What if I Fail 9th Grade Math? (Part 4)

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(Continued from the previous three posts.)

the reader replied to my answer:

thank you professor for answering all of my future qustions, but u never answered my old answer though. What happens if i fail math 9 of coruse ill be end up in emath10 whats emath10 (doesn’t sound good though)Like do i get to go to collage but if u can’t answer that qustion ill ask someone else. Heres a qustion for you though what good paying job are there in this world without math like doesn’t require math because u told me everything involes math. but i am asking you to name some jobs thats don’t require math as a requirement. I am asking you all these qustions because i am scared the world might be a different place when i grow up so i am just prepareing for the future.

Professor Homunculus’s reply:

You know, I think your questions are much more interesting than most of the other kids’. They involve real thought about the future.

OK, as far as math 10e is concerned:
Colleges don’t even know what math 10e is. They don’t care how you did in any particular class, as long as you graduate, and can do work.

Every school has a different system for dealing with kids who fail some course. In other words most schools don’t even have math e. They make you repeat a course, or take some other course, (probably similar to math e, but called something else).

So don’t let any teachers scare you about any particular course. Three years down the road it won’t mean anything to anyone, even you.

As far as “can you go to college:”
You can go to college if you can pay for it. That’s the way it works in America. To get into a good school you have to be able to pay for it, and you have to have either had good SAT scores, or good grades, or both. And of course there’s the other traditional American way – you have to know someone, or have an endowment. Can I be so bold as to imagine those are not in your immediate grasp?

Now here’s the deal: If you get really good grades, or do something else good in school (like play sports, although that is a stupid reason for a school to accept you, but hell, it works) then someone else will pay for you. Like the government, or a grant, or the school would want a good student like you so bad that it will let you go there cheap, or free. Some kids will even get paid to go to school.

There are some community colleges that will take any loser. There are more and more of them. Employers know that, and don’t really consider a degree from a community college much, unless it is from one which not every chump can get into.

But you don’t have to fit that mold. If you are just passing everything, I ‘m afraid you will. But if you make up your mind to beat the jerks at their own game, and do some extra work now, so you will get extra benefits later, you can go to a much better college than you ever dreamed.
Even with math 10e. But that means if you are “just going to pass it,” you can fuggetaboutit.

No matter what level you start at, if you show great improvement (by doing better work, extra work, and surprising the idiots who think that only “dumb kids” take math e) you will capture the attention of your teachers, get a reputation for being a good student, and doors will start opening for you.

So, yes, you can definitely get to college in math 10e, under the condition that you make up your mind to do well in it.

By the way, if you find out now what stuff will be in it, I will be glad to coach you, if you let me know the curriculum. Ask a teacher for the curriculum, and which textbook you will be using, and let me know.

Now, as far as what good jobs use no math:
None of them.

Sorry, every job needs some math, and the better the job, the more your logic, reasoning and math skills need to be in order to make decisions and write reports.

There are some decent jobs which may not seem to require much math. Let’s say, for example, secretary.

You can get a job as a low to mediocre paying secretary if your math skills suck. There will definitely be times when you wish you had more math, though.

Besides that, for the high-paying secretarial jobs, you will probably need accounting skills. That means real math.

Waiters and waitresses do better when they are good at math, memorizing prices, figuring tax and tips, (quickly, not just like some dude who sucked in 9th grade math, get it?) adding up bills, dividing bills, etc.

What jobs that are not so great don’t need much math? Let’s see:

1. crack whore
2. dishwasher
3. busboy
4. stock clerk (although sometimes they need math, too)

and that kind of stuff.

3 out of 4 of the above jobs are not too bad to make some money while you are going through college. But they are nothing to aspire to in the long run.
See what I mean?

Through all your questions I hear the same theme running in the background. It’s, “I’m afraid that if I don’t do well I will have no future. And I am afraid that I can’t do well in this.“

OK Part I - You always have a future. It may not always be the one you want.

Part II - It can be a lot closer to the one you want if you realize this:
You can definitely do well in Math 10 e (or whatever it is) and learn enough math to do whatever you need to do to get into college.

I have tutored lots of kids who don’t take their future as seriously as you, and they have made it. You sound like you have better “stuff” than most of them, so I can say from experience that a kid like you can make it. But you have to bite the bullet and decide to do the work. The work isn’t always what you think it will be, and you won’t always get it at first. You can’t give up the first time you think, “this stuff sucks.”

Realize this:
Math makes sense, and math helps you.
If it doesn’t, it’s because either your teacher is an ass, or you are impatient.

You can immediately change about being impatient. Be more patient, listen harder, and then, if your teacher is still an ass, write to me when you don’t get something, OK?

The best of luck to you, and I hope I answered the question this time.

Hotcha!

Professor Homunculus

I’m going to end this series of posts with something I got from the mother of the young man who wrote to me with the questions in this series. After I posted the last post (this one - Part 4), she wrote this to me:

thank you professor you can now goto bed and feel relax because u help one soul and gave it anthor chance =)

And that makes it all worthwhile.

Some days you just feel great! I love readers of “The Math Mojo Chronicles.” Hotcha to all of you!

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