Did you learn Trigonometry in high school?

[exitseven]

Trigonometry was not taught in my high school. When I got to college and took Physics class the prof started writing sin and cos on the board and I looked around expecting everyone else to be looking around going WTF,? Instead they were all writing like crazy. I never did really understand it.

Updates

+1 y

It is unbelievable that I had to go to college so unprepared. In those days they had no screening exams likecthey do today. They just assume you are prepared. I wonder why they never even looked at my transcripts to see that I never had Trig. It really made things a lot more difficult than they had to be.

[midnightmoon05]

Nope…I couldn’t get through algebra. I failed math in HS and had to go to summer school. Was really really embarrassing when all my other Asian friends talk about their AP math. That they did terrible because they got a 99.

so in college, we had a placement entrance exam. I was placed in a remedial math class lol.
I had a Chinese math instructor…my friend and I just laughed our way out of that class because we couldn’t understand her English.

[lightbulb27]

Proof school useless. You very successful.

[exitseven]

@midnightmoon05 Do you find it ironic that you ended up in education?

[midnightmoon05]

Hehehe…I know all the tricks the kids have under their sleeves…lol
Teaching is in my blood and my name sooo…I’m I’m stuck…
I had no idea what I wanted to major in college…I just went with education because it was so easy teaching my little sister.
While as an exchanged student studying in China anround 20… all my Finish friends told me to go into business. I laughed…there is no way I was to complete my degree in education…. well sometimes others can see us better than ourselves.
I love my teaching job and I love my side gig running our business with my family.

[exitseven]

I giggle a little bit when I think about teaching at a local college. I wonder what people would say if they only knew how less than scholarly I was.

[TenderFantasy]

Wow I didn't have to do that lol. You guys are smart! But yeah, I think it was an elective in my college. I tried it out and dropped it lol. Too much pressure. I was also younger then, maybe now I'd be more patient with it, I don't know.

[exitseven]

In college freshman year I had Physics and Calculus that were loaded with trigonometry. I played along with it but never really knew what it was all about

[Red_Arrow]

I took algebra in grade school, then took the other maths in high school, except I did not get calculus until college. Calculus was a bear that really beat me down for a while. I finally conquered it. All the other math was so easy that I did not even take my books home and did my homework while attendance was being taken.

[lightbulb27]

oh man, I had same experience in physics class in college! I was behind, it was taught...

I ovecame and rose to the top. Stress!!

[exitseven]

I never did understand it. I tried to compensate by getting all the other stuff right and just ignoring the stuff that had trig in it since I was not going to understand it anyway. The thing that pissed me off was ibhad to take 4 years of French. All I got out-of it is the ability to order Soup DuJour in a restaurant and being able to read French protest signs.

[lightbulb27]

makes sense, I immediately opened up my high school books to figure out what they never explained. I eventually got it but couldn't explain it now.
College largely a waste of time unless learning a trade. Builds the brain, that's about it.

[midnightmoon05]

Ex.7 come translate for us.

[DubiousIntentions]

No one uses Trig anymore except in aeronautics or space engineering. I don't even use the geometry or algebra I learned in this day and age. It has gone the way of the slide rule. Why would you want to take it?

[exitseven]

I never gave it a thought in high school but when I went to college and took Calculus and physics and advanced courses like field theory I found out that i really needed to know it to be successful. I struggled the whole time literally being one exam away from getting kicked out of the program.

[slatyb]

Algebra and trigonometry haven't gone the way of the slide rule, but a lot of what is taught is unfortunately useless. All that business about conic sections and x and y intercepts is a waste of time. So is solving triangles and proving trigonometric identities. What's useful if one continues in STEM education? Basic arithmetic of functions of variables. The quadratic formula. Numerical methods for finding roots of polynomials. The idea behind solving systems of linear equations. The definitions of the trigonometric functions and how they appear in nature.

[Lliam]

No. Just algebra and geometry in high school. I took pre-calculus and trig at jr. college. Even though I don't care for math, the teacher was an enthusiastic young Asian woman who made it kind of fun. I worked hard at it and got a B. But I never went further with math and never needed it in my life. It was just a prerequisite.

[slatyb]

No, I learned it when I was 9 or 10 from my mother's college text. Thinking about it, I remember what the book looked like. There were tables of trigonometric functions in the appendix because the book was printed before people had scientific calculators.

[andreasderjuengere]

I tried hard - my teachers were not amused :D

Luckily - I know how to ''bypass'' it with geometry... a thing that I 'understand' a lot better.

But all hope is still lost on 'spherical trigonometry' - ... well...

I still can become a flat-earther :D

[TrueConfection]

My story is the same as yours. I was in a college physics class the first time I saw sinus and cosinus.

[exitseven]

What did you do when you saw everyone else taking notes and looking like they knew what was going on?

[TrueConfection]

I pretended I was following along and after the class I must have consulted someone about it. I also signed up for additional math classes and my professor asked me why. I was too embarrassed to tell him the real reason.

[exitseven]

I did not have any options. When I went to see the professor during office hours he ridiculed me for not knowing the stuff. Then he told me to drop out now because I would never be able to graduate.

[TrueConfection]

Yikes
You proved him wrong! 🤓

[slatyb]

@exitseven How ridiculous. There's nothing hard about any of it, no reason to spend three years doing algebra and trig. College students with any aptitude can learn all they need to know over a summer.

[exitseven]

@TrueConfection. No, I ended up dropping out because I was behind on paying tuition. I was just barely passing anyway

[TrueConfection]

That was only temporary.

[AviatorTom]

Yes, Trig was math class in my Junior Year, 11th grade.

[AviatorTom]

My high school math teacher taught us an easy way to remember the Pythagorean theorem, which I still remember today.

In an Indian (it would be Native American today) village, lived three married couples, who wanted to have children. One couple had hippopotamus hide on their bed. The second couple had deerskin hide on their bed, and the third couple had buffalo hide on their bed. Nine months later, the first couple had twins (boy and girl), while the other couples had a boy and girl, respectfully. So, you see...

The squaw of the hippopotamus is equal to the sum of the squaws of the other two hides.

[purplepoppy]

That description is brilliant

[exitseven]

Pretty good mnemonic

[antelope51]

I had it in 10th grade... although everyone else was in 11th grade, so I don't know what the "recommended" year was.

[antelope51]

SOH CAH TOA - Some Old Hippie Caught Another Hippie Tripping On Acid

Probably wasn't the mnemonic the parents wanted for their kids from this particular teacher, but I remember it to this day!

[abc3643]

Yes, trigonometry was required if you wanted a Regents diploma in New York State.

It's actually a rather important aspect of mathematics to know and is useful in so many ways that have nothing to do with what we normally think of as geometry.

For instance, Fourier Series and Fourier Transforms...

[abc3643]

Any STEM subjects that involve signals will require knowledge of trig.

[slatyb]

Fourier transforms -- very useful, not usually taught in high school. I didn't learn DFT until I took a signal processing class. My previous class on linear algebra helped a lot with DFT.

[purplepoppy]

We were taught it but it was just a number crunching exercise and I didn't get a feel for what it was actually for or how to apply it to real world situations.

[musicbrain5]

I did, but I’ll be damned if I remember any of it now.

[Siri137]

Trigonometry is ridiculously easy compared to calculus, at least it was for me anyway. And here's something for you to consider - SOHCAHTOA. :)

[BiSagi83]

My senior year of high school I took a course called Trigonometry & Statistics. Most high schools don't require much beyond Algebra 2. Many don't even require Geometry anymore.

[exitseven]

I hate to think what they don't teach kids today. Nobody can do math and nobody can find Iowa on a map..

[BiSagi83]

The school I teach at requires Algebra 1 and 2 credits of math electives. Now trig and geometry are elective choices but so is foundational math, data analysis, and financial literacy

[chrissykerdock]

i took it and failed it... took it in summer school and failed it again.

[douride2]

I remember taking trigonometry. As for remembering any of it I don't.

[bingbongbangbung]

Yeah I was but I forgot that and other highschool math concepts. Even some middle school stuff I don't remember cause they're useless to me.

[XXblack88]

No, I was in the special ed in high school and didn't learn anything above × and ÷

[Pink2000]

I learned it in middle school. I was home schooled.

[NathanDavis]

it was taught in our high-schools yes... but I learned it at elementary, it wasn't taught there though... but I've been known to be curious always and impatient sometimes, lol

[Daniela1982]

What? It was not taught until high school with me. Right up alongside calculus. They should put it as an elective. Some people probably make more money from taking auto shop or something.

[NathanDavis]

@Daniela1982 well, to be more accurate... our high-school had selective specialties, so I went to the one with a Physics/Mathematics focus, so maybe that's why?

I definitely made my money from business rather than a college degree... lol

[JacobJordan]

No. I had learned trig before I went into 8th grade. Parents insisted. When I reach high-school I was taking college classes.

[normalice]

sort of but we were just taught the properties of triangles not sinusoidal functions.

[Curmudgeon]

I did, thankfully. But I wish we had calculus available, to go one step further.

[OlderAndWiser]

I had trig and calculus in high school. It was a public school in Florida.

[love_conquers_lust]

Yes. I believe it was introduced with Geometry my freshman year and then delved into in PreCalculus my junior year.

[msc545]

In Junior High I learned it.

[exitseven]

Well, aren't you special

[msc545]

No. Everyone I knew had this.

[Daniela1982]

Where the hell in California did you live? We didn't get to that stuff until high school. We did have geometry though. And here I thought Orange County schools were more advanced. :(

[msc545]

@Daniela1982 I lived in Marin just north of SF, and I went to a private school.

[Daniela1982]

That explains it. Private schools have it over public schools any day.

[msc545]

@Daniela1982 Yes, they do.

[Paul09]

Haha I don't even know what it is. But I do know I hate math. Higher math is so complex for nothing. And don't use it in life.

[RebelinSteel]

Yes both Trig and Calculus

[Sparkie460]

No we didn't learn it. It wasn't an option

[Worst]

Yeah, I learn it in trades school aswell

[DizzyDesii]

I had enough creds to skip it

[Cutegirl06]

We've been taught that in high school.

[Apple1996]

Yes I think in 11th grade

[LaFemmeFatale_1]

Sure, I did.

[Jamie05rhs]

Yes; I did.

[jaskin777]

Never been to high-school.

[collie22]

Nope. .

[Al_Musafir]

Yes. Plenty of it.

[stranger_girll]

Yess