As a mathematics major, I get approached a lot about the subject. Whether it is good or bad, everybody seems to have an opinion about the major and my involvement in it. These are just a few of the things I, and many others in the major, are sick of people saying to us.

1. "Ewww! How can you like something so terrible?"

I get it. Mathematics isn't for everybody and, like all subjects, there will be those who find it terrible. They may think it's boring, hard, or unnecessary. However, I didn't ask your opinion on the matter. I don't go up to art majors and call their major a hobby. I don't go up to social psychologists and equate them to sociologists. Don't come up to me and insult me and my passions.

2. "Can you help me in math?"

Why are you asking me? Get someone who actually wants teach to help you. Now, I don't have a problem with the occasional help, but I have been asked by complete strangers if I can tutor them in the subject simply because I happen to enjoy it enough to major in it. No, I do not want to help you relearn precalculus after you slept through it the first time, especially since calculus has saved me from having to retain that unnecessary trite.

3. "What's 48 x 154?"

Do I look like your calculator?

4. "Wow, you must be smart!"

We all have something we're good at. Just because I like math doesn't make me smarter than anybody else. In fact, I have met political science majors and art majors that can wipe the floor with me in most things in life, even in economics.

5. "Math is so unnecessary!"

Algebra is incredibly necessary to our daily lives. However, yes, the average person does not need calculus. The important thing to note, though, is that higher level math isn't for the average person. It is for the scientists. It is for the engineers. It is for... not you, basically.