Halo said
Most people at my school (which, admittedly, heavily favours sciences in terms of number of students taking each subject) feel the opposite - that humanities like History and English are unbearably dull. Do you think either your teachers or school had a large impact on you feeling that way? And, considering you enjoy your job, which involves lots of maths, do you think it's just the way it was taught rather than maths in itself that you thought was boring?
I think the thing for me is math only has one solid, unimaginative answer, and the fact that you can be handed a sheet of say 20 questions of 4 different formulas just makes it repetitive and an exercise in memorizing said formulas rather than, I wouldn't say thinking because you have to think of the correct formula, how to apply the information, and so on, but it's a lot more static and less colourful, I suppose is the word. I'm pretty sure what you gravitate towards depends on what hemisphere of your brain your use, where math and what not's dominated by the right hemisphere where as language is the left if I remember correctly, it's been a few years.
For me, history and English is a firework of imagination and variance compared to math. It's not about crunching numbers and coming to a singular answer, it's about deductive reasoning and putting together responses based on how you're able to interpret information, where you often have more than one correct answer provided you can justify it. I got the highest average in English in my entire school in grade 12, simply because I've always been a voracious reader and was reading books 6 times the length and complexity as what they were assigning in the class was basically stuff I was reading back in grade 4 for fun. By grade 7, I was already reading things like Tom Clancy and David L. Robbins for entertainment. Not too bad for a guy who used to HATE reading when he was younger. History, likewise, is compelling because it often reads like a work of fiction, provided you are on a subject you find interesting. I always found it interesting to find out where we came from and figure out where we're going. I mean, sure, learning about how farmers used to sow their fields and how they made their crappy houses back in the early days is pretty dry for anyone, but stuff like learning about great conflicts and world changing events is really, really cool stuff.
As for if my teachers and school had an impact on my preferences, not especially. Subjects are largely the same no matter where you go, and if you aren't predisposed to like something (or like it, for that matter before hand) not much is going to change that. A good teacher will make anything compelling and easy to understand and even with subjects you don't like, at least it's something that's easier to learn. A bad teacher will do the opposite; they'll make even subjects you love horrible battles of attrition.
As for my job, the routine math is pretty rudimentary because it never really changes unless their an emergency (most recent case in point, my boss who isn't in the field put the wrong chlorine solution mixture into the injection tank, as he read the one for the other water plant, and we had to figure out how much was going into the reservoir, and calculate a new mixture ratio to bring it back to its normal levels from the very, very low ones it hit. This involved calculating the time the raw water pump runs for and how frequently, how much water was in the reservoir, how much more water was needed to fill the reservoir, find out how much we needed to bump up the injection pumps by converting ML/Min into L/H, and how much extra sodium-hypochlorite would have to be put into the reservoir to boost the chlorine residual from something like 0.16 milligrams per liter to 0.70 milligrams per liter, which is around where we try to keep it. It's pretty tricky shit if you don't do it every day, let me tell you). In any case, it's not so much enjoying the math as the job on the whole; the math is just a part of it, and figuring it out is essential for keeping things running properly and in compliance. It's actually more rewarding than in school because you are immediately seeing tangible results for what you're doing; it's your calculations that change the whole process and if you did your job right, you fix problems. If you do things wrong, you are scrambling to figure out how to reverse your mistake. But when you get it right, it feels damn good.
But really, the math is really minor when it comes to enjoying my job. It's one of the very, VERY few places where the management, the council, and the workers are all on the same page, everyone gets along, and we have a good enough budget to afford to make the changes and do the things we need to without falling behind, and it gives us room to experiment. Since I'm in a small department with lots of work for just two people, I'm doing a huge variety of jobs and getting a lot of experience, and I have a great working relationship with my boss and supervisor. I work out in the country in a rural municipality, so it's scenic and not too busy people wise, and on some roads, I can see the Rocky Mountains. I get paid really well, so I can live a comfortable life without worrying about making ends meet. On top of that, I work Monday-Friday on day shifts and get all government holidays off and 100% benefit coverage. Really, I won the lottery getting hired on where I am. This is a job I hope to stay at for the entirety of my career, and I've worked quite a few jobs, a lot of them TERRIBLE.
In short, I don't like math, but I know how important it is, and although it's a big part of my job, it's hardly overwhelming.
