Meh they mean something,
and over a large group they do make a difference to earnings and "sucess".
But they're weird, because most of the stuff I do at the moment is maths and stats I would consider below A-level stuff, and the stuff I do that isn't is so specialised I wouldn't be able to learn that in school.
(PsychoChomp, Thu 18 Aug 2011, 10:51, 1 reply, 14 years ago)

strangely, I got a D in Maths at A level
and yet was considerably better at it than most of my uni coursemates who all got As.

As far as engineering goes the Maths A level I did was actually a solid base for what we went on to do at uni, and I still use a fair amount of it.
( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Thu 18 Aug 2011, 10:53, Reply)

I think that's it, you have to know a large amount of crap in maths
but you'll use a specific part of maths in work. I wouldn't do any mechanics or physics in my job.
(PsychoChomp, Thu 18 Aug 2011, 10:57, Reply)

I use more stats than I thought I would
not a great deal still.

More of what I use is things like partial differentials and finite difference and finite element, that sort of stuff.
( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Thu 18 Aug 2011, 10:58, Reply)

Most places in any industry run on stats
but no one understands them, which slightly annoys me but fuck it, if people did understand them I'd have to do an actual job.
(PsychoChomp, Thu 18 Aug 2011, 11:03, Reply)

good attitude

( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Thu 18 Aug 2011, 11:11, Reply)