Math class, like any other subject, can pose certain cringe-worthy moments and unnecessary challenges for students and instructors alike. However, unlike the other classes, there are more specific issues associated with this fundamental discipline. Such inconveniences may include:

1. No matter how confident you are in solving the problem, you might be wrong.

When I took business calculus and statistical methods within the same semester (I must’ve had a death wish), showing your work and steps were absolutely fundamental practices to being successful in these online (again, death wish) courses. During tutoring services (fortunately they were free), my tutors gave me a plenitude of grief for not showing my steps and jumping straight to the answers.

As someone that was majoring in business at the time, I adopted the mindset of getting straight to the point and cutting out unnecessary details. Well, as I deducted through countless errors in both courses, barely making passing marks (a B and C), I learned the hard way that I needed to be more systematic.

Even with adopting a more systematic approach to any math course, from Intermediate Algebra to Differential Equations, there’s always room for potential error. For those in complex math courses, this is especially applicable, as students sift through seemingly endless pages of formulae and methods to figure out where they went wrong.

In case being, the lab software provided with the course might be useful; however, what if that fails, too?

2. The lab software is a pain.

Whether using Pearson’s MyMathLab, or Cengage Learning, you can all agree that the lab software is far from perfect. A prime example is when you know, for a fact, that the answer to the problem you worked through is the exact one (or maybe you looked up the answer). You enter that exact answer, and the module rejects the answer on all tries, only to give you the same answer that you solved or found.

Depending on the instructor, the study guides for exams may be in:

A) The lab portion of the course.

B) In a handout on campus.

OR

C) Within the learning management system for an online course.

If your study guide is within portion A, then get ready for a roller coaster of curse words and contemplation of life’s choices.

When using MyStatLab, the study guide was treated like an actual quiz or test, in which the wrong answers didn’t show until the end of the assessment. With working nearly full-time hours and having a full-time student load for the semester, there was no time for me to even think of taking the entire assessment. With the time constraint, my exam grades suffered consequentially.

When the lab software bugs out, it’s not the end of the world. Hopefully, you manage to finish up those last-minute assignments, and push through with the half-effort solutions until the end of the course, which reminds me:

3. You may never see math again.

Unless you’re in business, engineering, the sciences, or are a purely math major (goodbye to your sanity), you might never see another calculus or algebra problem again unless it’s for your future child’s homework (at which point, you’ll both cry). Less quantitative majors, from anything in the humanities to communications, arts, and beyond, have no demand for math in exception to the occasional arithmetic (back to primary school, everybody).

In summary, math is necessary (mostly), and is part of the core curriculum that all of us must suffer through. Though math may be the governing logic behind the laws of sciences, it is also the governing pain to our backsides.