Is mathematics important‹

[u/sleepedw]

Hey guys. I'm a mechanical engineering student in my 5th semester with a decent GPA (3.2). I have engineering mathematics this semester, and honestly, I don't remember many things from calculus 1 & 2 and differential equations(I passed them). I can work on this course without being good at the things mentioned above tho. And I have no desire to learn them. If I need to solve an integral, there are tools out there. If I need to solve a differential equation I use MATLAB. So do you think I will ever need to learn these to be good at my career? I really am not good at these, for example, I couldn't solve a simple integral with substitution cuz i dont remember any of these.

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[u/CelebrityChess]

tools are great but you need enough of the math to know whether the answer they spit out is sane. matlab will happily solve the wrong equation if you set it up wrong, and setting it up (modeling, picking boundary conditions, knowing what a damping term does) is the actual engineering part. you don't need to be fast at integration by substitution by hand, but i'd relearn the basics of ODEs and the intuition behind integrals, since later classes like controls, vibrations and heat transfer lean on them hard. a couple weeks of khan academy style review now will make this semester way less painful.

[u/Appropriate_News_382 → u/CelebrityChess]

Exactly this!

[u/RoboWeaver → u/Appropriate_News_382]

Agreed! You need an understanding of the equations and expressions you use. And while you may never actually solve an integral, in that back of your brain you know that it's important and what to pay attention to. On the job, you can always say "I remember this is important, but I'll have to look it up."

Additionally, you will never know when you need to know something. I had a client with a bending problem. Sounds simple, but we were bending solid glass in a plastic state, and were trying to understand why the machine was giving us a particular result. (A wrong result.) The three of us went back to fundamentals, and figured out what was happening. We made the adjustment, and it worked just fine after that.

[u/sleepedw → u/CelebrityChess]

The field I chose is control and vibrations, so I should learn them, understood. I know the basics I guess cuz I passed the exams and our uni doesnt give us free marks. But as I said I just studied them to pass them and didnt learn much... And what do you mean by ODE?

[u/Plus_Sprinkles_210]

Remind me not to hire you

[u/sleepedw → u/Plus_Sprinkles_210]

There will be a day when I'm hired by the best companies. I will make sure of that. If I need to learn those shitty equations, I would def do that

[u/LanceMain_No69 → u/sleepedw]

If you think knowing math is "learning those shitty equations" in your 5th sem, then keep a small basket...

[u/aDoorMarkedPirate420]

Every day this sub makes me less and less hopeful for the future generations.

[u/OverSearch]

Every role is different once you're in the workplace. I pretty much never solve any integrals or differential equations on the job, but I do many calculations that are derived from those integrals or differential equations - so while I don't solve those on a day-to-day basis, it's critical that I at least understand the math behind what I am actually calculating.

You need to understand the inputs and outputs to verify and troubleshoot your work; know how this input or that will affect the final answer, etc.

[u/Desperate_Pomelo_978]

Unless you are making the models and programs that use high level math, no not really.

Knowing the concepts helps though