• Question: when you were at school were you good at maths?

    Asked by anon-215770 to Laura, Kathryn, Ian, Chris, Bogdana, Alex on 13 Jun 2019.
    • Photo: Ian Cookson

      Ian Cookson answered on 13 Jun 2019:

      Yes I guess I was. I got an A at GCSE then started Maths A-level although that was REALLY hard so I ended up doing an A/S level and got an A.

    • Photo: Chris Fullwood

      Chris Fullwood answered on 13 Jun 2019:

      I was terrible at maths, my Dad would always try to explain things to me but I’d get very frustrated because I just didn’t understand it. I’m a bit better now but it’s still not my strong suit. I’m definitely more of a right brain person

    • Photo: Alex Lloyd

      Alex Lloyd answered on 13 Jun 2019:

      I was okay at maths, I got an A at GCSE but didn’t want to do it after that! I took Biology, History and English Literature at A level instead.

    • Photo: Bogdana Huma

      Bogdana Huma answered on 13 Jun 2019:

      I was doing okay in maths in school, but I never really enjoyed it. I remember my parents being a bit disappointed when I told them I wanted to study psychology because they had hoped that I would go do engineering (based on the fact that I had good grades in maths). It took me a while to convince them that psychology was my passion, but since they realised that they’ve always been supportive of me all the way through my PhD.

    • Photo: Laura Fisk

      Laura Fisk answered on 13 Jun 2019:

      I found it really difficult. Some people seem to find it relatively easy – numbers just ‘click’ in their minds. I had to work quite hard to make it make sense. But in fact, I think that’s what eventually worked for me – I remember doing loads of statistical maths problems by hand (lots of columns of numbers) and once I did that I realised what the equations were actually doing, and more importantly, why – and this helped me understand it all. I did get an A* in maths – but that was after I was disappointed with getting 12% in a test and deciding I wanted to get to grips with it.

    • Photo: Kathryn Atherton

      Kathryn Atherton answered on 14 Jun 2019:

      I think that’s very subjective. I think it’s common for people to think they’re either a maths person or they’re not, but that’s not really accurate and it’s harmful (because it means that people who think they’re not a maths person don’t try and that *makes* it true). As Laura says, maths, like everything else, is something that people can get better at through effort (kudos, Laura!)

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