The most common question asked by kids who don’t want to learn math anymore is one you’ve probably heard if you’ve ever spent time with kids learning math: When am I ever going to use this? It’s a question that feels incredibly honest and difficult to answer, especially when you get into algebra and wonder, “when am I ever going to need to solve for x?” or “when will I ever need to graph this (seemingly) random equation?” The answer is complicated, but boils down to “both never, and always.” You’re never going to be given an equation and told “please graph this.” But in nearly every profession, there are statistics and data that you’ll need to understand in order to be able to do your job. There are graphs you’ll need to interpret, and outside factors that apply to your field that you’ll need to take into account if you want to succeed. All that being said, here is a list of jobs that kids often say they want to do where they will need an understanding of math in order to succeed.
1. Professional Athlete
A professional athlete often makes their entire lifetime salary in just ten years or so. Rather than working their entire life and spreading the money out over that time, they have to make a lifetime’s worth of money during the years they are in their “prime,” and capable of performing the duties of the high-stakes physical profession they are in. You may not think someone who makes millions of dollars every year will need to understand money, but once they’ve retired, usually at a fairly early age, they need to know what to do with their money to make it last. Understanding investments, rates of interest, annual budgets, mystery costs (there’s our friend ‘x’ again), and a lifetime of expenditures requires an understanding of mathematics.
2. Writer
This one is very real to me. If you couldn’t tell by the fact that you’re reading something that I wrote, I am a writer. I make a decent percentage of my income from writing, sometimes articles like this one or for other websites, and sometimes novels and screenplays. I also am one of the many, many writers in the world who cannot (yet) afford to make my entire living off of writing alone. So this means that I have a few other jobs, all of which pay me different rates, and all of which pay me at different times and in different increments. In order to manage a budget and make sure that I’m making enough to pay my bills every month, I need to have a lot of understanding of math to prepare and plan my life accordingly.
3. Entrepreneur
Growing in popularity these days is kids who say they want to start their own businesses, be their own boss, or make a difference in the world. This applies to tech startups, non-profit organizations, charities, foundations, franchise ownership, restaurants, and any other type of business in the world. If you want to own a business, you need to understand math. There isn’t a business out there that doesn’t run on money, and money is far more complicated than just addition and subtraction. Once you involve interest rates, forms of passive income, annual budgets, salaries, employees, insurance, and simply following all the laws to start a business, there’s more math than any child has ever imagined.
4. Artist (of any kind)
I’m talking about singers, performers, actors, filmmakers, painters, poets, musicians, or anything you can think of. This goes back to what I wrote about being a writer. Most artists do not make their full income from one job alone. They have to have lots of jobs. Even if they get lucky, and all of their jobs involve their field of choice, they’re still going to be doing it one job at a time. Being an artist means constantly looking for work, filling out employment paperwork hundreds of times, and at the end of any given year, possibly hundreds of W2s. It takes knowledge of math to make the budget work, to pay the bills, and to stay alive.
5. Astronaut
This is still a common and persistent goal amongst young people. They dream of going to space and exploring the cosmos. Thankfully, we live in a world where this is an achievable goal. What people don’t think about is that, even though NASA has an entire team of scientists and mathematicians on the ground during a launch, sometimes things go wrong. It only takes watching Apollo 13 or The Martian once to know that communication can be lost, and when that happens, you have to know a lot about math and science in order to restore communication, work to stay alive, and make your way home. Not to mention the fact that even if everything is going perfectly, you still have to understand what’s going on, and nobody is going to hire you at NASA or send you to space if you don’t know how to solve an integral.
6. Literally Any Job
I’m being a bit cheeky at this point, obviously, but it’s true. There’s no job in the world that doesn’t involve some amount of mathematical skill. And even when the algebra doesn’t seem like it applies, it’s actually teaching extremely valuable skills including attentiveness and deep thought.
The next time your child complains about doing math, or asks that ever-present question, “When am I ever going to use this?” you have your answer: “Always.” “At work.” “In any job you decide to do.” If you’re working with tech, with money, with people, whether you’re developing video games, training horses, or teaching, you’re using math. It may not feel like it applies now, but it does. I assure you, as I’m sure all adults assure you, you need to know this.
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