Been programming for 15 years now on a journalism degree and English minor because I was “washed out” by calc 2 and physics courses despite being excellent in my programming courses, and decided to get an internship programming anyway - luckily they really needed a Linux guy.
Turns out being a good calculator - which is all courses that don’t have you doing proofs is doing - isn’t a prerequisite for being a good programmer of a calculator.
This is why a lot of scientific software sucks. And it’s why a lot of good scientists used specialized kits like MATLAB for the longest time - they needed to program but were bad at programming.
I don’t think that’s right. Some of the most high-level people I know are pretty mid or even bad at certain tasks that you’d assume were essential. A surprising number have dyslexia, some have dyscalculia as well, and a few can intuit interesting math but are unable to produce it mechanically themselves and require help.
I think that that’s normal really: today, science is so complex that no single person is going to come up with a major breakthrough in any field completely on their own. We work in teams for a reason, and we need people with different talents on those teams.
Just because you didn’t do comp-sci doesn’t mean you can’t develop software. I didn’t go to uni and I’ve been working as a professional software dev for 8 years.
Sure, but sucking at math is a good indication of lack of qualifications.
(Fellow comp-sci dropout who sucks at high level math)
Been programming for 15 years now on a journalism degree and English minor because I was “washed out” by calc 2 and physics courses despite being excellent in my programming courses, and decided to get an internship programming anyway - luckily they really needed a Linux guy.
Turns out being a good calculator - which is all courses that don’t have you doing proofs is doing - isn’t a prerequisite for being a good programmer of a calculator.
This is why a lot of scientific software sucks. And it’s why a lot of good scientists used specialized kits like MATLAB for the longest time - they needed to program but were bad at programming.
I don’t think that’s right. Some of the most high-level people I know are pretty mid or even bad at certain tasks that you’d assume were essential. A surprising number have dyslexia, some have dyscalculia as well, and a few can intuit interesting math but are unable to produce it mechanically themselves and require help.
I think that that’s normal really: today, science is so complex that no single person is going to come up with a major breakthrough in any field completely on their own. We work in teams for a reason, and we need people with different talents on those teams.
Me, who sucks at maths but not others:
There’s more than just STEM
M is just one letter
I didn’t suck at math when I calculated those student loan costs. lmao(Also comp sci dropout)
Just because you didn’t do comp-sci doesn’t mean you can’t develop software. I didn’t go to uni and I’ve been working as a professional software dev for 8 years.
I do devops, so I’ve gotten to scratch that itch after all
Calc 2 kicked my ass