Mathematics - I was a retard in school, so I need to do one module of University level maths to continue to second year CS. But the same thoughts still hit me - what is the point in Mathematics? Is it any use?
Well, I'm tempted to say both yes and no. Applied Mathematics may be useful in solving real-world problems, but just about everything else isn't. Maths doesn't exist as such - it's just a set of rules made up by people over the past few thousand years, and exists only in time and space. If it doesn't exist in the real world, I can't grasp it. So I just don't see the point - Maths seems to be a means of getting to the next level rather than something which is genuinely useful, interesting, or based in material fact.
I'd say about 75% of everything you would learn is both useless and overcomplicated. The ONLY time you'll see 100% usefulness is if you're a professional mathematician, working in a University (School teachers never teach anything as advanced as that). I mean, who really needs to be able to solve a trigonometric equation? Real-world application? Nobody and nothing are the two answers you're looking for. Trig graphs? Bollocks. Inequalities? Say what? Fourier series? Now you're pushing it.
I can handle computer science fine, there really is very little Maths involved, but having to jump through such pointless hoops to get there REALLY ticks me off. Especially when you spend hours and hours of struggle and it's always wrong. Struggle continually, hit the exam, fail, and the merry-go-round completes another revolution.
God, I pity Maths students, wasting 3-4, sometimes 5 years proving things which don't exist and that they will never use ever again after graduation. Chances are they'll be sucked into the arms of a financial juggernaut (like most of us) and spend the rest of their lives using the bare minimum in terms of what they have learnt. Pointless.
Gah. Better stop ranting, and try and get something done. And yes, the cracks are beginning to show, my state of mind has gone splat.
You are misunderstanding the tool. By itself, a tool is useless if you don't need it. The whole point of math is that you may need it where you don't expect it. I don't solve trig equations very often, but I had fairly complex trig code in the scanner driver I did 2 years ago. Trig graphs helped me to do it right. Fourier series leads to Fourier transforms (and fast Fourier transform), and this is a tool that is extensively used in image manipulation algorithms (as well as in signal treatments algorithms). Nearly every math stuff I learnt when I was still a student was needed at one point of my short career ;) - and I often miss the thing that I don't remember.
You still have to learn about algorithms, language parsing, compression, logic, game theory, and a lot of other CS stuff - and most of them involve a lot of math, so take care [smile]. CS is filled with math.