Dr. Vince M. Bertram - Dream Differently: Candid Advice for Americas Students

Copyright 2017 by Dr. Vince M. Bertram

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First ebook edition 2017: ISBN 978-1-62157-693-8

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Contents

Table of Contents

A young man I work with once told me a story about how he was taught in high school. One day in my high school trigonometry class, a fellow student asked our teacher, Ms. Winston, why do we need to learn this? She thought for a moment and replied, In case you become a high school math teacher.

You may have had a similar experience, sitting in your trigonometry or biology or chemistry class and wondering, When will I ever use this? Despite what your annoyed teacher might say, its a fair question. Teachers should be able to tell students why they study certain subjects, although I dont suggest putting them on the spot in the middle of a lesson. And, no, its not just in case you become a teacher yourself one day.

Another common answerbecause it will make you an educated personis equally unsatisfying. Certainly you want to be an educated person, but as you look around, you see plenty of educated people who never use trig, or calculus, or chemistry at all. Whatever they might have learned about those subjects during school, theyve certainly forgotten by now.

True, there are thousands upon thousands of jobs you could get that will never ever ask you to do long division, much less algebra or calculus. There are thousands upon thousands of jobs that will never test your knowledge of circuit breakers or chemical compositions. There are thousands upon thousands of jobs that will never ask you to know a single line of computer code or decipher reams of raw data.

And yet, according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers, engineering and math fields dominate the list of college majors that employers are looking for in job applicants. Finance and accounting ranked No. 1 and No. 2, followed by computer science (No. 3), mechanical engineering (No. 4), business administration (No. 5), electrical engineering (No. 6), and information sciences and systems (No. 7).

And not only thatthese careers are also among the best for making a difference in the world, whether you dream of reviving the space program, curing cancer, addressing climate change, or designing the next-generation Apple Watch.

Want to be a game developer? Youll need to understand trigonometry.

Want to be an engineer, architect, health care professional, or even a musician? Many careers in those fields use trigonometry on a regular basis.

But you may not know that, because the way many U.S. high schools approach subjects like trigonometry focuses more on the calculations than on the applications. Too often, we tell students like you that youll need to know trigonometry if you become a high school math teacher, or because its going to be on the test, which we demonstrate by teaching rigid lessons on sine, cosine, and tangent formulas.

Although there are a host of reasons we approach education this way, it ultimately does a great disservice to students because it fails to help them develop a real appreciation for how subjects like trig apply to the real world. In all of the professions mentioned above, its almost always more important to understand the principles of trigand what their use can tell you about the worldthan it is to know the equations by heart or to be able to calculate them in your head. Thats what calculators are for.

In fact, its increasingly important for job seekers to have at least a basic understanding of trigonometry and other science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields. By 2018, jobs in STEM fields are expected to grow at a rate nearly double those of other fields17 percent versus 9.8 percent. An estimated 1.2 million STEM jobs will go unfilled because the workforce will not possess the skills to fill them.

My purpose is not to push you towards a STEM career. For reasons well get into later, I believe that having a firm foundation in STEM subjects is just a smart thing to do. But you may have different dreams, and I dont intend to dissuade you from pursuing them.

What I do intend to do is provide you with information, perspective, and a few questions that, if answered honestly, will help you plot out an educational and career pathway that will help you achieve your dreams.

This is a book about college, but were not going to talk about college just yet. Instead, were going to talk about dreamsspecifically, your dreams. Think back to when you were youngaround eight or nineand an adult asked you, What do you want to be when you grow up?

Do you remember your answer? If youre like most people, whatever you thought you wanted to be when you were eight or nine has likely changed. With age comes wisdom, and youre now wise enough to know that your childhood dream of being Batman was a bit misguided. So, how would you answer the question today? What do you want to be when you grow up? What do you want to do with your life?

If you dont know how you would answer that question, keep reading!

If you do know what you want to do with your life, congratulations! Youre already a step ahead of many of your peers. But the questions get more difficult from here. How confident are you that your current career goals, ambitions, and desires are more attainable than your earlier dreams? Do you have a plan to make your dreams a reality?

Theres no right or wrong answer here. Im not telling you that your dreams are wrong or misguided. But I want you to think about them in a serious way, because Im going to guess no one has really asked you to before. In fact, my guess is that much of what youve heard from teachers, counselors, and speakers comes down to some variation of Follow your dreams. I should know, because I work with young adults like you every day.

Follow your dreams is a nice sentiment, butjust like the traditional answers to questions like why must we learn this?it does you a great disservice because it fails to challenge you to examine your dreams and develop a plan for achieving them. My goal for this book is to get you thinking about how to follow your dreams in a smart way, whether you dream of becoming a superstar mathematician or superstar athlete.