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So you are probably asking this question after seeing how much you are struggling at calculus. Many have asked this question before after getting a low or fail mark at math in university. The thing is, those same people went to do amazing things and become successful engineers. So the real question is, how much calculus you learn at university that you will use as an engineer? How can I Imporve my math skills? And can I still be an engineer even if I am bad at math?
As a whole, math plays a significant part in your career as an engineer, and to some degree, almost every position will require you to use some complex math. However, not all engineering jobs are equal, which means that not all of them will require you to use math extensively unless you work in engineering design or R&D. Most of your math calculations will mostly require high school level math with some trigonometry.
The thing that you have to understand is that university is preparing you to be an engineer. Despite what you want to get into after graduation, you still need a reasonable background in limits, functions, derivatives, integrals, and infinite series. Calculus does not measure your ability to be an engineer, but it is one of those things that you must be familiar with to some degree. So now you might ask how much of that learning you will end up using day to day as an engineer?
How much of calculus that you will use as an Engineer?
Unless your job is to develop Engineering Standards, R&D, design, engineering software, laboratory, Academic, then a good background in calculus is essential. However, most jobs will not require you to do some complex matrices, integration or differentiation. Instead, you will mostly rely on engineering programs to do all the complex calculations for you.
Math is not everything about engineering. Imagination and creative thinking play a role. But still, simple math calculations are required. The good thing is you have your calculator and excel in helping you through. Find a good scientific calculator that can do trigonometry functions, simple integrations and few other functions.
Trigonometry is good to have as it is needed in many engineering jobs and will likely to use many times throughout your career. Excel is engineers’ favourite tool as it offers everything you need with the ability to copy your formulas across multiple cells. Try to learn as many excel functions as you can and use them to your advantage. It will eliminate that hassle and confusion and present your calculations in a simple way.
Therefore, you will probably not use everything you learned in calculus as an engineer, but universities will teach you everything regardless. Even if you forget how to calculate something using those functions, knowing the practical applications is more important than solving the question yourself.
For example, at university, I studied partial differentiation. Do I still know how to partially differentiate? Definitely No, but I do know the practical application of partial differentiation. I know that modelling finite element analysis software analyse structures using partial differential equations. Will I ever need to re-learn how to do partial differentiation? Probably No, but it is good to understand how the software does it.
I am trying to say that there are many great tools today that do the calculus heavy lifting for you. It is good to know how those programs use those functions, so you do not need to do it yourself. You can focus more on being an engineer than worrying about some calculus.
However, say that your job depends on math or you are struggling so much that you need serious help, then read the next section.
What to do if you are bad at math but want to be an engineer
Here are three things you can do today to be good at math:
Do not let it stand in your way
Do not let some math get in the way of you being creative and problem solver. Most of your work will involve effective communication and collaboration. The math you do is only a small part of your job, so do not let it get in your path. Let your passion drive you to be an engineer, even if that means that you have to suck it up for some math. So power through it and focus on your work first and use as many tools as possible to make math easy to do.
Study to the problem, not to the tool
At university, you are usually swamped with new topics to study for exams and assignments that you almost have no time to think of the usefulness of the subjects you learn. Especially as an engineering student, the complexity of some things will usually overwhelm you and make you think of the solution (How to solve?) more than the application (Why do I need to solve it?).
Many struggles with the same issue. Academics like to spend 80% of the time teaching you how to learn and use something and only 20% on the practical use of that thing and why you are learning this. To elaborate, matrices is one of the most hated math topics as it is probably in the top 5 worst math topics to study as an engineering student. However, matrices are quite useful if you learn why you use them in practical engineering applications.
Ever since I learned how to use them as an engineer, I started solving numerous simultaneous equations using excel. Do you learn that in calculus? No. Does your teacher tell you why you need to use it? Probably yes, but you are too fixated on how to solve matrices that you forget all about why you solve. That is why you should focus first on learning the application of the tool first.
Elon Musk does not have a degree in aerodynamics engineering, yet he made rockets land on a drone ship in the middle of the ocean because he studied to the problem (The why), not the tool (The How). Therefore, when you struggle at something, try to understand how learning this problem will serve you as an engineer—thinking that why will make your learning far more engaging than just studying as per the subject outline.
Improve your math skills
If you want to imporve your math skills, you need to understand few things:
- There is a logic behind math which means that there is a logical solution to the problem. If it does not make sense, then go back to the basics.
- There is more than one way to solve a question. Learning the different ways to solve questions will make you more aware of the practicality of math.
- Use a good calculator to help you with math that can store answers and use some complex functions. Excel is also a great tool to help. Therefore, get better at using those tools, and you will quickly become better at math.
Learn more and imporve your math skills further by reading this post How To Be Good At Math?
The Bottom Line
So can I be an engineer if I am bad at math? Simple answer, yes, but you got to have some basic knowledge of math. If your problem is that you just hate math, then you might have to suck it up and work hard on yourself. For you, it might be one of those things that you will never be okay with, so try to use tools to mask your bad math and do not let it get in the way of your success.
Luckily, today there are programs that do all the hard work for you; you need to learn how to operate them and use them to your advantage. Therefore spending time to learn why you need to use some math function as an engineer is probably more important than learning how to solve it yourself. You will become more aware of why you need calculus and make your study far more engaging.
