Fewer people studying advanced maths.

[TrueTears]

My parents won't let me study any uni maths because: (their views, not mine)
1) They don't think I'm good enough
2) Job opportunities are very limited (the only example they have is teaching)
3) They don't want me to turn out like my physics teacher

haha, true, studying maths alone, well... won't open you to wide opportunities, but when you synergise maths with useful degrees then you have a wide range of job opportunities

Moderator action: removed real name, sorry for the inconvenience

[Gloamglozer]

Maths is fun though!

My parents won't let me study any uni maths because: (their views, not mine)
1) They don't think I'm good enough
2) Job opportunities are very limited (the only example they have is teaching)
3) They don't want me to turn out like my physics teacher

*sighs*  Number 2 & 3.  These are the reasons why maths and stats majors are becoming scarce...  Not because we are "dumb" but because out whole population is still living in the bloody 16th century where all lay people think that all maths/stats majors are teachers...

Clearly they have no idea what the government and ASIO does with maths/stats majors...  And I'm being dead serious here.

Moderator action: removed real name, sorry for the inconvenience

[EvangelionZeta]

Can I just point out that comparing us to South-East Asia is a really bad idea, considering that that entire region is very maths/science dominated?  Seriously, Japan doesn't even have Arts/Humanities degrees per se - the closest things on offer are "Social Science" programs, and even in those you have to do some science, from what I hear.

I'm also wondering about the cause behind the number of maths students; I'm interested as to whether or not it has something to do with the ranking-based system of the VCE (meaning less students are willing to take Specialist or the equivalent, because it's dominated by people who are crazy about maths).  The trickle-down effects of this might in turn explain universities slowly losing maths majors...  Either that, or more maths majors are looking internationally?  Australia's maths in general isn't in a great state at a tertiary level, from what I hear, so it'd make sense that with an increasing awareness for internationally-based education, more people interested in maths are looking at international universities...

And in line with what Gloamglozer said, I think part of the problem is that nobody knows what maths majors do.  That, and perhaps also that mathematics isn't as strongly integrated into Commerce/Economics as it could be.  Make it more obvious that people with strong mathematical skills are in high demand in many corporate places.

[Gloamglozer]

And in line with what Gloamglozer said, I think part of the problem is that nobody knows what maths majors do.  That, and perhaps also make mathematics more strongly integrated into Commerce/Economics or something.  Make it more obvious that people with strong mathematical skills are in high demand in many corporate places.

Exactly.  For example, when you study Accounting, you know that you can be an accountant.  When you study maths, you can be a mathematician, but what does a mathematician do?  And education is the first thing and only thing that springs into people's minds.  The problem is that there are heaps of jobs out there which require mathematicians but their job title isn't labelled exactly as "mathematician" and that is the obscurity and the driving force for people to shy away from maths....  What the hell and where the hell are mathematicians working?  That's why in the Richard Berry (Maths and Stats building) at UoM, they have posters around showing what graduates are doing and what their job involves.

EDIT: 

http://www.news.com.au/national/million-worth-of-outstanding-hecs-means-australia-is-a-nation-of-dunces/story-e6frfkvr-1226218690331

this is worse

In response to that article about Australia being a nation of dunces....  We already are.  Just look at the government. 

[paulsterio]

Thushan, you can't do a Diploma in Science, only a Diploma in Arts and you can't do Maths under a Diploma in Arts

The other option would be to just take Maths units and pay for them

[EvangelionZeta]

Thushan, you can't do a Diploma in Science, only a Diploma in Arts and you can't do Maths under a Diploma in Arts

The other option would be to just take Maths units and pay for them

At ANU maths can be taken as a major in Arts.  Seriously.  :p

[TrueTears]

That, and perhaps also that mathematics isn't as strongly integrated into Commerce/Economics as it could be.  Make it more obvious that people with strong mathematical skills are in high demand in many corporate places.

Cannot agree more!

[dc302]

The article was saying that the problem begins as early as primary school due to teachers not being comfortable with teaching it. This could contribute to the problem (butterfly effect anyone?) but I believe it is probably due to social implications of doing maths. How many people did anyone know in high school that liked maths? In my schools, hardly anyone liked maths. In fact, you were lame and a nerd if you did. Even I hated maths until late high school.

Compare that to 'making money' and 'business'. Sounds so much 'cooler' right? How do you get there? Commerce of course! Maths could easily be more integrated into commerce, but it's entirely unnecessary for the way our businesses work. I'm pretty sure a lot of places hire you for what kind of person you are--the degree is just decorative and they teach you pretty much everything anyway (minus the specialised jobs of course, I'm talking about the standard office job you think of when someone says commerce). Apparently fitting in with your coworkers and boss is also very important--nothing to do with maths or what your degree was.

So in the end, hardly anyone wants to do 'science'. People do science for careers in medicine, allied health, engineering and the like. When people think maths and physics, they think academia and teaching. Which is true, but certainly not all of the truth. I saw a comment on the first article:

Maths is boring -so is science. Secondary school maths is incredibly hard to understand and do you really need advanced maths in today's world? Thanks to technological advances, kids don't even use pen and paper anymore, so they? Maybe more kids these days are using their brains for English and humanities subjects instead.

Technological advances? The person obviously missed the entire point of the article--it is precisely this that WE are trying to achieve, not leave to japan/america or whatever. Unfortunately, this is the attitude of pretty much every single person I know back in high school. Why do science when you never use it in real life. Why not do something that makes more money? etc. I think more than just getting better primary teachers is needed to fix this one.

[Special At Specialist]

[dc302]

The problem is that there are heaps of jobs out there which require mathematicians but their job title isn't labelled exactly as "mathematician" and that is the obscurity and the driving force for people to shy away from maths....  What the hell and where the hell are mathematicians working?

Good question. What do mathematicians do?
All I can think of is:
1. Teacher --- Any subject can become one.
2. Engineer --- Shouldn't require much more than year 10 maths. I mean seriously, how hard is it to determine the rate of flow of water in a pipe, or the downward force of a rectangular skyscraper?
3. Statistician --- Very little maths involved. Just spend 99% of your time collecting information, type it in to microsoft excel and get it to draw a fancy picture for you.

You are very, very wrong with number 2.


edit: ok, someone tells you to make a chair. It has to be able to fold up and be attached to a bench like you commonly see in universities. It has to be able to bare a certain weight. What material are you going to use? What about if I jump on it? Will it last for more than a year? What stresses and forces are there on the various hinges of the chair? You can't just dump a plank of wood on a bar, it folds down so you have to work out the torque, angular forces, the resistances, the stress, what kind of material to use, the safety, how much does it bend, etc. But it's just a bloody chair, yr 10s can probably do it.

[pi]

You are very, very wrong with number 2.

Agree, wtf to that statement... Source please Special At Specialist?

[TrueTears]

3. Statistician --- Very little maths involved. Just spend 99% of your time collecting information, type it in to microsoft excel and get it to draw a fancy picture for you.

although i'm not that much of a fan of stats myself but i can tell u that's very very wrong as well lol

[paulsterio]

Special at Specialist, you're very naive on a lot of things

[dc302]

3. Statistician --- Very little maths involved. Just spend 99% of your time collecting information, type it in to microsoft excel and get it to draw a fancy picture for you.

although i'm not that much of a fan of stats myself but i can tell u that's very very wrong as well lol

Very true. Yr 10 maths? We were learning about standard deviations and how to factorise quadratics weren't we? What about spesh? Oh we learnt how to calculate the forces on a box, but of course the surface has only one type of friction, the forces ALWAYS act on the middle so there's no rotation, the strings are inelastic, blah blah. In uni, spesh is the equivalent probably the lowest level maths you can call tertiary maths, which will seem ridiculously hard to most yr 10s, but is in fact the basics of the basics for all the engineers out there. So basic that they probably wouldn't even get it due to all the oversimplifications. There's a reason why you have to do up to 2nd year level maths, and on top of that another 2-3 years of dedicated subjects for mechanical engineering, or electrical engineering etc. To major in stats you need 8+ math subjects in uni. You can learn whatever you learnt in yr 10 in 1 lecture probably. There are 36 lectures per subject.

[paulsterio]

Also, I'm pretty sure statisticians don't collect information? it's a lot of interpretation work

And even if Excel drew a fancy picture for you, you need understanding to interpret the picture and ultimately predict, which is what I think statistics is about really