I had my first class tonight. I am now on the road to an associates degree so that I can start funeral school. So what is my first college class? Could it be Literature? American History? Art History? Government? No No No. It is Math 550.
Now for those of you who have been out of college a while most classes started off with a number of say 1001 or 1101 not 550. This as my son would so eloquently put it is the Pre Kindergarten of Math. I went to the college last week to sign up, but, before they let you take classes you have to spend the entire day in the administration offices doing things like taking the orientation about the school. Thank God this was a little video you watched on the computer, but, I am not lying I had to take a test on the orientation to make sure I understood what they were talking about. Of course, my thought was "How stupid are our kids?" The orientation told me things like where to park, where to eat, and how to use the library. Do we have college kids who would not understand this?
Well after my orientation I was sent to take "Accuplacer Tests" these are tests (once again online) that tell them how much you know and where you should be put. I tested on Math, English and Comprehension. As you probably guessed the English and Comprehension I got flying colors on. I was college level on those. Well at 40 I should know something right. But, the Math was another story altogether.
I sat down and was prepared to take the test. In case you did not know it I am petrified of numbers. They scare the crap out of me. When I was in high school, you know before they had computers in every class. The only kids who took algebra or anything above that were the smart nerdy kids. I did have to take basic algebra but I failed it 4 times. By the 4th time the counselor told me I should have the answers memorized by then and promptly put me into the basic math class. This was the class where they taught us how to do our taxes, compare prices and balance our checkbooks. I still do my own taxes to this day because of that class and the fact that H&R Block is online and does everything for you.
But, back to testing, the questions start to appear in front of. After question 1 I knew I was in trouble. Sometime between 1986 when I graduated and 2008 when I was testing they replaced numbers with letters. I do not know how this happened and I am sure some dead mathematicians are really pissed off. But they had questions like 3x+2y-5x+8y. What the hell does this mean? What are these letters for? My other favorites were ones like z + 3 × (8 - z). I have no idea what the z means or the x means. Well, I actually gave them meaning but it was more in the lines of a bad word and I think that falls into the English class.
So how did I do on the test? Obviously I failed it. I guessed on every question and I am woman enough to admit it. Besides the advisor kind of already knew I guessed since they were all wrong. You would have thought with guessing I would have gotten at least one right. But apparently my lack of math carries over into percentages of trial and error. So as nicely as he could he told me that the lowest math class I could take was Math 550. I thought "Wow College Math, I am smart after all." Oh how silly I was.
I arrived tonight for my first class. Now mind you these students have already been in the class for 2 weeks so I was pretty far behind. But, it was what they call a "self paced" class. This means that you do not have a teacher lecturing you or giving instructions. There is a teacher if you need help but basically you sit down open your workbook and start working. I had 2 hours in this class. I opened my new workbook, got out my new pencils and my new calculator. Only to be told that we are not allowed to use calculators in this class. WHAT, how am I suppose to know the answers. Guess what? They want you to figure it out on your own...like Pre Kindergarten. I had to write out the problems and answers.
Do you have any idea how much we rely on calculators and computers? Let me tell you..ALOT. I got the basic adding down, even I could do that. But when it came to subtraction I was a bit nervous, I did fine on the smaller numbers but they use numbers in the millions. Then there was multiplication again they use numbers in the millions. I sat in this class for 2 hours and worked the entire time I was there and I am not done with Chapter 1 yet. My brain actually hurt when I left there.
So what is my point? Well for 2 hours I felt sorry for every kid that I hassled about doing their homework on their own. Every time my son said "You don't understand how hard it is." Which I promptly replied "Of course I do, I was in school too you know." Well, I did not know. These kids today are asked to math that we probably never saw before, unless you are my brother in law, Frank who is a scientist at NASA. He has probably seen the math before and he probably still uses is at work. But seriously folks, how many of us are going to be NASA scientists? Not me. So for the next few weeks anyways, I will feel sorry for the kids out there who have to deal with this. I know that in 4-5 weeks my time will be done, but they have to do it for months at a time and are expected to retain that knowledge until they graduate.
So I say hats off to everyone in school who can answer the algebra questions and know what the x,y and z stand for.