Question: Do I Need to be Good at Math to go Into IT?

I really like to watch your videos.I like computers technology and programming.In the future I would like to get IT degree but I not a math genius.I don't know is worth it to overcome math problem or find something else ?

-Darfill

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[samisaacvicliph]

I clicked on that like button as soon as you said, "I suck at math too!"

[李振藩-cx]

I barely survive math in university(despite being asian). But hey! I started as Desktop support>System Admin>Network engineer>Network Security> Cyber Security Architect.

[ibenzawla]

Thanks for the clarifications. This is a real issue that many of us are facing. We love computers and would like to build up a career around it but we are seriously concerned about math. Your video has clarified this issue for me like not other and so thanks a lot for that. 

[dsinghr]

I am 9 years exp guy working in IT as database developer. I have been doing programming in UNIX, Oralce PL/SQL & Teradata SPs & Java. Let me clear one thing here.. ONLY 10-20% of folks working in IT are actually involved in programming. Rest are either working on support projects OR maintenance kind of assignment where you need to go through code and you should understand it so that you can modify someone else's code and fix the issue OR to implement new functionality. In my career, I saw very few oppurtunity where you get a chance to develop a complete application or major part of it alone. So don't worry, support part is very easy, maintenance part if fun and if you get CORE development, it will be very much fun. And it is more like an Art, the more projects you work on, more implementations you see, better you get on how things are built. Just to give my own example, I was an average student in my high school and engineering. But I am doing ok in my core development projects in IT. I believe if you really have interest in technology, that should be enough to get you through. You don't really need to be a genius unless you want to work in product development (which requires a bit more creativity).

[tonyrk]

Math is taught in general by academics, who are not necessarily good communicators/teachers. As a result, many of us emerged from school believing we had little or less logical/mathmatical intelligence than others. This is not necessarily the case. I almost flunked Math in school but when I hit university I scored high 70's for accountancyand financial planning. The key was a great lecturer.

[atilacorreia]

It's interesting to listen to other people's experience like yours. I have 17 years of software development experience and I've done mobile, embed, enterprise and games and I can tell that I had to do a lot of math in mobile and games and a little to none in embed and enterprise applications.

[justinl]

Most people have false perception of math. Most people think it's about solving arithmetic or number crunching, but in reality it teaches you fundamental problem solving skills, knowing how to breakup problems and solve them in a systematic way, also it teaches you discipline and curiosity which are crucial to any fields you want to get into. In upper year math courses, you rarely do any arithmetic others than basic adding 1+1=2, most of your time will be spent doing proof, manipulating sequences and matrices which are the core of computer science.

[mardion]

Thanks Eli. I am planning to study I.T as my second degree and I sucked at math really bad. So this video has helped me abit and gave me abit of confidence to persue studying in I.T next school year. Def worth a sub. Thank you sir.

[reggieangus]

If you're talking about IT, you need a good grasp of basic algebra, but nothing really advanced.

For Computer Science, you need a very good understanding of algebra, discrete math, calculus, some geometry.

For programming, you need a good understanding of algebra, this is a must.  If you want to become a better programmer you need to know discrete math, calculus, geometry for algorithms.


Case in point: There is NO WAY around math. Whether you're good or bad at it, it is the driving force of the computer industry. If you hate math, you still need a good grasp of basic algebra because you will be using it all the time.

[doorhammer]

Full stack C# dev. I don't have a comp sci degree. My two cents: I don't really *need* math, but the more I've learned, the more useful I've been able to make myself. I do enterprise dev, ymmv

For general programming, having a basic understanding of Big O Complexity is good for picking the right data structures and algorithms (that someone else probably made), but you don't necessarily need to know it inside and out. This could be the difference between your loop running in two minutes or 20ms.

After that, I'd personally suggest entry levels stats and probability. Your ability to deal with numbers and reporting meaningfully will skyrocket.

Algebraic manipulations are handy; if you get an equation that's messy to deal with, sometimes you can make it way nicer to implement by rearranging it. (I've done this when dealing with all kinds of metrics we track)

Last, every time I learn more about any kind of optimization, I find a practical place to use it. So far for me this is linear programming and graph theory. Graph theory is especially interesting because it doesn't take advanced math background to start with, and it covers a wide range of problems.

For a lot of this stuff it's been about knowing enough of the math to know where it's appropriate to use it to solve a problem, then using someone else's battle tested library to do the heavy lifting. Of course, the more of the nitty gritty you know, the better you'll be able to apply it, but you can get use out of it pretty quickly. I got a full time job without knowing basically any of that, and just taught myself as I went along, so they're not requirements, just my thoughts.

[TheSimpleEngineer]

Working as a developer in data science.... math comes up a lot. Being good at math is great for any whatever you want to call it. Math is important, problem solving is important, being logical is important. You can be good at anything as long as you put in some hours.

[PrincePalmUwU]

Having a learning disability and trying to prove I can do more than what I am capable of, I will say this! thank god for internet. I can learn how to solve a problem if I am ever lost or confused, I can always ask for assistance as well. I am aware some students will call me names and I don't care! I'm there to achieve one thing and that's to prove I can be capable of doing anything as long as you put your mind to it. thank you for this video I got a lot of study to do but not too much to overwhelm myself. I have to see what kind of math Computer Information Systems have so I can better prepare myself. once again thank you!

[midlander]

Take it from a person who has a Master's degree in math, almost no one is going to pay you for knowing math. My income is miniscule, and I wish I knew programming for web or mobile development. My acquaintances who know IT programming are paid more than my friend who has a doctorate in mathematical computer science, and there are many more jobs in IT than in fields that require a computer science degree (mostly academia). The presenter of this video, Eli by name, overstates the value of math to employment prospects. It is definitely not needed in IT.

[chloesept]

This...this is what I've been needing to hear for so long I just never got around to searching the answer.

[Trammaps]

Great breakdown - I have worked as a programmer in Geographic Information System for 20+ years and did a Computer Science degree but the maths involved in the Statistics component of my other major in Psychology was far more difficult. I also cannot do any sort of mathematics easily in my head and am not that great on paper. I can problem solve, however, and given a tricky problem I can work it out, and code it.

[datgio]

bro i still struggle with elementary level algebra

[TheZubata]

Good understanding of math greatly changes the way you think about problems and the way you solve them, so I'd say, do as much of math as you can, even if you will not be fully understand all of it.

About math having downsides, I actually encountered people that were turned down from jobs they wanted because they were overqualified, and HR argued they'd run away from the position, which means quite a loss for the company. If you get qualified in this area, and you present it during interviews, you may close some jobs for you. How many, that is up to discussion I suppose.

[LukeLGK]

For web programming no math. For "scientific programming" like at NASA and other companies like that, yes, a lot of math.

[peacefulyou]

From my experience, no. You dont use any math that you may endured in college. I got a computer science degree and had to take math all the way up to calculus 2. Ive been a IT developer for years and never used any math not even simple arithmetic. Most of the stuff in IT is straight programming so make sure you you know your stuff when it comes to programming. Any programming courses you take you should be getting straight As. Any math courses that you may take, just worry about passing it. You really dont need to understand the math for anything. I actually cheated in one of the maths I took to get my bachelors degree. So yea, for the math, cheat away. Just make sure you learn the programming courses because thats all your going to be doing in your IT career.

[vanvino]

The times that I use math the most is in excel doing budgets. Perfect example, I had to find out how much we are spending on ink for a 2' plotter currently compared to a new one. So I found our cost per mL of ink, our average monthly ink usage, and compare that to the same cost per mL of the new plotter. What I found was after only 18 months we would cover the 5 grand cost of a new plotter in ink savings alone. With a nice pretty graph I was able to get us a new plotter put into the budget.

The math was basic, no need for fancy algebra. BUT you do need to know the core concepts of math.