Who Needs Math?

After 22 years working as an engineer I went back to school to try for a PhD. My wife and colleagues, fearing that I was too domineering to act like a student, reminded me to be humble around the professors. I figured that humility could be faked. It was relearning math that terrified me.

Engineering students take lots of math courses – geometry, trigonometry, calculus, and differential equations. Those who find math easy romp through those courses. I plodded through them, proving that persistence can often make up for smartness deficiencies.

As most graduating engineers do, I soon discovered that few workplaces actually use advanced math. Many of us never use calculus after graduation. So why did we study calculus? Is it a waste of time?

I didn’t have a good answer to that question until I taught engineering classes. Students without a good grasp of calculus floundered when I taught open channel flow, sediment transport, and numerical modeling. Even if the equations were simple, the concept of representing a continuum by discrete parts baffled them. The instantaneous slope of a curved line (a derivative) drove some students crazy. “There’s not a real line there, it’s just a point!”

Recent research has shown that the brain actually rewires itself in response to studying math and physics, laying down new neural connections that facilitate mathematical understanding. That helps explain what I saw in the classroom and partly explains why engineers tend to see some things differently from non-engineers. (Differently, not necessarily better.)

A knowledge of geometry, algebra, and calculus, and perhaps the brain rewiring, is essential to many concepts in engineering analysis. Open channel flows, foundation design, and stresses on bridge members all require that understanding in order to properly comprehend the physical processes and the equations we use for analysis and design.  

One of my professors said that using an equation you don’t understand is like playing Russian roulette. He was right, I’ve seen too many people blindly apply the wrong equation to a problem because they didn’t understand the math or the physics behind that equation. Grabbing an equation out of a handbook without understanding it can destroy a career.

Math, science, language, and humanities classes can seem like an utter waste of time when we’re trying to get through engineering school, but they are not. They form the underlying structure of ideas and thought processes that we need to be successful in the workplace. So bear down and learn them to be a good engineer.