[analog31]

I wonder if people would be better off learning an appropriate amount of calculus and statistics by simulation, rather than by derivation and proof. You can learn a lot with a random number generator, or by breaking a function into little increments and adding things up. Doing it this way might also reinforce the students' programming skills, or gently expose non-programmers to a little bit of programming.

I love derivations and proofs, and majored in math, but they are a deterrent to most people, and unrelated to their jobs like you say. I work for a company whose products are particularly mathematical, yet only a tiny handful of programmers (mostly the ones with science backgrounds) deal with the math related stuff.

Most engineers finish college, start their first jobs, and immediately become so busy with CAD and bureaucracy, that they forget all of their math and theory.

I think another problem is: What to do with kids who want to become programmers, and have been told that they must get a college degree in something, but programming doesn't really require 4 years of college study. Many of those kids major in Computer Science, which many people have pointed out, is not the same as programming. But selective admission into Computer Science programs becomes self fulfilling in terms of the demand to get into those programs. I took a different route, which was to major in math and physics. And I ended up doing something other than programming for my career, but that's OK too.