Well, I am officially on track to complete my degrees. I have started to take the core classes needed to complete both the Math and Information Management degree. I started out just wanting the math degree. But after completing all of the lower level requirements in English, social science, physical science and humanities, the only upper level electives I wanted to take (of the available) were computer management classes. My academic adviser was kind enough to point out to me that if I used computer management classes to complete all the upper level electives, I would only be a few classes away from a dual degree.
Which is good. I am often asked what degree I am pursuing. When I say ‘Math’, there is always a long pause. I am never sure if that is because I am a woman or the math degree. Now, I can say computer management, and everyone understands that. After all, computers may be annoying, but they are useful machines.
I have never understood why the myth regarding women and math started, let alone how it continues to exist. I look at what we, women, do on a daily basis and I see math at every step of the day. It might be that I am just geared towards seeing math, but it is there. My noticing it does not diminish or increase that presence.
My day technically starts at 5:40 a.m. It’s a good thing I am a morning person. Even so, while half asleep, I calculate, on a regular basis, just how many times I can hit that snooze bar before I absolutely have to get up. It’s a common human behavior, I think. Somewhere, on a cave painting, we will find a scratched out image of a cave woman throwing a stone at the early morning bird.
On my way to work, I glance at the gas gauge. Once again, a calculation: do I have enough fuel to reach my destination? My day is filled with either Boolean logical decisions (yes or no possibilities) or a series of if-then-else conditional decision making.
On the way home, I pick up groceries. My decisions are based upon: 1) the likes of my family; 2) the current contents of my pantry; 3) my monetary budget. The first two criteria are amazingly similar to a database, which is an organized arrangement of related data. They also consist of a concept known as a Venn diagram. A Venn diagram is a picture of two sets of data and how they relate to each other. Draw a circle and put in that circle all of the food that person A likes. Now, draw another circle, slightly overlapping the first. In the second circle, list all of the food that person B likes. In the space occupied by both circles, list the food that person A and person B likes. That small space contains my potential grocery list. Now, remove any item from that list which contains a dish made of ingredients already in my pantry. Probably nothing has changed, otherwise I would not be grocery shopping.
(A good example of a Venn diagram:
Yes, I own the t-shirt.)
Explaining the budgeting in mathematical terms is easy enough. Most people realize that topics regarding money have the potential to be explained in mathematical concepts. However, when you factor in time….In other words, is my time worth more tonight and I buy frozen lasagna or is my money worth more and I purchase all the ingredients for chicken stir-fry?
We use math every day. Women use math every day. We have just been brainwashed to believe that we do not. At this point, I am not sure which is worse: that we believe the lie or we allow it to continue to exist.
