credit. Math is often all-or-nothing, with occasionally partial credit given for when you get it ''mostly'' right, or if you got it right but didn't show your work properly. So long story short, a lot of the problems with math are because they didn't have math teachers that were compatible with their learning style; everyone learns at a different way and unless you're putting a kid in a private school or home-school that's ''tailored'' to their learning style then they'd have trouble.

This troper understands not everyone can be good at Maths. You need the right kind of mind to understand some of the stuff and teaching it properly is even more difficult than understanding it. But I still don't understand why some people who suck at Maths are ''proud'' of it.

Hallelujah! I simply refuse to accept that math is the only subject people are proud to be ''bad'' at. I mean, not in a sense that they're giving it their all and they respect its purpose in life and all, but uncategorically, unrefutably ''bad'' at it, as in they just give up on it at the first sign of struggle. Meanwhile, if you say you hate English class because you want to cry every time you're assigned an essay, since essays are unbelievably difficult for you to begin with (as was the case when I was in school), people look at you funnily and go on as per the person above me who said that "Aw, come on, you can B.S. through an essay, no biggie!" You can't really say that, can you? If you hate writing essays or having to process a work of fiction at a high school level, no one lets you be and accepts that you're terrible at English, but if you hate math to the point where you even find basic algebra (a laughably easy subject) impossible, people are lining up left and right to agree with you and share their own experiences with hating math. Meanwhile, those people who love math to the point where they'll do math to entertain themselves whenever they're bored (again, as was the case when I was in school) are forced to keep it quiet or else they'll be looked at funnily. I still have people who refuse to believe that my favorite subjects of all time were my college calculus classes, because they don't seem to realize that for some people, calculus is like solving the most outrageously fun puzzle ever. And it doesn't even have to be about the teacher/professor! One of my cal profs was really dry and dull, but I aced his class because I was so starry-eyed about the subject. The one time when the instructor mattered was when I was learning geometry in high school and our teacher only put up one example on the board and expected us to teach ourselves the rest of the lesson. Being that this was our introduction to a brand new field of math, we all struggled mightily through it and I have to admit that I got grades as low as 76 on my tests. But when it gets to algebra (which has precedent in traditional math) or any other high school- or college-level math class where you'll have already learned the foundations of the subject in question? The instructor doesn't matter as much.

I do not really understand you guys. Mathematics are FUN. Math problems are sort of like logic or crossword puzzles to me. It's like solving the latest crossword, figuring out what you have to do... that kind of fun stuff. However, I do hate geography! It is not good at all! Now who's with me on this?

I love math and geography, but both only really get interesting when you get past the memorization stage.

2+2= Four, obviously [[TwoPlusTortureMakesFive unless you add torture]]. $499 = Round it off to 500. 6 X 9 = 42 54. Algebra = BSOD}} Blue Screen of Death. Geometry = Iä! Iä! EldritchAbomination! Calculus = What The Fuck??!!

This Troper is actually a math minor, but he is convinced that many grade school math teachers don't really know how to teach math. He was pretty fortunate to get decent teachers (including the rare high school statistics teacher who actually understands statistics). Still, a lot of teachers don't make math relevant for students, and in most calculus classes, formulas just appear by magic, as if they never had to be proven, but just popped out of the ether. Math doesn't work that way in real life, and the way it does work is much more exciting. This Troper is also convinced some people just need to stop whining about math and suck it up.

This troper has been told she might have dyscalculia, and she dislikes almost all math except for division (including long division) and algebra. For some reason she's good at those, but for everything else? All bets are off. At times, ''addition'' can be a daunting task. Which makes this troper feel really, really stupid.

I'm not too bad at maths, but I don't see the point in memorising half a million formulas and such that you'll never really need. Cram then forget.

This troper has some experience in it from University. He got some of the Math stuff but other things not and no matter how it was explained he just could not grasp the concept, maybe because it was just to theoretical. As to put it with the words of a teacher in Uni, which still don't make sense: -> Teacher: You could replace a with an apple, b with a tree and c with a dog in this calculation and you still would get the same result.

It seems this troper's entire school is horrible at math (except for the math teachers, probably). The average SAT score for an over achiever looks something like this: #QUOTE# Verbal: 640 #QUOTE# Writing: 710 #QUOTE# Math: 430

What's even worse: I'm an Asian girl and I hate, hate, HATE math with all my guts. That usually comes as a shock to everyone. My SAT score: #QUOTE# Verbal: 800 #QUOTE#Writing: 750 #QUOTE#Math: pathetic 300

I don't know why, but I just tend to do better in right-brained subjects (English, Art, etc..)

Because TVTropes enhances your ability in right brained subjects. Enough said.

This Troper, once he encounters Mathematics, he cannot help but be in fear of this {{eldritch abomination}}. What words, English, Chinese, the Language of R'lyeh or otherwise, can describe this terrifying, unspeakable, cosmic monstrosity whose mere gaze can rape the psyches and hearts of masses, making them succumb to pandemics of mental paralysis and anxiety? It might not be really possible for a mere human to fully describe this cyclopean construct, which on first sight is alien beyond comprehension, to the point one could argue that it's almost fictional and nonexistent, simply a mere tool used by humanity, yet at the same time is absolutely real and exists at every point in space and time, with all that exists being subjected to its endless piping orgies of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. The laws of physics, the Great Old Ones, the Outer Gods, {{God}}, they can be counted and presented in quantitative value, whether zero, rational numbers, irrational numbers, infinity or others, and thus are bound by the power of Mathematics. The cosmos, both as we know it and beyond, is supported by its geometry. Mathematics holds the key to gates between worlds, and is the gate. Magic, science, love, history, fiction, art, philosophy, past, present, future, all are one in Sothoth Mathematics. All entities, living or non-living, are free to use Mathematics' powers of addition-subtraction, as it is meant that the majority of us should never go far, and it is only the intelligent and the prepared who should have access into Mathematics' more {{eldritch location}}s, lest one who is too unprepared to comprehend should get lost and {{go mad from the revelation}}. It might be possible to defeat this stigmata through DivisionByZero, but accomplishing it and defeating Mathematics requires the sacrifice of existence. Truly, freedom is the ability to say Two Plus Two Equals Five.

*applause* I, Prime Evil, have graduated from Chicago State University with a Bachelor's of Arts in English--Professional and Technical Writing. There is probably a good reason why I picked that as my major...I am absolutely horrible with higher-level math and find equations with words far more manageable. (I flunked out of CSU's math placement exam twice...that thing is designed for you to fail.) Having said that, I've become quite proficient at things like making change and estimating distances over the years. I say, as long as I can multiply, divide, add, and subtract, I'm probably good to go.

This troper is an odd case. As a Russian, I am expected to be a math genius. And for a time, I was, and I loved math. By high school, though, I hated it, but was still good enough to perform well consistently in the hardest level of math class the school had to offer. Until I started the IB. I took Math SL (because HL is considered to be beyond NintendoHard) and coasted through the class the first year with perfect grades. Then we started calculus, and my grades plummeted... It doesn't help that our math teacher does little more than put up examples from the textbook on the board and not explain them. (The textbook is just as bad, if not worse.)

This troper is top-of-his-class student in every class, and learns quickly in every class, besides math. He still gets in the 80s most of the time, but it's his worse class and he's rather slow to learn certain stuff in it. He does pretty good in it, until it comes to division or when he has to do multiplication with large numbers quickly. This has to do with the fact he didn't learn how to divide and doesn't know short multiplication, thus has to teach himself but is too lazy too. Nevertheless, this troper wants to get a degree in literature due to the fact his writing skills are above average and he wants to write.

I don't get 8th grade pre-algebra and had to have serious help with long division in 5th grade. I'm very, very scared of high school math if it's even harder than what we're doing now. When will I, a girl who wants to be a musician but will probably end up in radio, EVER need to know how to graph the area and perimeter of a triangle to the nearest hundreth then convert it to a fraction and then simplify that fraction into a mixed number? It really doesn't help that the homeschool curriculum my mother and I use doesn't like to explain things. And the answer book sometimes has THE WRONG ANSWERS. It has legitimately messed up what five times five is.

Everyone treats my math class as an excuse to sleep or act up. It's the only class where kids are thrown out of the room on a regular basis. The kids in my class can be morons sometimes, though, and most of us are just in shock at how ANGRY our teacher gets.

This troper has never liked math, although she did sort of enjoy her seventh grade algebra class, the teacher was fun. However, this year, her parents ignored her wishes(repeatedly, emphatically stated wishes) and made her take AP Calculus. Talk about MindRape. She's fairly sure the only two reasons she's still passing that class are 1)the teacher lets us correct quizzes/tests to gain more points and 2)she has a friend who also takes the class who is inhumanly good at math(the bastard). Next year she's taking AP Statistics, ''without'' a friend to rely on for help. She's wondering how long it will be before she flunks out of that.

My sister who's the most right-brained person you can know and is even ''worse'' at math than I am passed AP stat - it's not MindRape.

Math has always been this troper's weakest subject, due to math not being about restating or analyzing information. It depends on his teacher, though. He was able to ace his 8th grade algebra class, but can barely pass his current one. Then again, his current teacher doesn't actually explain things. He expects us to understand what the textbook tells us to do. For this troper, he needs a teacher to thoroughly explain the material and make him write down adequate notes in order to do well in the subject. He didn't get a 96 in Honors Biology by simply reading the textbook that was given to him.

Accounting can be annoying - the problem I have with math isn't the math itself. It works itself down to four processes. However, some of us need to have it ''spelled out'' for us before we can get it. (Why is it ''so hard'' for teachers in any math-related class to just fucking ''spell it out''?) It also doesn't help that the "Examples" we get are '''''nothing''''' like the stuff we have to actually do. Oh look, we have to learn how to calculate the accounts receivable ratio. That's just fine and dandy...except in this problem, ''there's far more than that'' and the "Example" does ''not'' help there. (How can I practice that if I can't fuck up and lose points by pressing the "Spell it out" feature? Some of us ''need'' to have it spelled out) Bottom line...even basic math like Accounting can be made a living nightmare when the teacher is a ''huge'' follower if the GuideDangIt rule - the best sense to have with math? A sixth sense - you have to be fracking psychic to figure this shit out without asking someone who trained for years.

Even though I'm pretty average in it, and kind of good with just the simple stuff. I hate it. It's just too boring and technical for this right-brained Troper.

Nit-picking here, but that whole thing about left/right brain isn't actually true. The potential is in you no matter what! Though it can still be harder for some than others.

I hate math I hate math I hate math I hate math I hate math [=IhatemathIhatemathIhatemathIhatemathIhatemathIhatemath...=] *faints* Okay, okay. I'm actually in Algebra 1A in middle school (at the time of this writing), but when I look at the numbers and signs and stuff, it makes my brain hurt. Add this, distribute that, multiply this third thing, make a long list of possible answers, put a decimal place over here...problems like "Factor 2x^2 + 5xfsyiuy + 6edfiusio" are the worst. To make matters worse, my mom is the biggest EducationMama on the planet. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

This troper is good at math, usually likes it. Managed to test into Algebra in 7th grade, scored well enough on AP Calculus tests to skip to Calc II in college. Then came Multivariable Calculus. The first time I failed it, I thought it was just that the professor wasn't the best teacher. A semester, a different professor, and another F later, I realized that might not be it after all. In any case, I transferred to another college and switched majors. Slightly. From Computer Science, which required Multivariable and Linear Algebra, to Information Technology, which required only Precalculus, which I had taken in 10th grade. Funny how that works.

Go back to d/dx(EverybodyHatesMathematics).

OH GOD NO!!

... is it a constant?

Each letter is a different function of x.

Does case matter?

F'(x) = f(x), according to my math textbook...

At least it wasn't asking to integrate over x.